RicoS321

Yep, neither are good footballers, but we've had much worse footballers than both in the past that have been good when well managed. Steve Clarke was excellent at keeping instructions simple for players when he was at Killie. It would be very easy for a team to play to both Richardson's and Philips' strengths without having to worry about their weaknesses too much. Richardson was very, very clearly nervy as fuck with us, the fitba was a hot tattie. But instead of playing to his strengths, we asked him to try and play the ball out and take it under pressure and played him alongside a weak defence. We could easily have eased him into first team football, asking him just to chip it down the line, run fast to the byline and kick it sideways, on repeat until he built some form of confidence. Exactly what Thelin did with Morris for example. Phillips could have been told to do the high press and win headers and second balls, and be relentless, with five yard passes only. I'd say he is a better option than an at least four of our midfielders this season. Edit: I'm absolutely not saying that we should sign either of them! Just that we could have made the best out of them whilst they were here.

You do wonder if Leven has made it clear that he's unhappy at the length of time he's had to be caretaker and asked to be removed from the role. He had a fairly serious health scare last time he was in the role and I wonder if he's thinking that the club are taking the piss asking him to be in it for so long again.

O'Hara would have been an excellent signing two years ago, but he's very much on the way down. I thought Philips was a decent enough player to have in the squad. Not a great footballer, but athletic and strong, and a good option off the bench to try and disrupt and get in folks faces when trying to play fitba has failed. Similarly, Richardson had all the attributes to be a serviceable SPFL fullback, sticking to a few limited instructions.

Fuck sake. Not even any of the good ones like that big right back laddie.

It's an extremely Milney appointment

Not entirely, no. It is possible that a guy can want to sign several managers, but that they don't want to come to Aberdeen (and especially at this moment in time). Obviously Robinson is not his appointment, but perhaps Cormack has tried to come from the pragmatism/timeframe angle and been genuinely feared by the chance we might go down. Basically, give it another year and we can look again next summer when Robinson has run his course. There is still a shite tonne of things that require changing at AFC that a sporting director can get stuck into over the next six months and beyond. If Robinson can churn out results with a pragmatic approach, or even buy into the sporting director model, then that's an added bonus. If the penguin fucker is in disagreement then I expect we'll see his resignation within the week. We've had years to sort out the sporting director role, and it should have happened prior to firing McInnes. There'll be just as many shite sporting directors out there as there are shite managers I expect, we should really have been settling on a decent one by now. I'd say that every error football-wise lands on Cormack, even if Pfannensteil turns out to be a slavering mess.

On the bright side, he'll probably bring a lot of good backroom staff with him. We're really struggling in the goalkeeping department, especially when coming for crosses. They're bound to have someone who can help on that front.

Hopefully he'll bounce into the north sea.

Alex Miller Alex Miller Alex Miller If you say it three times he appears. Which might be a good thing. Anyway, Robinson is a good manager, with a good record in our league. He's a fucking terrible appointment for us though. Goodwin, I could understand, in that there might have been a case that he was still in his early years of management and could be pliable to the extent that he could change his style of play and work within the parameters of "the strategy". Robinson blows any attempts to pretend that there is a strategy out of the water. He's more McInnes than McInnes, and those of us who were arguing for years that we were correct to get rid of McInnes have now been proven entirely incorrect. Anyway, something for the fans to get excited about.

Mark Fishkin suggests that Sandro Schwarz never gets his starting eleven correct.

Aye, typically my heating broke down a few days before the invasion, so I took the gamble on not ordering oil until it was fixed (just in case it was something existential and I needed a new heating system). Gone from under £500, to over £1,000! The part for the boiler will be another week, so I'm gambling that it might go down in part by then and I'll be under £1000 again. Something was going to give on heating oil at some point, so it's something I should be better prepared for, but I always take the "I'll think about it later" approach, so the US are only partly to blame!

The problem is that his gone legs consistently cover more ground than any other player on the pitch. I think he should go in the summer too. I don't believe we'll do a good job of replacing him.

Kincorth. It's not about loving him, it's about understanding his position and is obvious limitations.

Exactly. Proper fans throw chairs off their player's face.

You or I have absolutely no idea what he does when an actual manager is in place. The new manager should be making that call, and until that point should act with decency and integrity like any other employer would. By all means remove him from caretaker, of course.

It's not just dishonourable, I suspect it's not even legal! He surely must have had something written up to say that he'd be entitled to get his previous role back after agreeing to the poisoned chalice of caretaker with this squad?

McGlynn is a very good football manager with a lot of experience. I'd have him at the Dons in a heartbeat. Lennon is also a decent manager, I'd grudgingly accept, but would want him nowhere near Pittodrie.

