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My own thoughts on McCrorie at right-back, I don't think he played particularly well in midfield last season under McInnes. If anything he went backwards as the season went on. I wondered if it would have been different this season with Scott Brown being the deeper of the two if they partnered each other or if Brown played behind him, but instead Glass played McCrorie in defence and wasted him. We all know we've a good player in McCrorie despite accepting we've rarely seen him at his best. On Saturday he was excellent at right-back, it was between him & Gallagher for man of the match. So maybe it's not the worst idea to try him there.

On the McCrorie to right-back debate, this was a really interesting article written just over two years ago when he was still at Rangers, by the excellent Jordan Campbell of the Athletic. Is Ross McCrorie's Rangers future at right-back? It is a bitterly cold September night in Paisley and Scotland under-21s captain Ross McCrorie is looking to get home and focus on the next game against their Croatia counterparts. That will be a much tougher proposition than the 2-0 win over San Marino under-21s he has just strolled through, a game of attack versus defence in which he played centre-back and saw as much of the ball as anyone on the park. In a brief two-minute chat on the stairs below the St Mirren Park press box, I ask the Rangers defender three questions. One of them, a rather clumsily-worded way of enquiring whether being played in midfield on loan at Portsmouth was improving his distribution, rightfully provokes a sharp reply. “What do you mean?” was a fair enough initial response but once rephrased, McCrorie went on to say that he “feels comfortable on the ball”. There was merit behind the question, though, as just a couple of months earlier, he had been in a meeting where Steven Gerrard and other members of the coaching staff outlined his options for the season. McCrorie, who had made 30 appearances in all competitions in 2018-19, could stay and play a limited role where he would possibly feature in only seven or eight games or he could go out on loan to a club with similar pressures to Rangers and improve his distribution as a midfielder. Numbers and charts were produced to illustrate how impressed they were by his physical attributes and ability to be a destructive force in the middle of the park but Steven Davis had been brought in earlier in the year to change the role of that position to a playmaker. McCrorie was tasked with learning to not only destroy but dictate. Gerrard inherited McCrorie as a centre-back — one who had only recently suffered at the hands of Moussa Dembele in a 4-0 Scottish Cup semi-final defeat to Celtic. He was playing there under caretaker manager Graeme Murty because of injuries and a lack of quality rather than by design but Dembele’s use of his body was too much for him and led to the game’s first two goals before McCrorie was sent off early in the second half for a foul on the same player. That spell at centre-back, as results unravelled towards the end of the campaign, could have “destroyed” a kid still making his way in the game, Gerrard said. He saw him instead as a central midfielder, his own old position, and it is understood that the Rangers management team still consider that his primary position. But he has not been playing there for Portsmouth boss Kenny Jackett as much as was hoped when the loan deal was done. So, now 22, where does the McCrorie’s future lie? Not in terms of which club he will be at but which position he will be playing in. He is approaching the age where versatility stops being a bonus and morphs into a career sentence as a utility man. He does not want to be shunted around as the perennial makeshift piece for the next decade but the difficulty is that he possesses a bundle of traits that are yet to prove a total match for any single position. The plan was for Portsmouth to play McCrorie in central midfield. Competition for places and injuries at a club chasing automatic promotion from the English third tier have meant that has happened in less than half of his league starts there — but may also have inadvertently helped answer the question as to what his long-term position is really going to be. After being sent off on his debut, McCrorie was in and out of Jackett’s team over the next couple of months. If he wasn’t on the bench, he would be playing midfield one week and right-back the next. That was until October, when he also started both Scotland under-21 games at right-back against Lithuania and Czech Republic. Portsmouth knew he was versatile but that’s when their assistant manager Joe Gallen realised that he could be an asset at full-back. “We watched those games and I had a chat with (SFA performance director) Malky Mackay about him,” explains Gallen. “We play him right-back because his ability to run with the ball has been a big feature of our recent performances. His athleticism is his biggest trait. He has a fantastic ability to get around the pitch and, with his acceleration, he can literally just take off. He has been gaining us 20 or 30 yards within three seconds and his ability to pick the right pass and put in good crosses has got us a few goals. “We need our full-backs to fly forwards as we play with two holding midfielders, so they have the freedom to go all the way. I’ve been telling him to get in at the back post as he’s a threat. We think he can play as a No 8 galloping around the pitch as well as the holding role but he looks different class when he’s driving forward.” McCrorie has made 22 appearances for Portsmouth in all competitions this season and is now on 103 senior games — a more than healthy total for a player to have come through the youth academy of a club the size of Rangers. He was a centre-back as a youngster but that has gradually evolved. Every coach has different interpretations of what profile of player they like for each position and Gerrard was keen on having a destroyer-type midfielder when he first arrived to deal with the physicality of the Scottish game, which is why Lassana Coulibaly was brought in to compete with McCrorie. That thinking has changed but there have been games in the second half of this season when McCrorie’s combativeness could have been useful. “We don’t think he can’t play there — we just happen to have a player there in Tom Naylor who is very good (he is also Portsmouth’s regular captain),” says Gallen. “We wouldn’t hesitate to put McCrorie in there but his best performances have been at right-back. Youngsters need games to improve on these areas. If you’re going to break up play and then give the ball away, that is the defeating the object. He certainly has improved on the ball, though. “His athleticism is so good that perhaps, as a holding midfielder, that might not be natural for Ross. He wants to go. He wants to run. He wants to close and press, and off the back of that, get ahead of the ball. He’s an intelligent player, so he can adjust his game but it’s usually best to know what the player is naturally good at and let them loose at doing that. We feel we have let him loose by letting him go box-to-box. “At some stage, he will have to settle into a position but I have no doubt that he has improved in general. He has certainly grown up since moving away and it has increased his confidence. I was a little worried that he was so far from home, especially when he wasn’t in the team at times but he’s a a first-class bloke and a very straight person to work with. With his hamstring injuries, he’s had to be a bit more diligent in the gym and get a programme together but he is an absolutely natural-looking footballer.” If McCrorie does develop into a right-back, he will join the growing trend of players who move there from central midfield, including Trent Alexander-Arnold at Liverpool and former Bayern Munich and Germany captain Phillip Lahm, where they are more comfortable receiving the ball facing the play rather with their back to goal. McCrorie would then be competing with current Rangers skipper James Tavernier for a place but, while the latter can be accused of being too relaxed when defending, McCrorie is the opposite. After that red card against Shrewsbury Town in August, McCrorie vowed not to change his committed style. However, while he wouldn’t be the same player if he lost that edge to his game, it is believed people close to him have urged him to be more selective when it comes to lunging into tackles because he risks injury with the way he stretches into them while off balance. Rangers’ loans manager Billy Kirkwood has been down a lot watching McCrorie and Gallen said he cannot recall a game where there has not been a representative from Ibrox in attendance. Kirkwood has witnessed McCrorie’s development in the academy but Partick Thistle manager Ian McCall, who coached him four years ago at Ayr United in the first loan spell of his career, predicted he would eventually become a right-back. “I’m almost sure he’ll be a right-back but I have been wrong many times before,” says McCall. “I always say to people that he had genuine pace — I mean, very top-level pace. That’s how quick he was. At that time, we played him central midfield, in a midfield three and right-back. If he keeps progressing, I’m pretty sure he could be a good right-back for Rangers but Rangers have got a boy in Nathan Patterson who is probably the best young right-back in the country. “I think he (McCrorie) can play that sitting role but we believed he could get forward and get in the box. I’m not talking once or twice a game — I’m talking seven or eight times a game. He was so quick and had such great endurance to get up and down the pitch. In terms of the attributes needed to play at a high level, he had a good few of them.” Former Rangers manager Pedro Caixinha predicted McCrorie would be captain the club and Scotland when he first broke into the side in 2017, which put unnecessary pressure on the teenager. While it may now be more realistic to say that when McCrorie returns to Rangers, he will simply be fighting to prove he deserves a role in Gerrard’s plans, at least his spell on the south coast seems to have moved him closer to finding out what exactly that is.

