RicoS321

No, I'm saying the opposite. Overall, the decision was correct, but in isolation it looks like poor planning. Has he let Frank Ross go? I thought he was injured?

I like John Hughes, he's ace fun. It'd be a tremendous joke to play on the tartan army to have him at the helm for a bit. Really test their passion for the national side.

I disagree. Wright is of the age that he either needs to do something or get shipped. Another 6 months sitting on our bench with the occasional appearance here and there would have done him no good. It might have been useful for us in the short term, but we've got to put the development of our youth first and if that means we lose out on a player for the few games he might have been useful in then so be it. A good run of games at Dundee - if he gets them - is far more than we could have offered him. After 3 months rusting on the bench since January too, we'd probably end up with a worse player out wide than Stewart who he'd be brought in to replace. To me, it wasn't bad planning, it was just a choice that had to be made. I think McInnes took that short term approach with Wright a year ago and it totally backfired then, so he had to make up for it this time round.

Aye, important one. Would be nice to push the hun all the way for second with a very strong finish to the season (including beating them again of course). I doubt we will like (push the huns for second), but I think we've got a good chance this weekend. One thing about having a weak bench and injuries means that the team picks itself. -------------Lewis------------- Ball--Consi--McKenna--Lowe ----Campbell--Shinnie-------- -McLennan---May---Stewart- -----------Cosgrove---------- Might see Gleeson in for Campbell I suppose, but hope not. I'd actually put May out wide and Stewart through the centre, but I think McInnes will keep him wide.

Let's be honest, it hasn't been turgid for a few seasons. It's been poorer for two seasons. At points last season it was still a pretty high standard (based on our league and based on this century by any team outwith the cheeks). Three seasons ago we were banging in goals in a manner we haven't done since Shearer was up front. We scored 7 goals in more than one game and six in another. To say it was turgid is to hold AFC to a ridiculously high standard. We were excellent that season by any standard any non-scum team has set in the last 25 years. After losing Hayes and McGinn we struggled significantly but still turned out some excellent performances such as the hibs one at Pittodrie and we finished an impressive second in the league with some very good post-split performances. I think that's an acceptable state of affairs given the difficulty in replacing players lost. However, because we were so far away in our signings (May, GMS, Stewart, Maynard etc) it set us up for another poor season. May, GMS etc weren't terrible, but they were significantly poorer than what came before. Going into this season we followed up poor signings with poor signings and it's put us further behind. We've had some great results and a handful of decent performances (Hearts at Pittodrie, the early league games where GMS was playing well, the Huns at Ibrox etc), but we're grinding most performances out and one or two injuries are having a huge impact on the overall performance (Shinnie at the weekend, Lowe on boxing day). It's been mostly poor. I don't think we should overstate the problem, but still recognising that there is a problem. To me, getting a new manager in won't fix the fundamental issue with recruitment. One thing that the Tims did really well under Lennon in his first spell was set up a good recruitment network that put ready-made players under his nose with only the paperwork to go. We're either not doing that, or we've got the wrong people doing it. McInnes can't be expected to do everything on his own and neither can any replacement. That recruitment wing of the club needs a complete overhaul to get people who can decipher what the manager needs in a player and recognise that in players in other leagues. If I could see that Gleeson wasn't dynamic enough for our first team in 30 minutes, then our scouts should have. Scouts can watch these guys over 5-6 games, with a manger likely only to see 1 (Lampard only came up to see one dons game as an example before going for Shinnie) where a player could just have a good game or they are already sold on them by the scout. McInnes takes the blame, but the problem clearly is far more systemic (we've barely scouted and signed a good player this century). Guys like Tansey, Zola etc show he's hit or miss in his own judgement so as a club we need to do significantly better. In my opinion, McInnes showed a couple of seasons ago that he could get a team to play fitba, but a team with poorer players he resorts to game management and grinding out results. A change in manager will just be something different to that.

Would also be a pretty decent one though. I don't think he's as good as Shinnie (despite many suggesting otherwise when he was at Hibs) but he's good and he's good in this league. We can afford a few risks down South but we'll need the tried and tested to ensure that we don't end up massively worse next season. That's not specific to McInnes' ability to sign players either, just a general truism.

I've not seen any evidence at all that we received an offer of £6.5M for McKenna and I don't believe it for a second. Our director of football would be an idiot if he turned that down, final day or not. McKenna wouldn't have been the difference between us finishing second and fourth given the personnel we had at the start of the season in that position (Hoban, Devlin, Considine, Ball) and we certainly wouldn't have predicted the injuries we suffered. We could have picked up a free transfer like Halford to make up the numbers until January. The risk of McKenna having a poor season or getting injured just wouldn't have been worth the money not received given the average abilities of the rest of the team.

