Panda

Right, tickets bought, petrol in Glasgow found, leaving in about seven hours time. I agree with Tom, can picture 2-2 in my head. Looking forward to everyone having a meltdown when Brown inevitably goes over to applaud the Celtic support, as if he's supposed to ignore them.

That Twitter's other "exclusives" have been Neil Lennon to be Celtic director of football and Stephen O'Donnell to join Celtic in January. I'm planning to go to this but waiting to see if I can get any petrol first to make it up from Glasgow Might have to jump on a Celtic supporters bus. The earliest Scotrail can get me there is 17:30.

How has that happened? Let's look at the six teams above us. Rangers - People were queuing up to say Gerrard was too inexperienced, and a year before he won the league there there were fans who wanted him out. Hibs - Fans wanted Jack Ross out last season because they kept blowing it at Hampden. Hearts - Fans demonstrated outside Tynecastle for him and Budge to go. Motherwell - Not actually a very popular manager with the fans. Dundee Utd - Start of season fans were saying he's not up to it. He was getting slated during the Dundee derby up until they scored. Celtic - well, the fact they're sixth on this list says it all. Sometimes a bit of patience pays off.

Just noticed Aberdeen are charging £32 a ticket next week (£36 for some areas). Have they learned nothing from pricing fans out?

While I don't quite agree with you that Brown offers nothing and needs dropped, I do think he had his poorest half in a Dons shirt in the second 45 minutes - he was giving away too many fouls and his passing was a let-down too. When you needed your captain to get a grip of the team he fell to bits. Would like to see McGeouch back in the team though.

Time to drop Joe Lewis. He's at fault for two of the goals. One clean sheet in 20 games - he's got to be culpable for some of that. I can give David Bates a bit more leeway in that he's still new, but fucking hell. Can we not find a decent centre half anywhere? Lewis Ferguson is another needing dropped. Offering very little at the moment. He's just playing for himself just now, constantly taking pot shots at goal because he wants to boost his goals for account and net himself a January move. That would be fine if he was hitting the target but most of the time he's not even forcing the goalkeeper into a save. Other than that, at times we were playing good stuff. It's easy to lose the head because of the run we're on. I watched Dundee v Rangers yesterday and Dundee missed a pile of chances and Rangers, without playing particularly well, get out of there with a 1-0 win. When you're luck is out, it's out. As negative as it would be, I can't help but feel maybe we should go three at the back next week v Celtic. We're losing too many goals with the back four and I really don't fancy us to go toe-to-toe attacking wise with Celtic just now.

Second highest in the league for possession this season (65% average, beaten only by Celtic). Thought Glass said it was Watkins that was injured?

Lewis Ramsay Bates McCrorie Mackenzie Brown Campbell McGinn Hedges Hayes Samuels McGinn & Hayes in since they did well off the bench last week. Campbell because we badly lacked someone able to pass the ball (I'm presuming McGeouch injured otherwise I'd have said him). I reckon Hedges only has an hour in him then I'd give Longstaff a chance. 2-0 the Dons. Come on.

Go on then, I'll take that bet.

I disagree with you there. Aberdeen did - from a very low mark mind you - improve as the game went on in terms of creating chances. Glass surely takes credit for recognising what needed changed and a lot of the times his subs do work. Hayes coming on for Samuels meant a lot more crosses were being put into the box. McGinn replacing Jet gave us more movement in the final third when we had been far too static. His third sub was an enforced one, and as pointed out above he was planning to switch on Jenks for Ojo, which I presume was to give us more height in the box. Last weekend against Motherwell the two big factors that let us down were Gallagher's defending and Watkins missing chances. Both were dropped this week. There's still things we can still pick at but "he doesn't appear to have a clue" just isn't true at all. He is seeing what we're seeing, he is making changes, he is trying things. On a side not, someone said to me today "to be fair to McInnes, he wouldn't have lost this game". Just two days short of a year ago we got scudded 3-0 at home to Motherwell. I am, perhaps naively, still optimistic. I think with Bates the defence looked more settled. Just need to sort the midfield next. What I think we really missed today was someone in the middle able to pick a pass. Brown was too deep (he had to be to protect the defence) and in my previous post I pointed out Ferguson, Ojo & Jet were just all over the place. McGeouch (is he injured, wasn't in squad) and Campbell are two players who can provide that. I'd be looking to start at least one of them next week.

For all the midfielders we have, we appeared to lack a midfield today. Brown the only one who can pass the ball. Ojo, Ferguson, and Jet too when he was on, not sure what their roles were. Had we taken Ojo & Ferguson out of the team in the second half and played with nine men I think our performance would have been the same. McGinn & Hayes actually did well off the bench, but that's quite a sad indictment that two players who should probably be back-ups this season are coming in and offering more than the others. Lot of good balls into the box yet none resulted in an effort on target.

Hold on, what the fuck am I on about? Rangers is October 27, not September 27.

I've a rare Saturday off so heading up to this. After this we've St Mirren away (not a happy hunting ground for us recently), Rangers away and Celtic at home, so we could really do with a win in this one to a) set us up for those ones and b) avoid another Saturday of getting booed off. Plus, you know, winning is pretty nice. I presume Hedges still out. Hope Bates starts. Glass made a pointed message last week about those who aren't taking their chances have got to realise there's others waiting, so I wonder if Ramirez may find himself on the bench. Watkins too though maybe harsh as he's not played much.