He's probably too young to be loaned out, as mad as that sounds. Basically, the reason Liverpool want him is because they believe their academy/coaches etc will make Ramsay a better player than he would be playing the next three years at Aberdeen. They don't want Scottish players at 21 unless they're quite clearly exceptional, they want teenagers that have potential. I can't say I'm an expert on all the players Liverpool loaned out this season, but they tend to be in the 20-22 age bracket, and that's because they're past the potential stage and now they need first team football to see if they've got what it takes to make it at Liverpool, or at least impress enough that the club they're on loan to might want to buy them. So I reckon Ramsay will likely disappear for 2/3 years if he goes there.

Thought McCrorie was good at RB. Besuijen decent too, love his fearlessness in taking players on. A lot of times we'd knock it about well then Ferguson would get on the ball and just hoof it at goal. For the good he does, he often holds us back by playing too much as an individual rather than looking to see if a team-mate is a better option. Gallagher was excellent in defence, bailed us out a few times. Still look at least three players short of being a good side though.

And Bruce Anderson will one day play for Scotland. Mark my words. Though to be fair Kevin Nisbet got capped and he's bang average, and we have few options up front, so it's maybe not that high a bar he needs to reach.

Luke Turner? So we've sent him out on loan, he's won a cup, could still win the league (edit: they lost it by one point to Linfield last weekend), has their fans raving about him & potentially might win POTY, and we decide he hasn't done enough!!?? Surely he's said he's homesick or something because otherwise what exactly where we expecting him to do on his loan spell - win the Nobel peace prize, agree a brexit trade deal, and reverse global warming?

