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But are we? Would we have played any worse today with Shinnie on the park for the first 67 minutes, considering I don't think the performance dropped when he did come on.

Not a bad start to the Jimmy Thelin era...

Lovely finish that by Clarkson. Hoilett, even though he'll be 34 next season, surely worth a contract. He's getting better and better the more games he plays. Edit: As soon as I say that Hoilett cuts inside and thumps an awful cross wide. I've jinxed him now. Was good while it lasted.

Two thoughts. One, after a poor run, Jimmy Thelin has just handed the Swedish league leaders their arse. Two, how the hell did he manage to hand them their arse with just 19% possession? What is this sorcery?

Mad thing is, if you told us before the campaign we'd beat Frankfurt, win at Ibrox, get to Hampden three times including a cup final, take Celtic to a penalty shoot-out, and Miovski would score 25 goals, we'd be thinking we're in for a no-bad season. I guess the old question of "would you accept bottom six but make a cup final" has been answered.

Not quite because I didn't point the finger specifically at women. But, yes, though I don't really hear it levelled at Aberdeen fans to be fair. One example - and I have massive respect for her and she's also a Dons fan - but I disagree with this. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/crgy9m7epkeo.amp Essentially, it's "Rangers and Celtic sell out for men's games, they should be getting bigger crowds at women's games." But, they aren't stay at home women's football fans, they are men's football fans who pay their money to follow their team, and you're now placing an expectation on them to go and watch women's football too.

I go to a lot of women's football, have done for over a decade. What many can't accept is there isn't a massive untapped women's football support in Scotland just waiting to be enticed along. There's a bit of an entitlement in this debate that fans who are spending fortunes following men's football should now be obliged to go to women's football too. Crowds rise when there's a bit of a novelty - cup final, league deciders, playing in a decent stadium. The women's national team will likely see bigger crowds should they be more successful because it has that novelty aspect to it, in the same way Murrayfield sells out for the Six Nations but club rugby isn't close to being as popular. A lot of fans went over to France for the World Cup and everyone wrongly thought they would now be hooked for life. However, the "stars" aren't playing club football in Scotland like they are in England. Going to Paris for a World Cup game isn't the same as the Balmoral Stadium in November. So what stadium they play in makes little difference. My only criticism would be they don't need Hampden's capacity so should move the national games about a bit to give young girls around the country more chance to go. They're limited in that UEFA rules dictate the away team must be a certain distance from an airport to save on unnecessary travel to & from the venue, but the national team should be playing at Pittodrie at least once a campaign.

Gonna take a lot of getting used to for many Aberdeen fans, this giving up possession but being able to counter and be clinical (although our average possession this season has been about 46%). Won 2-0 with 33% possession.

Won 2-0 tonight. That'll shut up the weegie press.

DUK v Motherwell Minutes played: 29 Shots on target: 50% Accurate passes: 67% Successful dribbles: 43% Losses own half: None Recoveries opposition half: 100% Offensive duels won: 50% Touches in penalty area: 7 Progressive runs: 4 Accurate through balls: 100% Passes to final third: 100% Accurate forward passes: 100% Back passes: 100% A warrior. I will not hear criticism of him this weekend or even this year.

He wasn't losing possession that much though (I'll check the stats properly later). Usually he was either getting shots off (granted, should have been more clinical), winning corners (we had 16, we scored from one of them) or was drawing defenders out of position then passing to Devlin in space to put in a cross unmarked (although Devlin wasted many of them). All this playing in an unfamiliar position as he's not really been played on the right much.

Very harsh. Red certainly helped us, but think the switch of Duk on for Barron was a big factor too. Gave us good width, Hoilett & Duk terrorised them in the second half, and we should have finished off far more than the one chance that we did. A 4-0 win wouldn't have flattered us.

I wouldn't say we missed Shinnie v Celtic, but have read some nonsense about the game proving we're a better team without him in it. If Shinnie plays and Barron and Clarkson play to the level they did v Celtic, Motherwell won't be able to live with us.

I'm just spreading some positivity in this dark, negative world you and Rico are creating. If either of you ever fancy coming on Sportsound we'd love to have you on.

Is not bias though, it's understanding our audience and what content they're digesting and what they're not. You could argue we're more of a football department than a sports department for example. Glasgow Clan ice hockey team gets more fans through the door than a lot of Scottish championship teams. This will shock you, but I like Kenny. He's actually a good c**t.

Well, I dunno about that. I think we're allowing the draw with Celtic to gloss over the previous weeks, namely dour 0-0 draws with Dundee & Livi. He gets a bit of a free pass as they aren't his players, but the problems this season have extended beyond Robson.

Far too inconsistent and that's in the Championship

There is content from all 12 Premiership teams and beyond on all the BBC output (tv, radio, online & social). You may even have enjoyed a special feature on the highland league title conclusion. Is there more coverage to the old firm than others. Yes, that's because we don't have as many Livingston fans as we do Celtic fans. Likewise, Aberdeen get more coverage than most too. Our dedicated team pages - the stats are eye opening. However, great coverage is given to every team within a limited budget. You can't say the BBC don't care about Aberdeen, go see the tranche of coverage Jimmy Thelin was getting on all the output. We had a commentary team, reporters & pundits out at every Aberdeen European away game plus live TV coverage of the qualifiers. So no, you can't compare it to Viaplay/Premier.

Well done premier sports for their commentary on that incident. That makes up for them literally only giving a fuck about two teams.

Would he be that big a loss? Would he be any bigger loss than Barry Robson was to the coaching team? He's done okay for an inexperienced manager. He still takes his share of the blame for whatever the players were being coached all season.

It wasn't penalty though, was outside the box.

Scales is an interesting one. Was arguably at fault for our second and third goals, but in the main I thought him and Miovski had a really good battle. That Miovski edged the battle is more down to him being a magnificent player and Aberdeen doubling up on Scales & Taylor - Miovski always had Duk or Clarkson to play off of, while Barron kept tearing forward to battle for any knockdowns. I do think we should make another move for him. I think he might realise he'll be back up there next season.

Go on then, what was wrong with the BBC coverage?

What a prediction. I knew it would go to penalties and that we would concede three goals. The thing to note about the penalties - Brendan Rodgers said Celtic practiced them that week in training, I don't think (or at least it didn't look like) we did. Maybe it's just a standard thing Celtic do before a cup tie, but was interesting they considered the prospect of spot kicks while we didn't. They certainly all looked more confident from the spot than we did.

Hoilett looked a player today. Is there scope to keep him beyond summer? A full pre-season and we could get a good campaign out of him. Duk showed he is still an exceptional talent, if raw. Barron I thought was great, but seems very unlikely we'll have him next season. We need a few like him in summer; energetic midfielders comfortable with the ball at their feet. He didn't need to do anything exceptional - it was Clarkson making the nice through balls. But someone doing the dirty work, pressuring Celtic in midfield, and making the simple passes was needed. Sokler doesn't have the finishing instincts of Miovski, but a year being his understudy, he might be worth a chance and he played well at Hampden. Likely will still need another striker though. The defence. Gartenmann, MacDonald and Rubezic all have their good and bad moments. We could improve on all three. Likewise, you expect Rubezic to stay and maybe one other. Clarkson, there's still a talented player there. McGrath, like someone said on the match thread, sometimes hard to know where to play him. Doesn't offer width, not massively skilful, didn't really hurt Celtic. But he's not someone I'd write off either. He sometimes looks his best playing almost as a second striker. At least five big signings needed, presuming Miovski & Barron leave.