RicoS321

Yep. None of the other chairman's mates new anything about managing a football club. What was he supposed to do?

Aye, that fucking reeks of the Tims. Next it'll be the AFC family. Fucking horrendous chat.

Apologies, I posted before reading, I forgot my actual point! What I take issue with is the instruction of "let's get behind" or "everyone needs to get behind". If people have got valid concerns then they absolutely need to raise these. It's vitally important. I'm happy for us to disagree, I'm not happy to be told what to think. It's that sort of shite that had us on the path to a stadium in Aberdeenshire, six miles from the biggest public transport hub in the region. People told that we all need to get behind something. Whether it's brexit, independence, the dons manager it's massively important that people with issues voice them, not let themselves be drowned out and respond to evidence as it makes itself available. One of the biggest problems with not having due process in place is that this will happen again. Just as it did under Milne. Not only that, but if the message from the top is that it's fine to sign yer mates, then that propagates down the way. I here broony already has a few of his Dubai chums lined up to join the party (obviously, I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea).

Fair enough. If you think there are no questions to be answered with regard to the appointment and our relationship with Atlanta, that's fine. I think that's either an exceptionally naive, or exceptionally partisan position to take based on the glaring evidence.

Absolutely, there are plenty of ways it could help. Objectively, though, it's a biased decision. He's been elevated above others because of his relationship. I don't know for certain that he was lined up, it's speculation on the evidence. I have a very strong suspicion. It had been rumoured as far back as two seasons ago from memory, that wasn't guesswork, they're good friends. The classic name dropping of Fergie, to highlight the importance of the relationship between the manager and the chairman was a good tactic though, I have to admit. I think you'll struggle to find anyone who thinks the decision wasn't made before sacking McInnes. I hope he gets his assistant in asap and uses the time available this season to good effect. Despite the massive questions about the process, the nepotism and our questionable links with Atlanta, I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do.

Fair enough. I'd have thought the attributes you mention would work the other way for him! In fact, those are the reasons I would want him here. Edit: I should add that it's completely understandable for you not to discuss the racism issue, but it's not acceptable for AFC to pretend it didn't happen. I hope a lot of dons fans find it unacceptable too and I hope Logan makes his thoughts public too (unless he isn't bothered by it).

Grow up. We don't need to be told to get behind a manager, we're not fucking morons. We can objectively look at a situation and call out the glaring issues that present themselves. We don't have to blindly support every single decision in some partisan unquestioning manner. Glass will get everyone's support. There's nothing that he's done wrong.

He's employing his mate in a preordained process. I can almost guarantee that Glass was lined up to be manager the minute Cormack walked in the door. There was no process from our process guy, there was simply a sign off at board level. He didn't make an educated appointment, he made a heavily biased decision. It's exactly why we needed a director of football. It might work out. He comes across well.

That's not the definition of narrow mindedness I'm afraid. Nobody on here is lamenting the fact that he's a Tim. He's a racist apologist who called a black Aberdeen player a liar and hasn't apologised since. There's nothing narrow minded about expecting a club like AFC, who projects itself as a family club and takes the knee to reject racism to expect a prospective candidate to publicly address, and apologise for, his prior acts of gaslighting. That's nothing to do with football, that's something you either expect your club to stand for or not. I don't believe that Brown is a racist, so he should have no problems addressing the point. I think that would show him, and the club in a fantastic light and show that he's matured enough to be in management at a club like AFC. I have absolutely no doubt that AFC will not address it and neither will the fans. Which is fine, as long as we can all the show racism the red card stuff too as it's clearly not something we believe in.

Exactly. There is absolutely no relationship between being a good businessman and appointing a good Aberdeen manager.

That's the spirit!

It's fine, it's difficult to get the right expression, I get what you mean. I have to admit, if I were chairman I'd be appointing Brown on the understanding that he made a public apology to Logan. I think that would take balls and show some class at the same time. He's never apologised for his part and so it's impossible for Logan to forgive. I have absolutely no doubt that Brown still thinks he did nothing wrong and the past weekend's events reinforce that. It must be fairly fucking shite to be Logan right now. It's a long time ago and I don't think it's relevant to brown's character today, so a simple apology would go a long way. Without it, I think this is a little bit like the signing of goodwillie. There's a suggestion that the two paths might not cross, but are we really going to be holding on until summer to get our assistant manager in? That fucking reeks too, very similar to the McGhee situation. We need him here now so that Glass has all the support required to build a rapport with the players and get his processes and systems in place. It's fucking amateur not to.