Our strikers are Ramirez, Watkins & Samuels. Two of them are literally just in the door. JET is a law onto his own.

Strange one. I would class that as a disappointing defeat (when is a defeat never disappointing?), but not disheartening. You can see what the manager is trying to do. We've gone to Fir Park and had 75% possession, 20 shots for us to six for them. That isn't a sign of a team that has no idea what it's doing, more a team that is in the very early stages of being honed into something, and being punished for individual errors. If you want to compare that to last time we were at Fir Park - we drew 0-0 but bored the life out of everyone and had one shot on target. Better result (by a point), but worse performance, and after that we won just three times in the next 14 league games under McInnes. I'll wager we win more than three in our next 14. Glass will inevitably at times makes mistakes, but he's generally doing the right things. He's signed a host of new players who he is trying to bed in. He's attempting to play passing, attacking football rather than taking the easy option of sitting in and hitting long balls. It takes time. I'm confident at some point we'll hit form and we'll give some teams a right fucking hiding. The centre of defence is soft as shite though. Gallagher is not good enough and I don't think he really fits into Glass' style of play either, he's always been someone who is the extra man in a three-man defence, but gets found out in a two-man defence. We didn't even sign an on-form defender, he was poor last season for Motherwell but his stock rose because of some good performances for Scotland. McCrorie and Bates I think will soon emerge as the first choice partnership there.

Not sure if Bates signing has ruled it out. Also think if we had made the group stages we would have had a need for a bigger squad. So wouldn't be surprised if the interest has now cooled.

No sure what's worse. That you picked 12 players, or that even when picking too many you still missed out Mackenzie.

Playing two games a week and adding new players every few days (it feels like it), there's not many training sessions really and therefore it's difficult to get any sort of tactical identity or cohesion. The international break will be good for us. Recharge the batteries, some proper training sessions now for Glass to work on things, and a chance for the new guys to properly settle. Tough run of fixtures now (Motherwell A, St Johnstone H, St Mirren A) - 7-9 points is doable though. Would like to see one more in before the window shuts (have heard whispers we might beat Hibs to Jamie McCart) but I'm pretty easy with the squad we have until January.

Aberdeen started with a team with an average age of 26.8. Qarabag had an average of 26.6. I'm not really getting your point here - you asked about Glass' transfer policy when he is signing, and playing, young players - far more so than the last manager did. Not sure there's a massive difference between being 28 and 30 either. The only real senior players in the team are Brown & Hayes, one of which probably won't be first choice this season when everyone is fit.

Lewis Ramsay McCrorie Bates Mackenzie Brown Ferguson Longstaff Jet Watkins Ramirez 4-4-2 diamond. One last hurrah for Fergie. Dons to pump them & go top of the league.

We started five players 23 and younger last night, and brought on a sixth. And among the descriptions of the performance was "naive" and "inexperienced at that level". We've also just signed a 20 year old and 21 year old on loan, and David Bates is only 24. The first eight words you've written there is the answer you're looking for.

We chucked it defensively. It's easy to knock the ball about and look like a good team when you're 3-0 up on aggregate after 20 minutes. We didn't test them over the two legs to see if they are a good team or not. What they are good at is defending though. Eight games played and they've conceded just three goals - all penalties. For us I think we've played 10 and conceded 14, and have just one clean sheet - that's not good enough, especially since I don't think we've come up against a right good side yet. First half we did actually play some decent stuff at times, were getting the ball in the box, but they just cut through us at the other end all too easily. Second half we've tightened up a little but at the expense of offering very little going forward. McCrorie I think is actually growing into his role but Declan Gallagher is no improvement on Ash Taylor - a lucky boy to be in the Scotland squad. A new centre half is an absolute must. At least Hedges, Watkins and this Samuels fella have all to go into that team to give us a few new attacking options.

Have the council taken over designing the stadium now? Does anyone seriously believe this will happen? I think Kingsford will be plan A again 12 months from now.

I must be the only fan who was quite impressed with our first half tactics. Hearts were buzzing round at 100 miles an hour. They are just hit and hope - get it wide, lump it in and hope something falls for them. They don't actually play any football. We sat backed, knocked it around the back, let them chase after the ball, and created the best chance and Ramirez really should score. For all Hearts "pressure" I don't remember Joe Lewis having to do much. Second half, Hearts were blowing out of their arse by the hour mark, but got an almighty slice of luck with the penalty. It's a dive, but also idiotic from Gallagher who, while he can head the ball, not sure he's any better than Ash Taylor. We controlled the second half, were winning every 50/50, put some fine deliveries into the box but disappointing we didn't test Gordon more. Jet does some good things but also frustrates the hell out of it you. But what a difference it is having Brown in that midfield - that's when you need him, 1-0 down at Tynecastle and he's winning every ball and goading their lot into giving away free-kicks. And he inspires those around him to do the same - Ojo certainly wasn't getting wired in like that before.

Hearts fans are planning a "scarf twirly" in the 26th minute for Marius Zaliukas, since this is their first full house since he died. I fear it will probably be awkwardly booed by our own support since hardly anyone will know what it's for.