RicoS321

It's nae 1970. No man should force his family to live somewhere they don't want to. I don't know if that's the case (that they don't want to move), nor do I care, but you don't either. But I still don't get it. You suggest the McInnes is a loser. You also suggest that he's using AFC as a stepping stone. In other words, he backs himself. He might be a loser, but he certainly doesn't believe that. He clearly has belief in himself, misplaced or otherwise. Yet still, he turned down two decent opportunities in order to stay with the dons, despite both equally as easy to get to from Glasgow (is that where is family is?), which suggests commitment. But even if he wasn't committed, so what? Was Ferguson committed to a career at AFC or was it a stepping stone? Lennon at Hibs? McInnes has shown a commitment when he's been here, he's changed the entire structure of the club and pushed hard for training facilities and even that wanky new stadium. That's more than Lennon even attempted to start at Hibs before getting himself the boot. There are plenty of valid arguments for criticising McInnes, you just seem to be grasping at stuff that has little evidence. I'm not criticising, just find it interesting. It's like you hate McInnes that much you've become irrational!

I might be in the minority, but I'd either play a back 3 or drop Devlin. His distribution has been awful all season. I thought he was excellent, defensively, before injury but from day one he reminded me of Reynolds who's passing has always been suspect too. I think it would be very harsh to drop Considine and Devlin would be a significantly worse right back than Ball due to the fact that he's not great on the ball. I think we'll go for a back three of Devlin, Considine and McKenna with Lowe and McGinn playing high on the flanks. However, that is only because I think we'll be doing that against the hun, and so it'd be good to get some practice in. I'd prefer to play McKenna and Considine with a traffic cone at right back (Ball deserves his place after the St Johnstone game).

Maybe he just considered his family? Enough of a man to take into account their well-being before his own if they were happiest where they were? Enough of a man to not need his family around him whilst doing his job (I don't think that's a good trait as such)? I've no idea of course, but I doubt you do either, and it's a strange thing to focus on. I don't know if he has kids at school or whatever. I don't know if there is any evidence that his family being in location would improve his performance or if it has had a negative one and, again, I doubt you do. I don't know if Neil Lennon moved his family to Edinburgh, or to Bolton either and nor do I think you do - without subsequently looking it up. I understand your dislike of McInnes, I just don't understand how it spills over into various points that seem to have no bearing on that and how it relates to Lennon's qualification as a manager. In other words, can we nae just look objectively at their records, rather than non-quantifiable/malleable bullshit like "how much of a man" someone is? I could easily argue that Lennon is a weak as piss whiney fuck who does his talking in the press and fucks off at the first moment things become difficult for him using every excuse under the sun apart from looking at his own failings. I have no idea if that is the case though, but it's a turn of phrase that could easily be made to fit. I've never seen either manager with their players, nor what they say to them behind the scenes.

Still out fae last night perhaps? I think that over the past few seasons the dons fans have been quite positive. Our home form over the last few seasons - if it has anything to do with support provided (which is what is being suggested) - would back that up. Weird time to be complaining about it.

He just got thrown out of Hibs for being a dick. In other words, it's not just AFC fans, it's professionals employed by what seems to be a well-run club. If Lennon is employed by Celtic, it will likely be as caretaker because he's out of a job. He was paid off/let go the last time he was at the club, and was clearly never trusted with a budget (players bought in for him etc), so he's clearly not deemed good enough. He's a decent manager, about the same level as McInnes. Good at motivating players for the big games, without any real success (2 wins in 11 vs the Tims), whilst unable to get a level of consistency against the other 7-8 teams that make up the league. I find it bizzare that you/anyone holds him in such ridiculously high regard. Like McInnes would, he'll easily return the league (and probably cup) to the Tims if he goes there, but the differences between the two are minimal - just a matter of style.

Strictly speaking, he hasn't left, just going for talks (as McInnes did with Sunderland). Anyway, Lennon in charge for their cup tie v Hibs? Tasty.