What the fuck? There's nothing for Scott Brown to rise above. He was a vicTim blaming moron, unapologetically excusing racism.

Can you point to a single person on here suggesting they wouldn't get their support? You're arguing against a point nobody is making. We're completely correct to question the appointment of an inexperienced manager. We're right to question the motives behind that appointment from our board. Otherwise, what's the point?

Our job as fans is to question the decisions of the club. Glass is not at fault here, nor Brown, so there is no question that they'll be given backing. However, at no point were we told that Atlanta would be grooming our next manager. In a supposed age of transparency, we're correct to be questioning this relationship and where it takes us.

Thank god Cormack went through his process, otherwise we could have appointed a manager of zero experience and an assistant known for throwing his toys out of the pram when things don't go his way who also accused our right back of lying about being racially abused. No wonder Logan was off golfing at the weekend. Hopefully we'll get someone in above them to direct things, Cormack is in Atlanta and doesn't have the ability regardless. If we can get a good season out of Brown (I have serious doubts) then that'll be key to his success as I don't believe that he has the temperament or intelligence for the assistant role. Putting him in our midfield might actually do wonders for Ferguson as Brown will force him to do all the legwork which is what he needs and allow McRorie to move back when ash moves on. However it could go the other way very quickly too, and we're left with a player lamenting the end of his career, at odds with the manager for telling him so and finding that being a good player has no bearing on your coaching ability. He seems to have a lot of respect for Glass, given he was his mentor at Hibs, so hopefully he'll keep him in line. Fuck knows, it might work.

Probably just brown's agent trying to get a better offer from the Tims. Hopefully.

The reasons I stated. Every manager fails at some point, as do the majority of players. It doesn't turn them into bad managers. Rooney was excellent for us despite failing previously, and a hundred others. McInnes failed at Bristol but was successful when he came here, and will probably be successful elsewhere too. Often it just needs the right fit and a new lease of life and a player or manager will start firing again.

Aye, you're probably right. I was really meaning the last couple of seasons and I thought they'd hit over 50% rate, which is a success in my book, but I'm probably wrong on that. That's the thing, recruitment really isn't easy and expecting anything more than three in every five signings to be successful is unfair. Over the last three seasons our success rate was below that, but also we had a number of players who were of almost zero use that negatively impacted our youth player opportunities. A manager like Neil would stand a better chance of getting that ratio of failed signings down, but I think we also need to identify the weaknesses in our backroom that led to poor signing strategy.

Would any of them be worth the price though? Are they actually good managers? Or just "big names"? I wouldn't be enamoured with any of them. The manager you employ has to be relevant to the league and budget within which you operate. One of the reasons that Gerrard has managed to finally get success at the hun is because it was a very good fit for him. He could get players at the lower-mid end of the Liverpool cast-off pool whom he knew were good players. With a decent knowledge of the game down south at the hun level of salary, and an extremely competent staff behind him (especially in recruitment), they've seen a lot less failures in the transfer market. If he'd come to Aberdeen, for example, he would have struggled to do that because we'd never be affording Kent or Aribo (let alone Defoe) and he wouldn't have had the recruitment staff to mitigate his lack of knowledge in our market. From that perspective, Neil is a far better fit than any of the above. He'll know good Championship players within our budget, he's got a good understanding of the game in Scotland. He's had succesful periods as a manager in Scotland and England. What would be the point in Van Bommel if he's only got the budget for Calvin Zola? What would he bring other than a cheap thrill to the fans for a few months until he's inevitably found out? What makes Mark Hughes a good manager?

Exactly. That's why I said "sounds like something the Tims would write". I think it's pathetic that the BBC places a prominent video of Brown on their website without a mention of the Logan incident, I wouldn't have noticed it so thanks for mentioning it (I've sent in my complaint, I suggest others do too). It's gaslighting Logan, there's no other word for it. Would they put an video up talking about Martindale's involvement in rehabilitating prisoners without mention of his own prior crimes? Could you imagine a video of Gallagher putting his arm around an assault victim making the BBC without associated context? Maybe autographing their baseball bat? It's pathetic. The reason it's there, however, isn't because it's a footballer supporting another, it's because they want to pathetically elevate the old firm rivalry to fairytale like status. It's about showing the brave captain of one cheek reaching across the divide - right before the most important fixture in world football - to hold out the hand of reconciliation to their opponent. It's the BBC's deferential elevation to WW1 on Christmas Day status - that's how important this fixture is. It's not about racism at all for them, this childish rivalry is more important.