Agree with this, although I'm not sure if it was club spin or agent spin. It would have been ludicrous to turn down £6M for a dons player. That's the prize funds for 4 second places. I always said that £3.5M would be a good offer for McKenna, and I think we might get slightly more than that in the summer if we're lucky. £750-1000K for Cosgrove would be decent business too, but I see no need to move him on in the summer (we definitely need another striker though).

I agree in the main. But then I said the same as you last pre-season until I saw Gleeson and Forrester and changed my mind in a flash. If we had a youth team player with a bit of steel coming through I'd be comfortable ditching Ball as backup. As I said, if we can get a couple of midfield signings that we're happy with early doors in the window then get rid, but - like last season - if we take a punt down South and fail then we should snap him up as backup. Could you imagine if we hadn't had Ball this season? That charlatan Forrester or fellow fanny Gleeson would have played umpteen games and we'd be much further down the league. Campbell isn't yet as good as Ball (I have no doubt that he will be). I'm not saying that Ball is brilliant, just that there is a very high risk factor in assuming that a player we take in will be better. We will be looking at 2-3 new midfielders in the summer for the first eleven with a view to one of them being good enough to replace Shinnie and another to fill the gap left by Christie which we didn't solve last summer. The notion that we can replace an entire team in one window is a little bit niave, so if we have a ready made squad player the pragmatic thing would be to sign him. Put another way, given the turnover, I wouldn't be surprised to see us (if we let Ball go) having a midfielder sitting on the bench for an entire season that we couldn't concievably rely on to come on in a game like we did this season with Gleeson and Forrester. Hopefully Harrington will return from Montrose with the experience to provide competition/backup at right back.

In fairness to Ball, he's being asked to play in a role he's proven he's shite at. Also, his first yellow card was typical of the shite that only that card-happy wanker Thomson is capable of. A fucking awful decision. Just as bad as Ball's decision to go in for that challenge on Christie. That said, I do think there is some merit in keeping him as cover for our midfield next season (as there was this season). Unless we can get in a ready made Shinnie replacement pretty quickly in the transfer window then I think it'd be a big risk to go into next season hoping that the next Gleeson/Forrester is going to be better than the current Gleeson/Forrester. We know Ball's limitations, but we also know that he's good enough in midfield to do a shift against most of the teams in the league if we get injuries to our preferred midfield. Nobody is suggesting that he should be here as first choice midfielder. We'll have at least 4 first team players to sign in the summer and pragmatism would suggest that a couple of Ball-like squad players wouldn't be the worst back-stop. Anyway, we were pretty much awful all over. That said, without the sending off we would have held on until half time where we might have been given a boot up the cunt. With the missing players and the lack of talent in the surrounding squad we were on a hiding to nothing but you cannot afford to make any mistakes. Ball's red card is unforgiveable. We then have a 6 minute period of Christie on the deck to organise ourselves to see it through until half time. We didn't need a sub. We certainly didn't need to leave Cosgrove on that pitch who was only ever going to be wandering about permanently 6 seconds behind where the ball last was. Not his fault, but anybody that has seen him play (or any player of his style) knows that he's not the guy you need against a good team with ten men. It was a mistake from McInnes, and also an unforgiveable one. It was either Cosgrove for Devlin, or continue as was with a back three of Lowe, Considine and McKenna until half time - and that should have been blatantly obvious. The Ferguson challenge was dirty as fuck and McInnes should have said so post-match. On the sectarian side of things, it doesn't surprise me that our own supporters are using terms like "Fenian", they've doing it for years, often at our own players (McGinn). It seems more prevalent at away games. The notion that McInnes was getting sectarian abuse is a bit of a cop out in my opinion. Granted, I didn't grow up in the west coast so I don't really know how it must feel or if it irks you or is just banter, but I only heard chants about him being a "sad orange bastard" which I'm not convinced is actually sectarian. To me, he was sent off because he lost his discipline (which is actually unusual for him to be fair) because of the poor performance.

A surprise inclusion for Halford (is that his name?) at right back? May in midfield to replace Shinnie's workrate? Campbell in midfield? None are great options (harsh on Campbell of course, but I don't think he's quite ready based on his Motherwell performance). It's a real headache. I think McInnes will go: --------------Lewis-------------- Devlin--Consi---McKenna-Lowe ---------Ferguson----Ball------- -Mclennan---Stewart---McGinn ------------Cosgrove------------ I'm not sure what I'd do. Probably something similar. Ball isn't an adequate replacement for Shinnie, we'll lose about 20% of coverage on a single player, so we'll have to sit/end up sitting really deep.

