RicoS321

Is that really a missed opportunity? Team on a 12 game unbeaten run with a full strength team, versus a dons team with no striker?

Hoban and Ash were excellent, Considine also. McRorie all blood and thunder, but very little quality.

Oh well, not the worst result all things considered. Feel a bit sorry for Anderson, gets three minutes of a game and his first touch is a sitter missed. Not any worse than Kennedy's effort. Both shite. 79th minute to make the first sub, I've no idea what McInnes is seeing out there. We weren't scoring. Whilst it was a shite effort from Anderson, I've no doubt that the lack of time on the pitch is a major factor in those chances. Give him 25 minutes and he might get two or three chances, or at least two or three touches of the ball, before he gets that opportunity. Throwing a guy on with such little time and it's always going to be 100mph shite, and snatching at opportunities. It was obvious from the hour mark that we needed a change.

Even if we did, this pitch is a little faster than normal I'd say, both teams making errors when it gets tight in the final third.

Tactics min. I sort of understand it in this game because McLennan probably isn't winning that many headers from direct crosses, he needs to make space, and maybe the wide players checking back allows this. To be honest, it makes sense on a pitch like this because the option to cut inside and shoot on a slick pitch should be fruitful. But I'm probably in agreement with you, I'd rather we had width and look to play quick first time balls in the area before McLennan is under pressure. Otherwise, a decent half, very even game, good and open and plenty of pressing. Need to start shooting more and trying the quick pass for McLennan in behind.

Either game off, or 0-2 (Hendry 2)

Jesus. I mean, I wouldn't wish for covid infection rates to soar, cancelling the season, but...

He's basically not as good as Cosgrove. But he's different, so would get the benefit of the doubt.

Was ace against San Marino, then utter horse in the following two games (by horse, I mean dead horse). A good risky signing if we could actually sign him. Not sure as a loan, as I get the impression he wouldn't hit the ground running as he looked miles off the pace in the u21s. Ferguson, McRorie, McLennan were all night and day better than him. He's big though.

- failed in England - played well against us once - injury plagued Must be some others.

Thankfully the Uber hun, Jones, appears to be heading south. Hopefully we can spend a million on the next Hernandez. Has there been any confirmation of him actually leaving the club, or are we simply paying him to spend time in Venezuela?

Best for all he moves on. Despite scoring 20+ goals in two consecutive seasons, the fans never really took to him. Seems a nice lad, hopefully he'll do well. I have no doubts that he can go on to good things if played correctly (consistently). Good luck to him.

To further my point above, we have to look at last night's game and ask: what would Rooney have done? That's the role that Cosgrove is essentially filling. Rooney generally needed a couple of chances in a game to score, he'd probably have scored Sam's header once in every three attempts, but we nearly always made more chances for him in a game. It was very rare that you said: "he's done all the work himself for that goal", or "he's made that goal himself" (Cosgrove did that numerous times). Had Rooney been up front last night, we'd have likely had the same result, because all our fancy football was played nowhere near the front man, who always had two men in close proximity. There was one chance last night that didn't fit that pattern and it's the one where we had a great move and Hedges squared to Cosgrove who was on his heels. The commentator suggested Hedges should have shot, but that wasn't the case. Cosgrove should have read it and would have had an easy free attempt on goal. It was probably the only time we created a good chance last night that Rooney would have scored every time.

You could be right, however we played similar football to the first half today several times with Watkins up front and he didn't score. We were all lamenting the fact that he wasn't a finisher and wasn't making the runs. Like last night, we had a period of great football with very little end product with Watkins there, which we now seem to be remembering as some free scoring halcyon period. Quite simply, if we'd got a goal last night, we'd have won the game convincingly and played some nice football in the process. That we didn't, in my opinion, is that McInnes hasn't worked out all season how to add that finishing touch against teams that sit deep with one in front. His option of keeping it narrow last night completely failed. Earlier in the season, we just did the same but were up against teams who hadn't quite worked us out. If we score first in any game, we pretty much win.

He plays the front three that we've been asking for, giving Cosgrove the opportunity with Wright and Hedges, but what does he do? Switches the fucking wingers, so that any width you might get to provide for the player suited to meeting crosses is completely nullified. Just play the fucking players in their positions. How in the fucking world can anyone, regardless of how many eyes they've got, wait until the 83rd minute to make a change? I don't think I've seen a manager so bereft of ideas when his initial team selection doesn't work out. It's like he can't accept that his initial line up could possibly not be correct. How the fuck is McLennan supposed to affect anything in less than ten minutes? Just weak management, really bad. All the opposition manager has to do is nullify us for 50-60 minutes and we're done.

Playing some nice football, similar to earlier in the season with Hedges and Kennedy central. St Johnstone sitting deep making it very crowded in the last twenty. Think it would help to either switch Hayes and Kennedy back to their proper wings or take McLennan on for Hayes, as we need that width, rather than the cut inside. We're completely dominant and we're trying to play nice fitba, so keep it up.

