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Defence not looking too clever without MacDonald or Williams. Interesting (perhaps not that big a surprise though) that Milne preferred over Stewart. Morris definitely being given a chance to impress. Sokler picked over Miovski. No Duk in squad.

So the chat is we're trying to get Liam Scales back on loan, because we've been priced out of a permanent transfer by Celtic. Clever by Aberdeen I'd say. Don't pay over the odds if you don't have to. He clearly doesn't have a future at Celtic and no-one is going to pay an inflated fee for him.

Well at Aberdeen he completely changed his style, which was the problem. He went from an unspectacular but generally pretty solid 3-5-2 at St Mirren, to trying to be a 4-3-3 attacking maestro at Pittodrie. I would have thought Goodwin would have learned from his mistakes at Aberdeen, the china in a bull shop approach of telling experienced players they can't be coaches (Brown/Mulgrew), doing the whole "I only want players who want to be here" (Considine/Bates/Levitt/Fletcher) and tearing into the rest of the squad. But apparently not. Appears he likes upsetting the dressing room, then replacing the dressing room.

One of the mystifying things in football is how managers get worse over time. You'd think they'd improve with experience but Goodwin isn't the first to just seemingly get go on a downwards spiral. Mark McGhee at one point was highly rated. Now he's a joke figure. You can't say it's an age thing as Goodwin is still a young coach.

But my point still stands, he did the city of Aberdeen proud by representing us all in a European final.

Be interesting to see who would play LCB. Looking at Wyscout, Rubezic has been playing RCB. He's only filled in at LCB when there's been injuries or suspensions. Rhys Williams has actually played more games in his career at LCB. Anything Stewart also often played on the left side of defence before signing for Aberdeen...

Apparently close to signing Serbian centre-back Slobodan Rubezic. He's right footed. Last season we had an obsession with right sided wingers, this year it appears to be right sided centre-backs.

Tbf to him, and it hurts me to write it, but he's played in a European final and scored while winning a Scottish Cup final. He's done alright. But he's always been a bit of a luxury player - which he was at Aberdeen - which makes him holding down a permanent place at a big club unlikely. I wouldn't take him back at Aberdeen. I doubt you'll get 20 good games out of him a season. He's no Duk is he?

Had a wee watch of Or Dadia's highlights there. Played mainly right back although likes to cut into his left, and has played the odd game there, so could be an option. Although I doubt we're signing him as a first choice LB. He looks alright, I wasn't exactly as enthralled watching him as I was Teklic, but he's a very Barry Robson player.

Saw the new strip today in Tesco.

We've a 28.4% chance of making the Europa League group stages, apparently. I didn't actually realise until now that every team we could face has a better coefficient than us - except Lugano, who we probably don't want to face anyway. Olympiakos have a high coefficient, but got hammered by Maccabi Haifa (another possible opponent) in the Champions League qualifiers last year, scraped through against Slovan Bratislava and Apollon Limassol on penalties to make the Europa groups, then finished bottom of a group that involved Freiburg ,Qarabag and Nantes , which I suspect is why they're being written off. Think I'd still prefer to get Flora Tallinn, who are currently 1-0 down to Rakòw Częstochowa after the first leg of their Champions League qualifier.

I play golf with a Leeds fan. He wasn't that excited about the signing of Pirie. What have you done Lewis?

Off topic: But the forum admin may wish to know that I was disgracefully denied the ability to post until I uploaded a profile picture. Wouldn't let me go anywhere on the forum until it was done. Eventually I have relented, but if Miovski or Duk or a potential new signing is trying to access the forum they may not have a profile photo to hand and then what?

I really want him to be a success. Seems a really decent bloke. Was just never captain material - the more you think about it the more it becomes such a bizarre decision by Goodwin. Get him in against the Broch.

Aye was training by himself when pre-season started. Don't think it was anything serious though so might make an appearance against the Broch.

Can be offered 2,000, don't need to take 2,000. 5% wouldn't do much. Taking away segregation etc, 5% of the sellable capacity of Tynecastle is about 700-800.

The thing is, Hearts don't actually fill every seat, there are loads of empty seats at every home game. But they've sold their season tickets for cheap, have created a demand for them through that - rightly or wrongly - and so people buy season tickets to ensure they're "in" rather than on a waiting list, but are essentially just hogging a seat because they don't plan to go to every game. Season ticket holders can sell these tickets through a ticket exchange but it doesn't appear to be very popular, likely because folk want to buy as a group or with pals and not random tickets dotted around. So you have small away allocations while there are empty seats throughout the stadium. And I include Aberdeen in that criticism as we appear to have gone over the top with segregation which has significantly cut the away support. I prefer seeing big noisy away supports. The Old Firm have ruined their derby atmosphere by what they've done (Rangers at fault there) and at least Hearts and Hibs haven't done the same. For me, I think 2,000 is a fair number to offer away fans in the Premiership.

The Puma home & away tops we had in 97-98 were among my favourite strips. Just a shame they evoke memories of Roy Aitken and Alex Miller and us being gash (except Eoin Jess of course). This new home strip looks a lot like the Nike strip of 2010/11.

PSV are with Puma. Send these Adidas strips back, put a Dons badge on all three of these, and we're ready for 2023-24. Rudi > Adi.

We'll probably just use last season's away. We'll probably need to wear that anyway when we play Hearts at Tynecastle.

Can I be the nominated miserable Aberdonian this year? I don't like either strip. The home or away. I also think Adidas are massively overrated and they've made a total arse of a few strips this year, namely Celtic's home one and the abomination of Juventus' home strip. For context, Juventus' home top. I mean, fuck Juventus for getting themselves kicked out of the Conference League and potentially denying us a belter of an away trip, but that strip wouldn't be welcome at Pittodrie anyway.

Wee tease ahead of the home strip reveal tomorrow.

Duk, spotted by a Dons fan on holiday in Mexico, casually walking about with his Dons top on.

Ignore this post. Was me talking about potentially going to the Charlton game from Paris. Just realised it's actually Preston we play that day.

Look forward to 2025 when this thread is resurrected because Lewis has convinced his clients Leighton Clarkson, Duk and Kelle Roos to all hand in transfer requests.