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That doesn't necessarily mean Leigh won't be signing a deal. It's just that his loan has finished so he's returned to his club. If it's a choice between him and Hayes though, I'd take Hayes.

Wouldn't say he's past it considering he was still doing a good job for Celtic last season, and the general consensus from Celtic fans were they were happy for him to at least get another year. He was more of a left back at Celtic. I'd certainly put him in the team there allowing Considine to go more central ahead of the inevitable departure of McKenna. Would do a job for us for 1-2 seasons.

I'm now making a third post about the strip, which is more than I've ever posted about any strip. Was looking at the new Sweden strip, which is the same template, but theirs has a few wee tweaks to it - the position of the stripes and adding a lighter blue hoop to the sleeve rather than having a big block in one colour like us. Maybe it's just that yellow and blue suits that strip more than red and white, but Sweden's looks far better. Also, Sweden's away strip is also a cracker. Anyway, we can't change it now. The 2013/14 strip was also crap and we won a trophy in it.

Celtic are apparently getting a black and gold away strip, and they've just signed up with Adidas. No idea if it'll be bespoke or from a template but will be annoying if it ends up being a cracker that we could have had for our own away top. Last season's away but reversed would have done fine.

The away is okay, though ruined by the sponsor logo (not much they could do about it though). The home top is a poor effort. Quite like Aberdeen trying to claim it's based on the 1958-64 kit, which I've never heard anyone ever say was a kit we should replicate. I don't think I've bought a home top since the one we had in 06-07 with the two shades of red. Bought the 1990 retro one and I'll just wear that until it falls apart.

Uefa make between £2.5bn & £3bn a year in revenue I believe. The majority of that is from selling the TV rights for the Champions League and Europa League. BT's deal for the U.K. is worth £1.2bn for 2021-2024 I think. The rest of it comes from commercial rights, sponsorship, and ticket revenue. Aye they're not short of a few bob like.

Since McInnes has taken charge, Aberdeen have sold 18,000 tickets or more for a home match 15 times. Four of them were last season. Bear in mind one of our most popular games v Rangers wasn't even on the fixture list for four years. This season the crowds have been disappointing. Biggest 16,400 v Hearts 3-2 game, swelled by a rare decent away support from Hearts. The biggest Aberdeen support was 15,200 v Rijeka. But, the potential is clearly there to bring in 18,000+ crowds regularly, and some of those games mentioned above were sell outs. And I always argue Pittodrie is a difficult ground to sell out - not because of lack of fans, but because of the make up of the ground. Once around 15,000 are sold, the seats that are left tend to be Merkland (currently only available to families, though granted that changes next season), an uncovered section Y, and the upper deck where you struggle to see the goal line at that side ever since the pitch was lengthened so it essentially has become restricted view. If they build a good stadium, with your rail seating etc, even out at Kingsford I don't think they'd struggle to sell 20,000 for big games. And to me that's what you build to - your potential. Not locking fans out who would want to go - whether they are fair weather ones or not. If you're going to build a new stadium, especially if you're moving the club from their natural home and out into the countryside, then do it right.

At the fan meetings last year, Cormack said they were considering a smaller stadium of around 17,000. Something to do with rail seating being more expensive, and he asked fans to give a show of hands over whether they wanted a smaller stadium with rail seating or a 20,000 one without. It all sounds like another smoke screen, trying to convince the fans it was their idea, rather than explain why we're building somewhere that supposedly should be a blank canvas yet has restrictions in place on height and, presumably, capacity. And of course the lack of travel options mean the bigger the capacity, the bigger the problem. The stadium application already suggests the Old Firm would have 3,000 tickets - around double their current allocation. If they all arrive by supporters bus that helps solve a lot of your public transport problem. For years the club have mentioned Hearts when Tynecastle was 17,000, and how that smaller capacity helped lead to sell-outs and a scramble for tickets, like it was some sort of successful operation that needed copied. Forgetting of course that Hearts spent millions on increasing the capacity, whereas we're spending millions on decreasing ours.

Cutting capacity to 15.5k is fine when you still have the potential to sell 20k for a big fixture. They won't have that choice if they build a smaller stadium at Kingsford. The smaller capacity thing seems to be coming from this height restriction they apparently have at Kingsford which limits how big they can make it. Rather than answering questions on that, they're trying to convince everyone that we should bin 20,000 crowds in favour of smaller ones as it apparently improves the atmosphere. I like a lot of what Cormack says and have been happy to see the initiative with the Merkland (can we stop calling it "red shed" though. When was it ever called the shed? It's not Tannadice) but I think mine and his vision for the new stadium differ greatly.

Didn't see the game, but how did Main play? I'm not convinced he's worth persisting with, but interested to hear how he performed. Likewise, how did Anderson play in his standard 15 minute cameo?

He's inviting Hoban up to train and if he proves his fitness, then he'll sign. I don't see anything wrong with that really. I'm sure in summer we'll be looking for a new left sided centre back anyway with McKenna sure to leave and Considine likely to attract big offers after the world sees his talents at Euro 2020.

Derby fans seem to love him. He might be coming off the bench a lot (he was only on for 16 mins the other night and still got his customary yellow card) but at least he is involved. Can't see him wanting to swap playing alongside Wayne Rooney to come back up here in a hurry. I loved Shinnie and yes we do miss him, but afraid we won't see him back in a Dons shirt until he's winding down his career and maybe comes back for one last hurrah.