Think the deal is that we pay his wages, travel expenses, a £3K per week embarrassment fee and they'll take him, on the condition it's not mentioned outside Scotland.

Judas bastard should be never wear a dons' shirt again.

If he plays well in the next six months, he'll go to the Euros. He seems like a fairly intelligent lad, he's perhaps just very focused on his career and sees it as best path to something better and isn't overly fussed by the Hun element. He doesn't come across as the Hun type in the way that Jack does, he's maybe more like Ryan Fraser in that regard and is just a guy out for himself in a difficult and short career. Unless he performs exceptionally and Gerrard takes him with him post Hun, I'm not sure he won't just hit a glass ceiling at the Hun. I actually think he's better than hagi, and he'd likely link up very well with Kent, but it's very rare that a Scottish player goes to one of the scum and then progresses from there. It's a strange path and if I were his agent I'd have advised him to wait until summer when his stock could be even higher (and not to be a rabid hun fuck).

We're not selling them Wright, it's a pre-season contract. I'd be completely fine with it if we were selling him.

Except we don't. We have some good quality football players like Hedges, Ferguson, Hayes, McGinn as well as guys that are comfortable on the ball whilst putting in a shift like Kennedy (maybe), Considine, Hoban, McLennan, McGeouch, Campbell and some guys who are average players who put in a shift like Taylor, Main etc. It's not just McInnes though, it's the club. There's no strategy there. McInnes has done exceptionally well at winning for us (despite his apparent loser mindset), with no recent manager coming close to the number of wins. However, he often does that by being safe on the pitch (game management) and safe in squad number. We've got guys like Ojo playing where Campbell and Virtanen should be. Guys like Main playing, where a disabled lamppost could be. Guys like McGinn and Logan possibly lasting a bit longer than they should (those can probably be forgiven for past service). We're basically at least two players heavy every season, because it is safer for McInnes to put a tried and tested average SPFL player like Main in than a youngster like Anderson (I don't rate, but that's not the point), or Ojo over Campbell. But that is a completely understandable approach for McInnes to take because, as we can see, as soon as we lose points the fans are hounding him - and his points returns as manager have been excellent. It needs the strategy from above that forces McInnes to act against his own best interests, to align with those at the club. It doesn't need major surgery either, just a slightly smaller pool of senior players. That would have meant not signing McGeouch and accepting that we'd signed a dud in Ojo for example. It would have meant not signing Main and Wilson or Main and Edmondson. Just the board putting the brakes on signings and forcing him to use youth.

Fuck sake. With fans not in the ground, I'd prefer it if we kept him but it's pretty fucking rank. Maybe he'll pick up an injury in his final game. It's a fucking sorry state of affairs like, this should not have happened. Why are we looking at the potential of guys like Ferguson and Gallagher (Mark) but not our own players? Players like Wright are very, very uncommon (if he fulfills his potential). If the huns can recognise it, why couldn't we? I recognised it, so what the fuck were our staff doing? There are certain types of player that you just take risks on. The risk associated with giving Wright an additional year in the summer was minute. It's not acceptable to wait until he performs or not. This is the Ryan Fraser situation once more. It fucking reeked of piss, and so does this. If we are unwilling to take a punt on our own players, why should they take a punt on us? To be honest, from the minute Wright scored his hattrick one week and was given a paltry 30 seconds in the cup final the following week, his career has been mishandled. Injuries aside, he's been dicked about, been the perennial championship manager sub (the guy who before a ball is kicked, it's been decided that he'll be the first sub) and his potential not been advanced. None of the above excuses the fact that he's a hun cunt of course, but all of the above is applicable if he'd chosen to join any other team. It's not good enough, and it's the club at fault, not the player.

Livi doing it properly these days, nae like the overspending cheats fae the early century. Very impressive. Hopefully Martindale fails the test in Tuesday and we tank them.

This. His movement was excellent, going beyond the ball and falling in deep, and he also looks solid enough. I hope we give him much more game time between now and the end of the season.

I think it's irrelevant. We can only set our own points target. If we're hitting 70+ points in any season, that's an excellent return. I think there's only been us and hearts have done that before. I'd like to see us stretching towards 80 on the odd occasion. We're not spending enough money to have a second string team that can win every single game, so we'd need a relatively injury free season. We'd need two good strikers and three or four players of the quality of Hedges and Wright. Beyond that, you're relying on a poor season for the scum too. I'm wondering why you think we can have any bearing on their points total (other than games against us)? The hun haven't lost a game to any team in the league this season. Why do you presume that it's Aberdeen's concern? It's not that I don't only think that you're not being fair, it's that you've made up an entirely random metric and tried to apply it retrospectively to suit your pre-defined conclusion. Third is a good return this season if we can hold onto that. High sixties in points good too. Holding on to Wright is fairly crucial to that in my opinion, and if we can play entertaining fitba like we did today then that's more than satisfactory. If you want much more, then your ire should be with the chairman and not the manager. Budget is the quantifiable, demonstrable difference in points between us and the scum.