It tells us that Clarke is a better manager, but I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise. Regardless of Clarke winning a trophy or not, he's done an excellent job, and he's sustained it beyond just the season that he took over, showing that it wasn't just "new manager bounce". He's significantly better than both Levein and Lennon (tbc Heckingbottom) too which suggests that it's not peculiar to McInnes. The average is based on total wages/squad size so squad size not totally relevant. As I said, poor signings meant we've probably got a disproportionally expensive bench, which I don't think Killie do to the same extent. I think the McCulloch - Clarke comparison is no different to the Brown - McInnes one. McInnes took us from 8th - 3rd with a lot of players from the Brown era who he just got to play better along with a few good signings (you could compare Robson with Mulumbu for example). It'll be interesting to see how Clarke gets on with re-building. I expect a lot of his signings to date have been from his recent past (watching, as well as working with). The less time he gets to watch other leagues will mean he has to rely on the Killie scouts a lot more (in the way McInnes has with us). If he has to rely on the judgement of others, I wonder it if will upset the cart a little. I don't know if he's added his own people to that area or not of course.

According to Statista, as at Nov18 we were averaging £138.67pa (3rd), with them on £62.82 (7th). I said double as opposed to 45/100. We're in agreement on Stewart, regardless of the circumstances. What I meant about them matching wages is that because of our shite signings, several of our first 11 will be on similar wages. Our higher earners like Wilson and Gleeson (presumably, given he was signed as a first 11 players) take the average up whilst sitting on the bench, whereas their higher earners will be on the pitch. Thus their higher earners vs our below average earners will greatly reduce the perceived budget gap. Guys like Jones, Power, Dicker, Broadfoot, Bachmann, O-Donnell will be on similar wages to the likes of Ball, Considine, Ferguson and Cosgrove.

I don't think that there is any question that Clarke is the best manager in the league. He's also out of our budget now. Killie pay half as much as us with a similar squad size. Not sure how that is made up in terms of earners, but given that they were matching us in the offer to Stewart it wouldn't be inconceivable to think that they had 4-5 players on similar contracts to some of our first teamers. I would think that Clarke has a far greater success rate with his signings, which makes a huge difference in cutting the gap between the budgets. I imagine that our average wage without Wilson, Hoban, Gleeson and Forrester (vs any crap signings they've made) would be massively reduced. Adding in GMS - missing for half a season - and our expensively assembled first team actually looks quite cheap. It'd be really interesting to get an idea of individual's wages (even just in wage-brackets) so we could actually work out a weighted team cost based on minutes on the pitch. I think our failings in the transfer market would leave us without a huge advantage over Killie. Not only does Clarke get more out of his players, but he gets better value for money on signings than any other team in the league. It's impressive like.

I hadn't heard Deek mentioning that before, that's interesting. It is the one area he appears to have done zero work on since arriving at the club. Every other department seems to have at least one DM appointment in it. It's pretty fundamental though. You're right that you always get Gleeson-type signings, however it is the volume of them and the glaringly obvious nature that strikes me as bordering on incompetent. Different players respond differently to the environment of course, but guys like Forrester, Maynard, Tansey etc were clearly never going to be of the standard. Yer Wilson and Gleeson are easier mistakes to make as they've got something about them and have attributes that would suit them to our game, and I accept that 2 or 3 mistakes will be made in each summer window. Really, a 50-60% return should be viable and I don't think that we've been close to that in the last 2-3 seasons (about 5 windows, which shows a repeated failure). With each passing window we've got weaker and weaker. With such a huge turnover due in the summer then that will inevitably be the case again. However, I do believe it is systemic within AFC so I'm not convinced a new manager would suddenly start picking up gems once their initial stock (from previous employment) wears thin. We can't expect everything from our manager, the club needs the set up to back him and I think we're way short.

It's an unenviable task like. We reached a high point a couple of seasons back when we were banging in goals for fun and got ourselves a record points total. Each transfer window since we've regressed. It's making it harder and harder each summer to replace those who are leaving. Shinnie will be a massive loss. One of the best midfielders in the league and will be the equivalent of losing Hayes a couple of years back. GMS has, unfortunately, been unreliable (and brilliant, at times). Max Lowe is also huge. I'm not convinced we'll be able to keep him and I think that will destroy the balance in our team. It's going to be a further summer of getting numbers in. It's a big turnover. Not only is it a big turnover, but there's a huge question mark over those who remain. May and Gleeson are three who I'd rather have an alternative in place but I think with their contracts as they are then we'll struggle to offload. Paying off Gleeson would be money well spent as he'll get a contract somewhere else and we can just pay the difference; he won't want to hang around here and he's behind Campbell at the moment (although I think he might play on Saturday as McInnes tries out options for the semi as Campbell clearly wasn't ready). I'd like to see May offloaded too, but I think we'll have to keep him just to avoid having to sign even more players. We have to be pragmatic, so I'd definitely keep Stewart if available because he's a decent player who we can get more out of. Most importantly, he's a known quantity. I'd also keep Ball on the same basis. That leaves us still to sign a Left back, a centre half (or two if McKenna leaves), a central midfielder (I disagree with TC, Ball wouldn't even be a tenth of a replacement of Shinnie - although I suspect that wasn't you stating your preference just what you think might happen), at least one wide player and a striker as a minimum That's a minimum of 5 first 11 players that we need, which is huge. At roughly 50% success rate (which would be an improvement) then we're looking at 10 players in during the summer. That's a real problem. With Wright an unused sub for Dundee last night then it doesn't look like we're getting back a ready made first teamer either, but Anderson seems to be progressing nicely and will hopefully take the place of May as first sub up front (I think Cosgrove has his limitations too, but I think we have to go with him).