I didn't suggest that McLennan was a great player, just that given limited instructions he can do a job, which he proved earlier in the season with a run at right wing back. In the same way as foster was able to do a job for both us and the Huns despite being average. Put another way, McLennan won't be an excuse for not finishing third next season. I also didn't suggest that players weren't replaceable. In fact, I think you've missed my entire point, which is that with a few additions our squad is good enough to finish third. It's largely similar to most of the squads McInnes has had in his time, whereby as soon as we lose two or three to injury, the remains fall way short. I don't think the current team are any worse than the nwakali pish that lost to Motherwell at Hampden, or the team that lost to championship hibees and went eight games without a win. It's unrealistic on our budget to expect us to not have guys like McLennan, Hayes and Kennedy forming part of the squad, they're just part of the turnover of players. On any given day, if our scouts were asked to replace McLennan on his wages we'd probably have a 40% chance of getting someone better (our scouts, not you or I) based on our current success rate. Over time, these guys will be replaced and we'll get a few more Josh parkers on the way. I'm not sure about McRorie. He's got the attitude of a captain, but he's been gash since covid. It's like watching flood at times. His final ball, his reading of the game yesterday was all over the shop. I'd play him at the back before making him captain. Ferguson should be forced to stay and play to the level we know he's capable of. A good manager would get far more out of him in my opinion. McInnes did a fairly good job with getting guys like Ferguson and Campbell integrated into the first team, but you then start to get the performances we saw from both Jack and McLean, whereby they played within themselves for a long time - the cautious approach. Ferguson has another gear at least and I think we could get proper money for him with the right direction. Although, if we got a good offer now, I'd probably agree with you!

But add three players to that, as we saw with Watkins and Wright earlier in the season then the best attributes of the others can be brought out. McLennan just needs better management, so does Hayes. Hayes' best period for us was when he was told to run at the byline and kick the ball square into the box. McLennan could execute those simple instructions all day long and his crosses are actually not too bad (see his tee up for Campbell yesterday). McInnes' problem was always that he tried to get limited players to do far too much (see Kennedy). It's where Clarke absolutely excelled at killie, getting the best out of guys like Stewart by giving them a set of very simple instructions and responsibilities - none of the changing wing to wing and through the middle nonsense that McInnes insisted on. McLennan, Hayes and even Kennedy have particular attributes that a good manager could get a lot out of, and there are plenty of worse players in the SPFL. They shouldn't be a hindrance to finishing third, and one or two additions could bring out a bit more in then too. I don't think they're the long term answer necessarily, but they're more than workable for a couple of windows. With decent earners like Devlin, Logan, McGinn and so on moving on at the end of the season, a new manager should be reasonably happy with the base he's been given. I'd like to see us move McRorie into defence for next season and get a new midfielder in to compliment Ferguson and Campbell. A number 10 to replace Kamberi and a number 9 and a wide player. Youth making up the rest until we get more of an idea what's required and leave a chunk of budget for January.

Yes and no. We've still got some decent players. Just another case of bad signings catching up with us. We have to look beyond the manager for those failings, our recruitment more generally has been poor and changing manager won't solve that. We've known for years that McInnes' recruitment was awful, it didn't just happen overnight, the foundations should have been laid by now for a strong recruitment team who could help. It's completely unacceptable for a club to watch someone sign miles storey and then say "we thought he was doing okay". That said, we're probably only a couple of players away from having a first eleven that could finish third. For example, if Hornby could prove himself alongside Kamberi then we'd likely be fine with Hayes and McLennan on the wings. Sort out the striker role in the summer and we're probably okay in terms of first eleven. You then just need to clear out the fillers that haven't worked like McGeouch, Kennedy, Devlin etc. and you're probably in a place where you can supplement with two or three good players to challenge the first team and have an actual squad. Basically, we can sort most of our issues in one window if signings are good, but two windows should allow us to replace further and there's no reason why we can't be hitting 70 points next season. That should be our aim.

Why should we have been in second place? That's ludicrous. Celtic are on 68 points with six games to go. They'll probably hit ~80 points, 4 points greater than any other team outside the scum has ever achieved. If you expect us to have done better than that this season then you're expectations are unrealistic. Our budget doesn't allow for 80 points in a season, it's that simple. Our budget is what we can afford based on our revenues. Either you're happy for us to go into administration, or you're asking Cormack to be our sugar daddy. Which is it?