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If Rodgers takes the job, I wonder if Scott Brown will go back there as assistant. Has been his mentor the last few years. Was Rodgers who urged him to leave Celtic for Aberdeen, and Brown said in a recent interview he leans on him a lot for advice at Fleetwood. He may not want to give up being a manager in his own right, but the chance to go work with Rodgers and learn from him, while there's simply no comparison between Celtic and Fleetwood, might be enough to sway him.

It was a positive post giving you all hope for the future. Ramadani would only misplace a pass and ruin it all.

Joe Lewis is definitely leaving, that was obvious by the way he said goodbye to the fans at the end of the St Mirren and Celtic games. Was talk of him linking up with McInnes again in January at Kilmarnock, but Roos' injury scuppered that.

According to Scott Burns, everything has been agreed with club and player for Ester Sokler and Aberdeen are now waiting on a work permit. So looks like he is the replacement for Marley Watkins, to come in and push Miovski and Duk. Tonio Teklic and Jay Idzes also being chased. Idzes is right footed but has generally played LCB. He's actually a converted midfielder so every chance we play him there too. Teklic is a right winger but from what I watched of him looks handy defensively too, so may be an attacking RWB option. Devlin already signed. Hopefully Clarkson and Shinnie on permanent deals soon. If we're persisting with three at the back, then potentially this is how we're looking. Think we still need better than Ramadani. He has his place in the squad - especially with a minimum of eight European games - but as a first pick we need better. Would love to think Connor Barron might kick on this season. Hayes is still useful and again will play his fair share of games, as will Jack Mackenzie, but a better LWB option is needed. Plus at least another right sided defender with Stewart likely to leave (Will Fish?). Would like to see Liam Scales and Mattie Pollock return but expect both to start their pre-seasons with their clubs, with any decision being made on whether they can leave or not made after we've already started the season. Huge assumptions made on Shinnie and Clarkson coming back. If one or both doesn't, I fear for us because players like that are not easy to find.

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/aberdeen-fc/5830474/calvin-ramsay-liverpool-loan-move/ Calvin Ramsay set to move on loan to Preston. I wonder if we made enquiries about getting him back. But then again Preston is close to Liverpool, and would give him Championship football, so probably better for him to go there.

The commentary on BT really is horrific. Robbie Savage did everything he could to ruin West Ham's moment in midweek. Steve McManaman being brought out for every big game remains bemusing. Having no Italian football expert for Milan v Inter semi-final was bold, despite the fact they have the rights to the Serie A and therefore plenty of experts they could have used. Tonight Jake Humphrey told us they had paid Mario Balotelli "thousands" to sound like he couldn't be arsed being there. Darren Fletcher tonight checking in on Joleon Lescott's nerves every 30 seconds. "There are people around the U.K. who want to know if you're okay". No, there isn't - he's from Birmingham, went through the Wolves academy and spent most of his career at Everton, stop trying to paint him as some Man City Superfan. And the less we hear from Mr "yeah definitely" the better. And as Tom has just alluded to, "The greatest story in club history has an ending." Eh? It's changing to TNT Sports in summer and they better buck their ideas up, and no that doesn't mean Stephen Craigan on co-comms during Aberdeen's group stage games. Thank god for the BBC...

You absolutely can take that site with a pinch of salt. I actually helped them change some of the Aberdeen values because they were a mess - they had Clarkson and Duk worth less than Scsles and Richardson. But the actual values appear to just be random.

Just been having a wee look at him. He appears to be a right winger but has a cracking left foot - watched two of his goals from last season and both were left-foot zingers from outside the box. So I wouldn't say a replacement for Clarkson, more someone to give us some balance on that side since Morris, Roberts, Kennedy, Myslovic, Richardson and whoever else we signed to play there weren't up to it. He also seems good defensively. Tracks back and makes challenges in his own box.

Both Miovski and Duk are - at this time - far better than Bavidge. I can think of 5m reasons why they've been playing ahead of Bavidge, who up until a few weeks ago was only 16. "Been a very long time since anybody has truly made a telling breakthrough from the academy set up." Calvin Ramsay? Connor Barron? Jack Mackenzie? One was sold for £millions to one of the biggest clubs in the world. The other two have had their injury problems this season but have been given plenty of chances.

It's mental the number of people who think players are past it once they reach their 30s. If he was about to turn 36 I'd be slightly concerned, but at 32 I think it's safe to say he still has at least three good years in him before performances may begin to dip. Duncan Shearer played for Aberdeen in his 30s by the way...