Exactly. His distribution and lack of confidence on the ball was his weak point. He struggled after Anderson left. Whilst Devlin is a physically stronger defender than Reynolds, I think his lack of confidence and distribution will be an issue too - I think the two are quite similar. Both far from shite like.

Signs for Utd on a 3 year deal. Good luck to him, a solid professional that provided a good few seasons for us.

I suppose the problem that McInnes has is that every one of his wide players, bar GMS, would probably give their best performances through the centre. McLennan struggled out wide last night, specifically with the tracking part of the game (and tripping over the ball) because - as a youngster - he reacts to every knock or losing of the ball with a 3 second pause (like Magennis used to do) to complain or contemplate before chasing back. He was anonymous once Stewart came on. To an extent, Stewart does the same, which is why he's preferred in the centre. However, as a senior player, he should be disciplined enough to do the graft out wide as and when required. I have no doubt that if Stewart had played from the start last night, at some point he would have been shifted out wide, which he'd never have to have done at Killie. McGinn has proved (and improved) under McInnes that he has the work ethic and ability to play wide and centrally, which wouldn't have been the case under Brown I don't believe. At the moment the question is whether it's best for the team for Stewart to play centrally at the expense of McLennan (who may continue to play out wide, but he'll be the one playing shite instead of Stewart), or does McInnes try and keep all three front players happy by allowing them to switch around throughout the game. If Stewart keeps up his form from last night and brings McGinn into the game like he did, then it's undoubtedly the best option to continue through the middle and McLennan will just have to be content getting minutes and learning his discipline, getting involved where he can.

Maybe, maybe not. I think that if you're trying to motivate your players to beat a better team (or any team) then you need to deploy these types of tactic. I don't mean the tactic of playing to either of the above, but the tactic of getting your players to believe that they are. If you're playing Celtic for the nth time this season, then it's important to differentiate between what you did last time you lost to what you're about to do that's going to get the win. These descriptions of formation are useful tools in motivating your team or individual players within that team. They don't have to physically manifest themselves on the pitch in order to perform a function. I don't doubt that Ferguson would have described a player as playing off (or behind) the front man in order to get across to that player that they had to track back from the front more than usual. That said, what your describing is the punditry use of these terms I expect. The good thing about last night is that when Stewart came on, he played very high up the park and centrally, giving the effective 4-4-2 in which he was succesful with at Killie. It worked.

I liked it. Bit stupid in places, but original enough and good. Brit Marling very good.

Just back, a deserved, good and vital win. We made it difficult for ourselves at times, and we never look like scoring up until the point that we actually do. Good early sub in the second half, bringing on Stewart which really turned the game in our favour. He brought the anonymous Cosgrove back into the game by actually running onto his flick ons, held the ball up and made a couple of good incisive passes to bring McGinn into the game too. That gave McGinn the time and space to have an excellent second half. Alongside Lowe, they were the best two on the park. Stewart and Considine with good performances and Shinnie did the work of three players in midfield, which is extremely worrying given he's missing for the semi. Ferguson was largely anonymous and Campbell did okay but was right to be subbed. McLennan was fairly pap and needs a good boot up the arse and told to stay on his feet and concentrate. Ball was gash and gave the ball away too many times, which is worrying given he's likely to be in midfield for the semi. Thought McInnes poofed it by taking Devlin on at home, but then we did get a third so perhaps we can let him off. An absolutely sublime goal which justifies staying until the very end.

Didn't know there was a game. Fuck sake. Fucking midweek pish

I wish our board would make an imaginative appointment like Kurt Russell. He'd be an ace manager. Good though SeaBass, inspiring stuff. That said, how do we know that the Russian manager didn't make just as heartfely a speech? We'll need a lot more than a good team talk to beat the Tims. I think we can, but we need everything to go right - no mistakes, no injuries.

Some folk somewhere - I canna mine (maybe TC on here?) - were suggesting that we had a 22.5% sell-on clause. That'd be some fuckin deal if so, but I doubt it. What sort of figure do they pay for the likes of Fraser doon Sooth? Must be near £20M given he starts every week (I think)? Even at 10% it wouldn't surprise me if we end up getting more for Fraser than we do for McKenna.