RicoS321

Exciting opening to the season. Great performance in the circumstances. I've never seen that ref before, and I hope I never do. Hearts were cynical as fuck and how they finished with 10 men, I'm not sure. Constant, deliberate, hacking that could have been brought under control pretty quickly by a stronger ref. Anyway, it made the victory even more sweet. Cosgrove again was excellent, Logan was good and Hedges and McGinn both good when they came on. McKenna was pap against the big cunt, Considine considerably better, which is worrying. More worryingly Wright poor again and Wilson absolutely atrocious. Wright is a low-cost youngster who will either make it or he won't, Wilson was a high risk signing and he seems to have reverted to last season's form. That's going to put a lot of strain on the squad as we can't expect McGinn to be good in every game and McLennan is a bit raw still. The signs are that we are a better team than Hearts, but that's about it so far!

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That was an enjoyable evening's fitba like. Great performance and some great play and superb goals. Best all round performance of his career from Cosgrove, he did everything right tonight and worked his arse off. If he can play half as well as that consistently this season he'll score 30 goals. Good all over the pitch and a great confidence boost for the Hearts game. Difficult to tell how good a performance it was obviously, as it's not obvious who you would compare thon lot to in Scotland, so Sunday will be interesting. I'm hoping we go with a similar line up, but I have a feeling we might see Bryson, which would be a shame. Wright did well when he came up, with a really confident finish (could you imagine May in that position?); he doesn't seem to let his previous poor performances in the first 11 get to him at all but he needs regular game time and chances to fall for him. Roll on Sunday and then Rijeka.

As the undisputed biggest superfan on this site, I think I know a little bit more about the youth team career of Miko Virtanen than you......

I thought that he moved to centre mid half way through last season and was playing there now?

I suppose McKenna was the break through at centre half. Last season was the first time in years we didn't have a reasonably settled defence for the entire season so guys like Rose (looks a decent player), Harrington, Harvie etc were just allowed to leave after loan spells as there wasn't ever likely to be the opportunity for them. Defence is always a difficult one, as nobody ever likes to unsettle the defence by giving a youngster some game time (instead of Logan for 20 minutes for example) in the same way that you can afford that time to a winger or midfielder. Also, you generally need to make attacking changes rather than defensive ones so you're really just holding out for an injury. Shame, as I'd like to see us bring through a young fullback (McKenna being still a fairly recent youth success in the middle) as it's been a long time since we've had one. They all seem to be very young in our youth team though, which I suppose makes sense if we've ditched a few recently. I think that fullback is a lot more physical these days for a younger loon too, as you have to get up and doon like a fucker or be aggressive with the attacker in the case of Considine. A difficult role.

Rocket, TC's example above is what I would class as reasonably ambitious. Not breaking our wage structure (which is generally related to our turnover), whilst improving our team in order to get more folks through the door in order to increase our wage structure. I just don't see McKenna (as opposed to Findlay mentioned above) as being the difference between us finishing second or third, getting into the Europa league or winning a cup.

I would say some, not many. Some have improved. I think Shinnie, McLean, McGinn, Hayes, Considine, Lewis, Logan, Cosgrove (so far), Rooney were all better than under McInnes than they had been previously. They all seemed to enjoy playing for him too. The biggest issue for me is his inability to turn young players like Scott Wright, McLennan and so on into regular first team successes. He tries to make things far too difficult for players breaking through rather than give them basic instructions and a few simple tasks and allow the 7-8 more senior players to cover for their deficiencies and then increasing the instructions as they gain experience. Lack of ambition has to be tempered with realism though surely? If we were offered £5M+ for McKenna (I agree with you, we wont - certainly not this summer) then the only question is if we can get a good replacement for a significantly smaller sum that would allow us to develop elsewhere and put the remainder towards future development of youth through better training facilities or a shitey stadium in the middle of nowhere. I think I could buy a good centre half and a good striker that would make us a better team for £2M whilst still losing McKenna and putting the remainder toward capital investments that helped to create more McKennas. That's not unambitious, that's just good logic. I don't want the club to be beholden to a hoose builder for constant investment.

There is rarely optimism and false hope in any of my posts if you were to look at them. I think I'm quite a realist. Me suggesting that McKenna hasn't regressed is hardly an example of blind faith, if there is regression, it's very marginal. In terms of the team, again I'm a realist. I stated at the very beginning of the last two seasons that I thought our recruitment was poor and that we had a poor team that would struggle to win anything or finish in the top two and that's exactly what happened. I'd say that it was my realism in how poor a team (squad, really) we'd assembled that meant my expectations were low. I think that our recruitment has been terrible in the last few years and mentioned it in nearly every single post. I'd say it's the primary cause of our poor form, our very ugly performances and thus a reduction interest in AFC. We went from a team that scored a record number of goals in a season, playing some really really good football on the way - under McInnes - to one that deliberately stifled games to see out results in an absolute desire for points on the board over performance (which actually worked when we pipped the hun for second, but showed its obvious flaws in the cup). I've mentioned a hundred times my thoughts on AFC's plans. McKenna was not infiinitely better in my opinion, it's just that most people were uncritical of the mistakes that a young loon was regularly making. He carried quite a few of those into his second season but finished the season strongly and looks fitter and stronger still this season. I don't think that your example of Andy Robertson is particularly relevant to McKenna as I don't believe McKenna has ever been close to that category of player and nor is likely to get there with his skillset. I don't believe McKenna will (or would have with some other manager) make it to the level of Ryan Fraser, but even he experienced a good couple of years where he struggled to make any impact (indeed, his performances even dipped in his last month or so with the dons as defenders worked out how to double up on him and make things difficult). Maddison flew onto the scene as a youngster before ending up at the dons on loan. It happens to almost every young footballer as they try to re-invent themselves and really work out what it is they need to do to get to the next level. Russell Anderson a very notable example for the dons. I have not suggested that McInnes is the man to turn McKenna into the next Alex McLeish but he's got a player that's playing regularly for Scotland and a player that plays with absolute confidence in his own ability with a fantastic temperament. I'm happy to criticise McInnes - and regularly do - with regard to his handling of youth players, but I see very very little to criticise in the case of McKenna.

