Ajja

If by 'had to win' you mean in order to progress to the next round of the tournament then maybe we should qualify that statement using other related terms such as 'Queens Park', 'Queen of the South' and maybe 'Dunfermline'.

It's a wonderful idea but the key problem here is that if you don't make the right commercial decisions then the football suffers, if not perishes completely. As fans we can bemoan the idea that business men are making the decision that are destroying our game but its impractical to do it any other way. As much as I hate it, the club have to run a business to survive. They have to protect income at all costs and this means not giving up any home game revenue and particularly not revenue that comes in from 4-5,000 OF fans paying into the ground. Scottish football clubs are living on the bread line these days and it would just be unbelievably damaging, if not business critical, to vote away this revenue. So a 16 team league will never happen.

I don't believe we will go down. There are too many teams with small squads who will have poor periods in the second half of the campaign and will struggle to pick up points. We will get harder to beat and then start to pick up points and drag ourselves out of the bottom few places. Agree with MBT, about 8th or 9th might be our final placing. Can't see any of Hamilton, St Mirren or St Johnstone finishing above us, I also think UTD might get dragged down the league along with Hibs and Killie will lose momentum at some point.

This is the fundamental flaw in the whole argument. Everyone is asking for a 16 team league and it is clearly the sensible choice for football in terms of less repetitive fixtures, less threat of relegation so arguably more competitive football etc etc. Yet, the recommendations are for a 10 team league. Why ? Because its the commercial people who make these recommendations and the commercial people who will ultimately decide the outcome. Regardless of how many fans or pundits want to see an expanded league, the commercial reality is that no club will vote to give up revenue. Especially in the current economic climate. Its a moot point. 10 teams it will be. Fucked if I know how they plan to split the pot with another 10 in the SPL2 though, that one baffles me.

SPL guy on radio today said that if teams can't come to an agreement then they often go with the home teams position as it has bigger commercial implications for them. Not guaranteed though.

Amen brother. A trip with much of the good and bad in life all rolled up. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

If both teams don't agree it won't happen. United are apparently contesting it, as TF said.

Madrid was like the 60s. If you remember any of it you weren't there.

Even though we will lose a good few thousand off the gate receipts with it now moving to midweek.

More likely he would stumble a few times, looking back to see if he still had his shoes on.

Did he not turn the United cup game (3-2) upside down with some blistering runs up the wing from full back or was I just really fucking rinsed that day with a bruised skull from bouncing across rows of seats in the shed ? (Ahhhhh..the memories)

Not enough fuel to circle Aberdeen airport for 50 minutes but enough to fly back to Birmingham from Aberdeen. Mmmmm.

WTF is that ? Did JC leave his sun lamp.

I've heard glowing reports of Langfield in training but that's fucking ridiculous

Knowing you as I do I'm going to assume that is sarcasm If not then, wtf.....

Is Michael Grant not an Aberdeen supporter ?

I think its really healthy to see two of the more intelligent posters on DT disagreeing on a subject. Makes for good reading, generally speaking, and more importantly gives good food for further debate. God knows this place needs a faster rate of discussion. On the other hand, you can easily slip the wrong word into your opinions and then the thread will turn into a pun-fest and you'll get them all out from their dark corners.

So when he did more than hold his own, we're talking jackets then ?

Never happen. They need 11 to vote for the change, why would the teams in the bottom half vote for 3 teams to go down ?

The immediate challenge is not one of removing poor quality and replacing it with better. We know how difficult that one is for a club with a contracting resource and appeal. Ask yourself why almost every team in this league has players of similar or poorer quality than ours and they are all sitting above us in the league right now ? Make no mistake, this is an issue of application, desire and determination to succeed. We can address the quality of our squad after we have sorted this problem. If we don't then any player coming in will be infected and affected by the malaise and rotten attitude our players are currently demonstrating.

I don't think you can judge the quality of either of these guys on this seasons performance. Possibly not on last years either, as they have suffered massively from the lack of stability in front of them. You can argue all you like about ability or coaching input but the fact is that a keeper will perform significantly better if he has a trusted and secure defence to support him. The number of chances we create for the opposition by lacking a balanced back line and lack of confidence/ability within our CBs means our keeper, whoever he is, is under pressure from the first minute tot he last. The list you have posted up there Stoney is an example of this, average to poor keepers doing well as a result of a trusted, solid back line. Until we get the defence sorted our keepers will look bad, with a solid defence I think both Howard and Langfield will be as good as any keeper in the league outwith OF.

If anything, I liked his assertion (he said it twice) that he would not openly criticise any of his players. I accept there might be an argument to say that some/many of our players are too protected and should be exposed as wasters. However, if a manager is going to have any chance of building confidence and a spirit around Pittodrie then it is essential that he keeps a professional line and deals with everything internally. I'm not one for demanding that managers come out and tell us everything, I think you have to trust what they are doing and the players need to be managed consistently without public scrutiny. McGhee was all over the place with this issue, sometimes closing ranks and sometimes apportioning blame in a public manner. The players never knew where they were with him.

It's all down to how Brown views Diamond. If he feels he is a talent gone astray he might want to work with him in which case he will try to keep him. If not then I suspect any fee (or even no fee) will be taken without a fight.

The worry for Saturday is that Motherwell have every reason to beat us and we have nothing but personal pride and trying to impress a new manager, neither of which were evident last weekend. If its an issue of hunger then we might be in for another tough Saturday afternoon. Really hope Brown can get these guys back to feeling some pride. Confident he will do enough over the season to get us mid-table, let's hope a cup final just to put some temporary polish on the turd for a while.

I thought McGhee sounded like a breath of fresh air after JCs constant grunting and talking through his nose while juggling his balls in his pocket. He was direct and disciplined in his approach and talked up his position with a real sense that he meant business. Little did we know at the time that business was to be so utterly badly delivered I can hardly bring myself to think about it now. Brown will be judged on his results. How he talks?.......well, meh.