Okay hear me out. But, was John Barnes really that bad? Firstly, he was up against - if not Rangers' best ever team then certainly up there as one of them (probably for another forum that debate). In addition, the league was tougher then as it was the beginning of the SPL era when everyone (except us I think) spent beyond their means). Results wise - Celtic dropped points in seven league games before Barnes was sacked in February. In that same time frame, Ange's Celtic dropped points in six games in his first season. They made the League Cup final (Barnes sacked before the final - of which we don't need to talk about). Wasn't group stages in the UEFA Cup yet, they lost to a pretty decent Lyon team over two legs. They beat Aberdeen 5-0, 7-0 and 6-0 - although didn't help we were having a mad one under Skovdahl. But the defeat to Inverness did it for him. I'd argue, had he been manager in any of Lennon's title winning seasons, he may have won the league then too. I'm not saying that makes him a good manager. Just that he's not the disaster he's painted to be. And also that we should have sacked Skovdahl and replaced him with Barnes when he became free.

Can Brechin not replace Cowdenbeath in Group H?

Actually I take this back. You threw me with your finishing second comment as knew Owen Coyle didn't play for them then, but aye they did score 31 goals between them in 97-98 so fair fucks.

Yeh well done West Ham. Just goes to show if you have a dream, work hard, play in the richest league in the world and spend £150m on transfers, you can do anything.

I didn't actually mind England winning the women's Euros. It was fine - they seem a decent bunch and the media were pretty mild about it all. The men winning is different. The media are intolerable, and imagine Jordan Pickford getting a knighthood for winning something.

Are we all being whooshed here?

Thistle saying had it not been for landing a Scottish Cup tie at Ibrox - which earned them £300,000 - they wouldn't have been able to pay the players wages.

Aye but Scotland haven't qualified, and England have a right good chance of winning it, so probably best to pretend that isn't happening.

First European game 24 August. First league game 5 August. Apart from the covid season, this will be the longest summer without seeing the Dons competitively since McInnes' first season. No men's World Cup or Euros to keep us going either. This is terrible. Maybe we should rethink finishing third in future.

I wonder now with Ange leaving Celtic if that affects our chances of getting Liam Scales on a permanent. New manager might want to take a look at him or even give him a chance. He's not exactly irreplaceable, or as integral as a Clarkson or Shinnie, but would have been nice to get a left sided centre back that is a known quantity signed up.

Improved atmosphere is a big thing, but also the prize for finishing third is so much bigger now that it's not as depressing starting the season feeling third is the highest you can finish.

Dundee United. I remember that game well. To be fair we were the better team but lost 2-1. The feeling was that we had turned the corner though, only to promptly lose 7-0 to Celtic, before beating Motherwell 6-5. Mental times really.

You've misunderstood me. I don't follow English football so don't care what fans of Bournemouth and Chesterfield think of Scottish football. But Tottenham are a big club. And a manager going to them and doing well reflects well on Scottish football, and let's other managers see that the Scottish Premiership is a good stepping stone. I only ever spoke to Ange once, over zoom, so hold no real opinion of him. But there's been far more dislikable Celtic managers than him I'd say. Good luck to him, especially if he weakens Celtic by taking Kyogo, Jota and Carter-Vickers with him.

Hope Postecoglou does well down in England as it reflects well on our game, but I fear he wont. He plays an exciting brand of football, but when the real tests have come in Europe he's failed, repeatedly. For me, before he was considered a top manager he had to go and make a mark in Europe next season and fend off what is likely to be a top Aberdeen team next season, and he's walked away before he can. Don't know what's considered a decent first season at Tottenham. I'd suggest top six, but then Mourinho finished sixth, had Tottenham in first place and into a cup final, and was sacked when they fell to seventh. Conte finished fourth, then sacked when they were in sixth.

This will seem a strange choice, but the 3-0 League Cup final defeat to Celtic in the 16/17 season. Performance wise we were really poor, didn't really turn up and were easily turned over. But my main memory was how quiet the support was. Just very few making an effort. I was in amongst many of the old Red Ultras boys and every chant we tried to get going failed, no-one was interested. And it also hit home at the time how few chants we actually had. Was just a really depressing day. I never thought I'd ever leave a cup final early but we walked out with 15/20 mins to go just fed up. It didn't feel like we were in a cup final at all. Felt like all the life had been sucked out of us. I've been at all but one of every single shocker - Stenhousemuir, Darvel, Queen of the South, Skonto Riga, Bohemians, both 7-0s to Celtic and the 9-0, and the 6-1 (?) to Livingston. If I'm missing any others, chances are I was there. Think the only one I've missed was the defeat to Queen's Park. But I knew after every one of those that it was a shite result but in time we'd bounce back because we always do. But that day at Hampden I felt so disenchanted with everything. A few months later we were totally different in the Scottish Cup in terms of performance and atmosphere. And these days I think our support might be the best it's ever been, and huge credit to Ultras Aberdeen for that.