RicoS321

I don't disagree with a lot of that, I'm just struggling to see what it's got to do with a style. I think you've thrown a bunch of other stuff in the mix that has nothing to do with style. Over an eight year period, I don't think you can have a consistent style. With our turnover of players, and the varying degree of quality of our signings, it would be impossible. McInnes has generally been good, eventually, each year of finding a setup that gets results and going on a good run of point building to maintain a strong league position. Unless we get a striker in the next few days, I don't think he'll manage that this year. The setup with Watkins was enough to win us games. He needs to pick a setup this week and stick with it or we'll be heavily relying on luck.

Whilst in this instance, it might be, I would agree. I saw them play twice, and both times they had a static poacher playing alongside Anderson. It was completely the wrong setup for him. His all round play in those games was fine. His next step needs to be the championship somewhere, maybe Raith. If he gets a few goals then he might turn out to be fine. Would I rather see him than Main on the pitch? Absolutely, but not for three minutes every fortnight.

The teams you're talking about take their style (or what they like to tell people is their style) from the club, not the manager. It transcends the manager. If the dons want to do that, that's fine. Ferguson's team "had a chip on the shoulder attitude"? That's not a style. Most of the styles you mention aren't styles either, they're really just tactics. Most teams in the league would disagree we're a bit soft too, we're fairly dominant in games and quite physical. Hoban, Taylor, Considine, Ferguson, McRorie, Leigh, Cosgrove are not shy in the physical side of the game. Yes, we're brilliant at closing out victories, that's just a demonstrable fact. I don't think we've lost a game this year where we've been ahead but I'd have to check. We rarely lose leads. Game management, as you say, being the style, which is the question you asked. Grim at times, but we've taken a lot of points on the back of it. You say it's negative, I say its pragmatic. When he buys shite players, he shitefests the games to make up for it, grinding out points that previous managers - and other SPFL managers (Lennon at Hibs a prime example) - would not have. To have won so many games with a loser's mentality is fairly spectacular. Point of order: there was no financial fuckedness with utd or hibs, they just had managers that got them relegated by being shite. That was their "success".

That wasn't my argument. I agreed that Anderson wasn't good enough. You said that he showed today that he was garbage whereas I think today showed a player being poorly managed by being given a five minute cameo and being hung out to dry when he missed. The point being that if McInnes doesn't believe in Anderson, he just shouldn't play him. If he thinks he might still offer something then give him 25 minutes.

Exactly. So less to do with ability and more to do with the five minute cameo.

No it doesn't say a lot. What style did fergie have? The winning one. If McInnes had a single style in 8 years, we'd have been worked out by every other team. Our points totals always suggest otherwise. Strange you mention disciplined, I'd say we're extremely disciplined to a man. We're brilliant at closing out victories and we rarely hear of any off field misdemeanour (a sober Soul visit the pinnacle for these boring cunts). Professionalism is a definite plus factor. We're night and day as a club since pre-McInnes, when we were just a shoddy mess. McInnes' flaws are generally tactical and in player recruitment. They've been done to death.

I don't think today showed that at all, it showed that regularly giving people only five minutes in the park is unlikely to yeild a good return. Anderson has proved before now that he likely won't make it, but the answer is either not to play him at all, or give him an actual opportunity. Anderson has proven on many occasions that his finishing is excellent, its his all round play that is pish, but giving people a longer warm up than you do minutes on the park will always lead to a player lacking in confidence that will snatch at opportunities. That was an opportunity well within Anderson's abilities today.

Yep, I've liked Goodwin since I heard him interviewed there, he was very determined and very articulate and very knowledgeable. Although it's fairly unlikely that a St Mirren manager coming to the dons would be any good.

I think Goodwin would be a great appointment. I'm not sure we're anymore ready to appoint a new manager than we were last week.

He had a good post top six that season and the change in system with him up front was likely the reason we finished second ahead of the hun, so it was probably a good decision at the time.

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.