He was playing out of position against Dunfermline, as anyone who has ever watched him play football even once would have known. Seemingly none of our management team understood what midfielders do, or even watched the short spell in that role against the Tims midweek.

I genuinely find this bizarre. As I said in the other thread, you can't ask a guy to do you a favour for a few weeks and then fire him for failing at it. He should at the very least be offered his old job back, and is probably due a public apology from the club for having monumentally fucked up the appointment of a new manager and hung him out to dry by having him in a post he's not suitable for and has no experience in for months on end.

Could it not be a bit of both? Lutz has (or had) identified the new manager, who had presented his style of play and formation, so Lutz has asked Leven to try and work that in so that we're on a better footing for next season. He may also have asked him to play some of the new signings to get a feel for them ahead of the summer window. So not actually picking the team, but interfering a little with a view to next season. I would expect that to fade out as we get closer to the end of the season and a new manager is appointed. It's actually only Geiger that's currently getting minutes that might have a slim chance of being here next season anyway. The rest are all loans that will return, and were stop gap signings made to cover injuries. Aremu got a couple of starts, which was completely understandable in the role he's expected to be able to play eventually. Nilsen is probably the only player that can feel aggrieved at the lack of minutes at the moment, as it's his role in midfield that is being taken by both Geiger and Aremu. I think the more likely explanation for it seeming like Leven isn't picking the team is that we're a squad that is really low on quality and depth, and he's scrambling around a little because every time he picks a side they go out and fail. Personally, I'd be picking Shinnie and Nilsen in midfield with Cameron or Armstrong ahead, either in a 4-2-3-1, or in a 3-4-1-2, depending on whether or not he feels Olusanya can be trusted wide or not.

It's harsh, because it's not his job. It's like asking Sarah from accounts to cover HR for Julie, who's on maternity leave, for a few months and then sacking Sarah because she accidentally paid someone the wrong amount. I don't think any of us know whether Leven is good at his actual role at the club or not. He should at least be given the opportunity to return to that role either now or once a new manager is in place should they wish to retain him. It's is very unfair to expect him to be good at the role of manager when it's not his job, or what he's being paid to do. That the club can't get their shite together for a replacement for Thelin is not Leven's fault, and he shouldn't be punished for it. Being a constant doesn't infer blame. The youth team staff have been fairly constant too, but they're not at fault, neither the admin staff. None of us have the slightest clue what Leven's day to day responsibilities were under Thelin or prior. It's possible to be good at being a coach and foil for a manager but be shite at tactics and taking responsibility. Plenty here seem to be suggesting that we sack Leven and promote a guy who fits exactly that description in Docherty. We're basically suggesting replacing one caretaker manager for another caretaker manager with the exact same skillset. Leven is a pish manager, but we've made and shat in that bed and we have to live with it until we can do the right thing and get a proper manager. Firing the guy that we've asked to do a favour for a few weeks isn't the answer to anything.

If you don't think Docherty had a hand in that lineup yesterday, then I think you're being kind to him.

We're now at the panic button stage. We could end up with any manager. Very harsh on Leven if he gets sacked from a caretaker role. He's not meant to be the guy that runs the first team, he's a coach. Anyway, last night stems from not understanding midfielders, again. Just as did with Goodwin, Robson and Thelin. We effectively lined up with a 4-1-4-1. Shinnie is not, and has never been, a player that sits in front of the defence (the same error that Goodwin made with Ramadani). He doesn't play the side to side well, and he ends up being late to everything and just looking old and slow, whilst getting absolutely knackered. It was very clear in the 15 minutes he played against the Tims that he struggles there if Leven required a fucking reminder. Secondly, in Scottish fitba, you have to be very good to play two "creative" midfielders against anyone. We're not close to being good enough. It's Cameron or Armstrong, not and. Nilsen and Shinnie with one ahead of them is how we should be approaching every game, regardless of the opponent, based on the options we've got. Switching out one for Geiger as and when required for fitness or suspension. I genuinely don't think that Leven recognises that midfielders come in different forms with different specialisations. He sorted it in the second for a bit, but after the game was gone. Milanovic is dogshite, but I understood the reason he started. Olusanya can't play as a winger. Bilalovic was a disgrace against the Tims. However, if you are playing Milanovic, you can't play Lobban, it has to be Jensen. Especially with Frame on the other side and a tired looking Milne. Anyway, the players were terrible, but they were set up to fail.

Easy to get there, nice ground in a good location, and easy to get home from. Shame about the fitba.

Milne is a shareholder. That's why he's there. If someone buys his shares then he won't be.