Keeps saying I need to subscribe, who are the three young players? Yes.

4 8 11 15 22 40 are my lottery numbers for this evening.

Would be good to think Luke Turner - the defender we have out on loan at Cliftonville - might get his chance. The fans there absolutely love him. A mate over there who I hadn't spoke to for decades messaged me just to rave about him. https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/cliftonville-teenager-luke-turner-been-23188287.amp Edit: He's also left footed.

I watched the Dundee-St Johnstone game on Saturday. Dundee scored a good opening goal but after that their sole threat was through Charlie Adam's set pieces and they didn't have a single shot on target the rest of the game. I'd like to think we'll have learned that lesson from the 2-2 and be working on defending set pieces this week. To be fair to Dundee, they defended well against St Johnstone, didn't really stop the ball coming into the box but won their headers and threw their bodies on the line. Basically, the type of defence we hate playing against at the minute. Has the look of a 1-0 win, Lewis Ferguson penalty about it, not pretty but get the points.

I think that's unfair on Milne and overly generous to Cormack. I'm fairly sure Milne, if offered the beach and link-up with ACC, would have been just as open to it as Cormack. Likewise, without the beach, there wasn't many, if any, options on the table for Milne. I didn't hear Cormack coming up with any other alternatives to Kingsford before ACC announced the beach proposal. And if Cormack has canned Kingsford, then what's his plan B should a business case conclude the beach isn't realistic? If he builds a 16,000 capacity stadium so he can put the prices up as soon as he believes it'll be a sell-out (like he did with Breidabkik) then he'll be nothing but pure evil.

Firstly, everyone appears to be proposing a stadium in the city centre except the Lib Dems, so as long as they don't win plans for this will likely continue. And Aberdeen actually have the council in a good position now as they're all coming to the realisation moving the club out of the city centre makes no sense at all. But you do make a good point about whether it's feasible. We were told for years it would cost an extra £6m to build there (perhaps factored into this extra £30m cost) and that the pitch would constantly suffer from drainage problems because it's too close to the sea. None of these things appear to be bothering anyone. Is the Hilton hotel site a viable alternative site? Surely roads could be redirected to increase the footprint if needed.

Just to throw in a wee grenade here. Aiden McGeady? Out of contract in summer. Has just turned 36, hasn't played since November due to injury, but may still have a wee trick in him. From what I've heard wages wouldn't be an issue. Might be decent squad filler? I'll leave it with yous.

Cormack saying the new stadium will now cost £75m. If the council don't put any money towards it I really don't see any way Aberdeen raise that money. He also pretty much said Kingsford is dead. Said it was "absolutely critical" Aberdeen stay at the beach, while also nodding in agreement when Graham Hunter said Kingsford would have led to a cut in attendances.

Cormack said one of the "top candidates" they talked with was offered a role at a club in England in the middle of the interview. He then said "another group", at which point he kinda stuttered as if he realised he was saying something he shouldn't, before mumbling they pulled out due to other reasons. The Cowley brothers were rumoured to have been interviewed, or at least Darren was. Darren Cowley became Portsmouth manager four days before Glass was announced as Aberdeen boss. I think he would have been a really interesting appointment. I'm guessing, if the above is true, he figured Portsmouth in League One was a more appealing prospect than Aberdeen, or he wasn't confident he was getting the Aberdeen job and Pompey wouldn't wait for an answer. Not being an avid fan of League One I've no idea how he's doing other than they're 9th, 10 points off a top 6 spot (play-off). But to be fair there's a lot of big clubs above them in that league - Wigan (who are first) for example have Graeme Shinnie, Jamie McGrath, Jason Kerr and Jamie McLean who would all walk into our first XI. They also have the legend that is Josh Magennis. Also, a quick Google check finds he has got the fourth highest win percentage of any Portsmouth manager and is "two transfer windows into a three transfer window plan". What might have been...

https://www.afc.co.uk/2022/04/18/new-stadium-let-us-know-your-views/

Update (even though nobody wanted one), listened to the latest ABZ & red tinted episodes, both were excellent. Just a shame the football team they were talking about isn't.

Still not sure you've disproved it's "rare" with that.

Looks like Kennedy will be staying going by Goodwin's comments. I've seen that little of him I can't really say if he could still potentially be a good player for us or not. Goodwin used to play a three-man defence at St Mirren (although he had more success when he switched it to a back four) and I wonder if he'll do it next season once he brings in more defenders. It would actually suit Gallagher who tends to play better in a three. You could see Goodwin pinpointing Kennedy & Hayes as wing backs. Vladky Dunne Gallagher Bates Kennedy McCrorie Barron Hayes Vicente Ibrahimovic Watkins There's the team to play Cove Rangers in the Granite City derby in the opening League Cup fixture.

