RicoS321

Coutts? The perennial dons signing. Is he actually any good? One of our midfielders is a Scotland u21, Shinnie has five caps and in team of the season and before that we had McLean who has looked comfortable at the top end of the championship. We need to be replacing with someone pretty damn good. Seems like a poor man's Don Cowie for me like, but could be wrong. Ross has looked good in the minutes he's been given and he had suitors down South a season or so ago. Expect him to replace Wright in the "next big thing" role. Hopefully he'll live up to it. I'd go for Logan as captain. Loose cannon who hates the fucking tims. Four signings in the next couple of weeks is the least we should expect. These guys will hopefully have been scouted to death and are genuine first teamers. Ball should be snapped up in a month's time once we realise the rest of our signings have been shite, not now.

Good point. Would definitely be worth having him on the bench if possible. You'd like to think that we design our loans in such a way as he'd be available. After all, we can send a player on loan for a couple of months (I think) and they can return to the squad. By the same token, given Dundee are now relegated, should we be cancelling Wright's loan spell to have him available? I'm assuming that there are issues with this type of thing, but I can't think what.

Will be interesting to see how Djoum performs on Friday like. Don't think he's a patch on Shinnie. Will be massively difficult to replace.

McGregor got goalie in team of the year? Farcical. Lewis has been much better and hasn't been an utter bellend at the same time.

I'd agree, but the difference between Rooney and Cosgrove is that Cosgrove is a young loon who can play a part as backup and give us an option of something different in games. Rooney would have always been a very expensive option in that regard and rarely worked as a sub. I'd keep Cosgrove, Anderson and ditch May and Wilson and get in a good first team striker. We'll need 3 strikers next season, and so having a 20 goal striker in Cosgrove is a bonus, but we definitely shouldn't be relying on him.

At a certain point you have to stop chasing the guy who at some stage may become a player. Wilson had plenty of opportunities earlier in the season and he hid. Constantly making runs into places he knew he wouldn't get the ball. He's clearly got ability, but he's forgotten how to play fitba as part of a team. He was okay on Saturday, but if that's a guy playing for his future in the game then we should steer well clear. It would be exceptionally high risk as we'd end up with Cosgrove playing the majority of games again with Wilson happy to take the bench (Anderson's chances then being limited further). We'd have to pay a huge chunk of money for a guy that we'd have to nurture through a large number of games before we saw any return (if at all). We've unsuccessfully attempted that with May and it's had a negative impact we certainly shouldn't be making the same mistake again. Would anyone be happy to see Wilson start the first ten games of the season with no return? We're not in a position that we can afford to do that in my opinion. To add, as LA-Don suggested that we give Wilson the patience we gave Cosgrove. Up until Cosgrove started scoring (i.e. earned his place) in December, Wilson had started every single game he was fit in both league and cup: 9 games. Cosgrove in that period had started just 3 (Wilson wasn't fit until the Motherwell game). We gave him a lot of time to prove himself.

Interesting. I suspect that there is a lot of that type of thinking in the game. We probably underestimate the additional cost required to persuade a player to come all this way up North. Whilst we have a 10% bigger average salary than the Hibees, I suspect that can be quickly eaten up by the extra bribery required to make the move. It's not like the cost of living is particularly cheap up here either.

Is it not Reading? Anyway, I think we're very close to Hibs in average wages all things considered. We could certainly offer a better package, but not a significantly better package. That type of offering can then easily be watered down by preferred location, knowing the club and players and so on. In other words, I don't think we could offer enough of a financial incentive if he's enjoying life in Edinburgh or loves working for Cuntingbottom or whatever.

He's been shot in the arm? I don't think a 5 year deal was a good idea in that case. Tremendous 'keeper like. Best since Leighton for me.

Exactly. If Dons Supporters' Together were any sort of fan representative group they would have setup (or at least attempted to, or asked for help in doing so) a rival DNA scheme, with publicly available accounts, that allowed dons fans to pay in. At certain threshholds, they would invest into the club. They could then lobby the club to point people toward that vehicle rather and ditch the DNA. To be honest, if the club really gave a shite about what the fans thought then they'd have created DNA in that mould themselves. Isn't that what hearts have done (obviously in different circumstances, given their admin)?

Exactly, but they'll just change what it was for because there was no accountability. When it comes to next years' DNA advert, they'll mention Max Lowe and "the next Connor McLennan/McKenna/Campbell etc", despite the fact it might have all been spent on a dud.

It meant I nearly didn't get a ticket for the Burnley match and that people who paid money got to go over those who actually attended games. It meant shiter seats at the cup final. And so on. Most importantly, it allowed the club to receive money from fans without representation, which further removed any control the fans may have had over the club by centring wealth on the club rather than the support - a dilution, if ye like. At a time when we're moving stadium without any consultation, mindlessly ploughing money into that project will - in my mind - have a huge detrimental effect on the future of the club as it moves to the middle of fucking nowhere.

Given the personnel, what would you think our best approach would be?