I've yet to see any evidence of the £6M offer, and I don't believe it occurred. There only seemed to be confirmed bids of around £3.5M last year and I could see that being matched this season. I also dont believe McKenna has regressed at all. He had numerous poor games and a temporary dip in form as you'd expect from a youngster, but I think his overall game has improved and I think that'll begin to become more obvious this season as he gets more and more confident. I think we'll start see him imposing himself a lot more and taking the ball forward a lot more too. He's not worth more than £3-4M in my mind, but I think that a good 6 months could see him stretch that a good bit.

Aye, McGinn cannot be relied on for a season of creating like. I took positives from the fact that we had to dick about with the formation several times tonight but managed to grab a goal. The Georgians were definitely more organised at the back than the Finnish mob I'd say, but we nullified ourselves by covering for Bryson and having Hedges as a wing back. I think that's fine at this stage of the season.

Just watched the last episode tonight on channel 4. Fantastic. Jonathan Meades on Jargon on BBC4 right now folks. Worth it.

Bit harsh and McKenna, who had an excellent game. We were okay in spells, kept it tight and got the away goal. Cosgrove did alright in the second half too, some good movement. Hedges did well out of position, McGinn quiet and Gallagher pap. Bryson lethargic as to be expected and Logan had a decent second half in spells too. It must be difficult to go and play in a hot environment and unsure of yer opposition, so fair play. I'd like to see us take the game to them in the second leg as we should be stronger than them. I'd give Bryson a rest and let Ferguson and Ojo do the business in midfield with Wilson or Wright in front. Considine showed that he's a significantly more qualified defender than Taylor, so if Leigh is anywhere near fit then get him in or find a left back fae anywhere else.

I hope McInnes' decision to make one change from my line up will not come back to haunt him.

What's the injury to Leigh anyway? It's a vital position for us given the previous impact of Lowe in that role. Considine has been fine in far bigger games than tonight and if he gets on top of his man he'll be an asset, but it isn't something we can contemplate for the remainder of the season. This boy better be decent when he gets fit, I'm a little concerned that he might be one of our signings that doesn't do the business. Based on nothing like, I'm just apprehensive. Anyway, I'd go: Logan-----Taylor-----McKenna-----Consi ----------Ferguson---Ojo/Bryson-------- --Hedges--------Wright--------McGinn-- ----------------Cosgrove----------------- Depending on fitness of the two midfielders obviously. I'm going for Wright ahead of Gallagher for fun. I'd like to give him a few more games this season before giving up on him entirely. Games like these need to be the test of the loon.

Do you mean cannot? Or should not? Is he injured, I mean, or is it just that you think that he's pap?

I voted Yes, but I only ever used the "England could even vote for Boris Johnson as PM and there's nothing Scotland could do to stop it" as a ridiculous example that would never actually come true.

I wonder who will get the number 83 shirt?

Nae announcement yet, ye certain?

Ferguson did look knackered, but there were also no alternatives last season with Gleeson being pap. If Ojo and Bryson are as good as we assume that they would be, then Ferguson can be rotated with those guys further back, or rotated with Wright or Gallagher further forward. Campbell also seems to be progressing nicely, so I'd rather see him used as a good backup if he's not going out on loan. I'd rather we signed a striker as I don't think Cosgrove is quite good enough, and I don't think Wilson is the answer to many questions.

Well done LA-Don. I'm away to check the likely opponents in the play-offs.

Bojo. Jesus christ.

For me, it's a case of bad recruitment rather than wrong useage or tactics. I don't think we should have had to adapt our system completely in order to accomodate May, but I think we'd have probably had to in order to force it to work and I don't think he'd have been worth it. St Johnstone might want to adapt their system to get May scoring, perhaps alongside a bigger partner in a two up front. That may make the difference between them finishing bottom 6, top 6 or being in the play-offs. We've reached a ceiling that May returning 15 goals would be of little use to us as he simply isn't good enough to take us beyond the levels that we reached with Rooney there - no amount of tactics would have helped us in that regard I don't think - where we had a striker that was good versus the bottom 9 clubs but not good enough against the Tim and in Europe. We've seen that replacing him with Cosgrove can get us back to that 20+ goal a season that Rooney had us at. I don't believe Wilson will take us beyond that either and I'd like to have seen us sign a good striker that could take us further than Cosgrove. Good luck to May like, a hard worker and good professional.

Probably not, but the huns have a better team than us and should overcome the Danes, so it'd have been nice for them to have had a much harder draw. I'm assuming that both they and us would be unseeded for the playoff game now though (I don't think we'll get through for what it's worth)?