I was strangely quite happy we got Celtic, that's who I wanted. Part of it bravado as I thought we'd get them anyway so was pre-empting it a bit, but Billy Dodds was saying on the radio how everyone wants to avoid Celtic until the final. Not for me, I don't see how beating them in a final is any easier than a semi - id rather beat them ASAP. The build up to a final when it's not Celtic you're facing is a lot more fun than everyone thinking we'll get beat. Also, Celtic have started 2020 on fire but they were never going to keep that going until summer, especially with the sheer volume of games they've got. They've already began to show cracks against Copenhagen and even in a lacklustre performance at Pittodrie. Even on a bad day they have winners in their side that can pull them out of a hole so we'll still need our best performance of the season to do it, but maybe they're dropping in form slightly just as we're beginning to find ours, and maybe by April we'll be meeting at just the right time. Plus, if we do beat them, a cup final v either of the Edinburgh sides will be electric.

I think Anderson is a cracking player but lacks a bit of composure in front of goal, which perhaps comes from a lack of confidence in that any time he plays he's under massive pressure to score - because if he doesn't he doesn't get another start for months. Yet, Main and Cosgrove have a bad game and will still get a run in the side. Would be interesting to see how he would get on if McInnes gave him a run of four/five games.

I didn't say third would save him. I said if the team shows signs of improvement towards the end of the season, if the team starts putting in some good performances and he starts showing that now most of the injured players are back he's able to get the best out of the squad, then I think he'll be fine, because there'll be evidence there the team are on the way back, and there might even be genuine positivity for the next campaign, so the board will stick with him rather than go searching for someone else. Bear in mind the remaining games are four of the next six being away, five top six games, and if they win on Saturday then a return to Hampden. So we'd be talking about performing well in big fixtures. Finishing eighth is clearly going the other way and the team getting worse. I doubt even a cup win would save him if the form was that alarming. You mentioned Calderwood. He was on his last chance after the calamity of losing to Queen's Park & Queen of the South. The following season showed no signs of recovery and the team just drifted along while fans drifted away. They had to get rid of him. I don't think we're there with McInnes yet.

Well you've just moved the goalposts there from "only a Scottish Cup win can save McInnes from the bullet in summer" by now suggesting we might be 8th. I said if we're third and finish the season strongly showing signs of improvement, I don't think in the eyes of the board he needs a cup win to save his job.

Nah, I don't think that's the thinking in the boardroom at all. If Aberdeen finish the season strongly - claim third, the general performances improve, they maybe lose in the cup but only after a battling performance along the lines of the Celtic defeat last weekend, then I can't see the board sacking him.

Not sure Cosgrove & Main works together, be interesting to see how it goes today. Glad to see Campbell back in the starting line-up. Shame that Bryson appears to be injured again though. Have a feeling it won't be a classic but we'll edge it 2-1. From what I've seen of Ross County this season they tend to pass up a lot of chances if the boy Stewart isn't on song.

Yeh, it's more a conversation for grown ups rather than the likes of yourself.

Since Dean Campbell's man of the match performance 10 days ago, he hasn't started any of the next three games. Curtis Main scores once and has cemented himself in the team. Apart from those two gripes, decent like-up.

I was, probably like most blokes, quite ignorant about the whole thing until a few months ago when a couple of female footballers were explaining how being on their period can actually increase the risk of ACL injuries. Think they're now doing a study into it. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/10daily.com.au/amp/news/sport/a200217eztjb/sexism-or-science-aflw-investigates-if-players-periods-linked-to-acl-injuries-20200218

Obviously, I don't take any of your posts seriously, I just enjoy them for what they are - an old eccentric trying to survive in the modern world. However, "zero business potential" is worth picking up on. The Champions League is being revamped and from next year there will be some serious money being ploughed into it, from TV deals, sponsorship and UEFA funding. Scotland will likely have two places and clubs will be able to make some serious profit from being involved. From an Aberdeen point of view, the costs of running a women's team are very little, and the potential with the growth of women's football across the world is actually huge. So a successful Aberdeen women's team could actually be a nice little earner for the club in years to come, especially with the Atlanta link-up.

I don't know if women's football has much interest around here, but thought it might be worth it's own thread throughout the season. For the uninitiated, Aberdeen were known as Aberdeen Ladies and were a mere affiliate of the club. They were relegated twice in succession to the point where they were outside of the Scottish Women's Premier League. Then last summer the club took the team in-house, they changed to Aberdeen Women, had a new management team and began to take the whole thing a lot more seriously. They romped the SWFL North last season, and also took some big scalps in the Scottish Cup, making it as far as the quarters before losing 1-0 to Rangers. They begin this season in SWPL 2 as favourites to be promoted to SWPL 1. Hamilton, Kilmarnock and Dundee United will be their main rivals for the promotion. There's one automatic place and a play-off spot. Yesterday they played their first game of the season in the SWPL Cup, and beat Hearts (who won SWPL 2 last season) 2-1 at Cormack Park. The goals from that win are here:

I don't think the crowd was down to not being in a title race, more a combination of playing poorly v Celtic, and boring football across the season. Put in a performance like that every time we play them and the crowds will come back.

Cosgrove has scored just as many times against Celtic as he's been sent off to be fair. Think we're all getting carried away a bit with Main. He had a good 45 minutes against a poor Hamilton side. I'm yet to be convinced he's worth a regular starting place.