The problem is that the dross is not the "making up the numbers" element of our squad. The dross are the guys that were bought in to be the first team (the high quality signings). Ball, Considine and Cosgrove should have been our dross this season, but they are first team regulars, each with over 30 games this season. We simply cannot say "we need 2-3 high quality signings" because the return on player signings in this league is/should be about 50%. In reality, we need 5-6 high quality signings in the hope that 2-3 make it. We could significantly reduce our risk by signing Max Lowe for example. Signing Djoum is low risk (although I think he's worse than Shinnie, but still pretty decent) but you'd still want another midfielder beyond him. Cadden would be an excellent signing. Stealing McNulty from Hibs would be an excellent piece of business too. The point being that your high quality signings are players that we will already know about. That then comes with a wage bill by paying Djoum more than Hertz, or an even bigger wage bill by getting Cadden or McNulty before a wealthier English club comes in. Are there any other players you can think of in that bracket? If it's not this type of low risk tried and tested player then we're back to a 50% strike rate and the dross building up. As you say, we're way behind after 2 poor summer windows in a row, so we're roughly where we were when McInnes started, which I don't suppose is unusual in fitba. I'd be inclined just to ditch May, Gleeson and Ball in the summer and really just go full scale re-build.

Has it? Jesus. That's poor given the European monies. We do have quite a wage bill like and that will come back to bite us if we don't sort that out. I suppose we have to look at shifting on players like McKenna before he becomes too expensive to sit within our structure. Anyway, DNA's very DNA is flawed. It is designed to be relied upon. When people like Tyrant realise that it's pap and stop subscribing then you lose that income stream. It's not like the tangible payment of going to a fitba match, you're essentially paying for a feeling or - at best - a service. It's very short-term. In that regard, it can only really be used to fund season long loans like Wilson and Lowe or transfer fees or one off infrastructure projects. You cannot load a player permanently on the wage bill through DNA, as a decrease in membership will leave you short. Obviously, you can, but you have to be careful. Assume that you're going to lose 10% of DNA subscribers per year, and rising over 5-6 years or so. At that point you raise a new scheme to replace it. As a stop gap between now and the new stadium it's probably a good scheme. For the fans, DNA is not a success and it never could be. You're paying money without representation. You have no idea whether that money was spent on Wilson, replacing seats in the South stand or legal fees to fight the WANKS. Money for nothing basically. For the club, they got money for nothing. It's a success.

To be fair, they're all al cunts. You'd expect a high mortality rate.

I haven't heard how is Alloa stint is going. He missed a chunk of their games in the last month or two. Hopefully it was injury, rather than ability, related. Played every game up until March. Happy to have him as back up like if he's good enough.

The problem is, is that is what we tried to do last summer. We got a few key signings in as first teamers. We then spent the end of the window adding Lowe, Hobban, Wilson, Ball to make up for the fact that our initial signings were pap. We've ended up with a lightweight squad which wouldn't have been the case. We'd have been completely fine if Forrester, Gleeson and Wilson hadn't been shite. We've ended up with a squad with a host of extras who all need game time at some stage to keep them happy, but if Gleeson and Forrester had been up to it then Ball wouldn't have been signed. If we'd got Lowe in earlier, then Hobban wouldn't have been signed. If May and Cosgrove hadn't been average then Wilson wouldn't have been signed. The problem that we have is that we're looking for so many first teamers we'll inevitably get a good few dross purchases at the same time - it's the nature of the business unfortunately. Given the turnover again, I think we'll struggle to retain a light squad without being completely ruthless. For example, I'd happily have Cosgrove, Anderson and another striker up front but we'd have to ditch May. In the front 3 McLennan, Wright, McGinn and GMS replacement might again be enough. I'd happily have Ferguson, Shinnie replacement (Djoum), Campbell, New Signing in midfield but that would mean getting rid of both Gleeson and Ball. In defence we've only really got Harrington as cover for right back coming through, so Lowe (or Lowe replacement), plus Considine, McKenna, Devlin and Logan would seem exceptionally light so I'd get a Hobban type signing too. That is a minimum of 6 signings right there. Are you realistic about our ability to make 6 accurate signings in the summer window? I would think that we'd have to make ten signings in order to get 6 good ones (by good, I mean two midfielders that are better than Ball for example). That's going to leave us with an additional 4 players who we'll have on the bench fighting for time with the youngsters. Even that would/should be deemed a succesful window with a 60% success rate on signings. It certainly highlights the stupidity of those suggesting we get rid of Considine.

Is Ferguson not still suspended? I thought he had a two match ban? If Shinnie is missing, then I expect he'll play Devlin at right back and move Ball into midfield and Gleeson and play a 4-5-1. If Ferguson also missing then I think we're screwed (I think we'll struggle without Shinnie anyway).

I've always found that shiteloads of booze is an excellent bet at Perth races.

2021. The year that Scotland breaks free.

Ball just puts in a good robust challenge. There's no way he'd be cited for that. I don't see the leg headbutt on the replay, but that's not to say it didn't occur after. The ref is looking at the incident from shortly after the moment the ball goes loose, so he'd have seen the majority of it. There's certainly not enough video evidence to cite Ball for anything is there? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/scotland/48006978

I just watched it back. You're right, kicking him when they're down is poor, but it's a wee tap. It's like it's being done to get a reaction from our player rather than to hurt him. The sort of force you'd use to get someone off your foot if they'd landed on it. It just seems very weak to be a red like. I doubt they'd get it rescinded, but it doesn't seem worse than Morelos'.

Not a red card though. As per the Morelos precedent it should have been a yellow. Looked very similar in that it was a frustrated petulant kick rather than an attempt to cause harm (or whatever the wording was). They should appeal, citing the Morelos case and make their appeal public.

I'm not sure this happened.