Happy to be proved wrong on this one as it only backs up my original point that this new manager bounce thing is rare.

I'd say Aitken's arrival is the only time we've ever had that.

I think it's incredibly simplistic to expect a new manager comes in and makes an instinct impact. There are very few examples of that happening. Yeh, and he'll do that in summer. Out of interest, what would your team have been against Ross County? I'm not defending both. I'm pointing out Ferguson has played well under Goodwin, but I also think it's obvious both don't want to be here. No you don't because you still think he's one of our better attacking players. He's not. Give Vicente a run of games. Try and get Watkins fit. Not playing a boy who should be nowhere near the club next season if we have any ambitions at all. Right, and in 30 years, are you telling me you've got the best out of every player, and if/when you haven't because that player hasn't been putting the work in, have you blamed yourself? And did you also only need a few weeks and games to improve everyone?

Who in your opinion isn't working hard enough, and who should they all be replaced with? Goodwin has chucked JET. He'll move on more in summer. But he's not going to come in and play the reserves when he's trying to make the top six in order to make a point. So if a player doesn't work hard enough you blame the manager? In these last five games, yeh maybe Ruth gets his chance. Very few managers would be dropping a 16-goal striker for someone untested in big games. You said that Goodwin wasn't capable of getting the best out of players. Yet Ferguson has played well under Goodwin, and some on this board put it down to him switching McCrorie into midfield. Doesn't mean I think he was terrific v County. You seem to have this football manager lark sorted. Not sure the "if you have a poor defence, just press higher and it'll be fine" really works though when the goals you're conceding recently are from set pieces. Mate, Ojo is not good enough for Aberdeen. Trying to talk him up by comparing him to three players, two of which have had bad injuries, is bizarre. Literally saying his strength is that he's fit. That's like me claiming that since Maradona died I've been better at football than him.

If you think one of the problems is players not working hard enough, that's on the players. If having Scott Brown in as captain and coach can't motivate them to work hard enough, then I'm not sure anything can. Let's look at those seven games. 1-1 Motherwell: Goodwin in the door 15 minutes, I don't think he even picked the team. The others 1-1 Dundee Utd 0-2 Hearts 0-1 Rangers 3-1 Hibs 2-2 Dundee 0-1 Ross County Hearts/Rangers we were badly hit by injuries (though granted still expected better performance v Hearts). A competent defence we probably beat Dundee. Cheap penalties conceded v United & County. There's a common denominator in that the defence (and goalkeeper) haven't been good enough all season. It's not as simple as "we're going to work on defending this week" and expecting a clean sheet in response. A few weeks ago people were raving about Ferguson's performance v Hibernian. Barron has been playing well. McCrorie has had good games. Vicente too. All under Goodwin. Ojo is not good enough for Aberdeen. He did not impress earlier in the season, he just looked at times semi competent. For most of the season he's been like he has in his entire time at Aberdeen. He should be the first name gone in summer. These things have been tried, and generally were a failure. None of them are defenders. You're essentially suggesting square pegs in round holes. Obviously top six was the aim but I think it's harsh to lay the blame at Goodwin for us finishing there. I look back at McInnes taking over. Aberdeen were in the bottom six. He had five games left of that season and only won one of them, despite them all being against bottom six sides. But the next season, with a full pre-season and some key signings, we had a very good first season under him. Goodwin has had seven games, three with heavy injuries away to Motherwell, Hearts & Rangers. In the four that were more winnable, he's won one, drawn two and lost one. Disappointing, aye, especially since we should have beat Dundee which would have meant we'd only have needed a point v County. Fine margins. But, I'll judge him next season.

Well I didn't want Glass punted. Felt the squad needed improved rather than the manager changed. Since he's gone we've also lost Brown, who was one of our better players, and others (Ramirez, Ferguson) appear to be more concerned with their next move. But again, when you say get the best out of them, what are you expecting? That they're suddenly going to try harder, run faster, pass the ball better? You can develop players over time and integrate them into your system, but not in seven games. Pep Guardiola is on record today in an interview as saying if he had managed Bielsa's Leeds side he wouldn't have got those group of players promoted. Ojo has I think played right-back in all games under Goodwin, to replace Ramsay who hasn't been fit, which answers your first two points. Ramirez looks uninterested. I'm not saying you're wrong to criticise him. However, what are your criticisms of him? "Not getting the best out of players" is a bit vague. With Glass, there were obvious things he needed to change, like overplaying Brown and having him deployed almost as a box to box midfielder six years after he was capable of doing it, playing McCrore in defence, playing Ojo. But with Goodwin I'm not sure any other manager does much different than him in the short time he's had, especially since he isn't actually repeating many of the mistakes Glass did make.