I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. High expectations and all that. I think I should have re-watched some of the old stuff to get me in the mood. It was decent like, it'll be interesting to see how it comes together as a series. It's more KMKY than yer travellodge Partridge which I think was the best stuff. I didn't think the guy at the touch screen was a great actor, which almost ruined a good scene. The co-presenter was good though.

I like Chris Crighton's column. One of the view worthwhile reads in the P&J. Perhaps he just had a bad day at the office.

Thank fuck we didn't play Shinnie at right back. He's our best midfielder by a long way. Good to see him getting a couple of goals. Only saw the last half hour. Ball looked decent at right back, defensively speaking. Wouldn't be convinced if he had to play there the rest of the season, but if he maintains that level of aggression in the challenge and gets in the face of the winger he might just manage it.

Intent is irrelevant. That isn't the rule. From Morelos' sending off: As Rocket suggests, he was making room for himself/jostling for position. There was no violent conduct. Regardless of what we think, or what happens on the tele in the premiership, or what happened last season or in previous seasons, the rules make it clear that there has to be excessive force or violent conduct, neither of which occurred in this case. By their own guidelines it is a yellow card. I am astonished that referees in Scotland - after the media coverage the Morelos case given and the clear misunderstanding everyone seemed to have over the rules (myself included) - do not have this down to a tee. It was an easy decision. I think Brophy went down like a sack of tatties in his attempt to win a penalty too. Nobody falls over when getting a hand on their stomach. I actually think that it was that which made the ref not give it. If he'd just gone down normally or stumbled then he wouldn't have looked like he was trying to con the ref.

I think yiv got yer black players mixed up? Or are you talking about another incident. It was Kamara last night.

I don't think McLean was ever "lazy" in the traditional sense in his time at AFC. I am 100% certain that his stats (ground covered, touches etc) would back that up. I'm also 100% centre that if the stats didn't back that up he wouldn't have been playing - it's very obviously something that McInnes puts a lot of faith in. He was off-form for a good portion of two of his seasons. He was often a fanny* in the tackle. His passing was shite, and he wasn't making the telling passes that he was completely capable of, choosing to make the easy pass instead (I think that would be classed as lazy). He never stopped showing for the ball. The positions in which he showed for the ball were often the easy positions to show for the ball (see Gleeson and a good period of Jack's career). I totally agree that it stemmed from not being dropped, and I believe/think/guess that was because McInnes put faith in the statistics that he was seeing from McLean. Perhaps, pragmatism kicks in for a manager, and if there were no alternatives in our squad then you maybe accept that a guy putting in a shift is sometimes enough. McLean played within himself as a result. He had a lot of very good games which he didn't get credit for too, because fans too a disliking to him (because he never got dropped). He was excellent when he came back in and for Maddison for the remainder of that season, but that didn't get the credit it deserved. In his last season, he was also good for a large portion of the beginning of the season before his announcement regarding the Norwich move. *I'm not sure if fanny is the right term, as he was perfectly capable of tackling. He would often go in with the wrong body shape and the wrong foot making him weak as fuck. McGinn is a good example of a fanny in the tackle and McLean was nowhere near that level.

Not on the hun game though? In charge of our game at Pittodrie v Stenny?

It's a staggeringly bad decision. Really bad. It's difficult to accuse anyone of corruption as there are numerous bad decisions on a weekly basis involving all teams, but this one just seems beyond shite. I'm not going to suggest full scale deliberate, but it's almost like the officials have been asked to be lenient toward Sevco here - it's almost like they're trying to even up the McGregor decision (which has had no discernable effect on them anyway) in some way. You genuinely feel that they operate on a tit-for-tat level when dealing with the hun over the course of the season. Like there's a genuine fear over the repurcussions of each decision involving them. Finally we have a decision that we can call on the Morelos decision from the first game of the season, which was extremely well covered and should be at the forefront of every referee's mind when looking at these types of incident due to its "new" (and correct) interpretation of the rules. They should know this inside out, and no ref should be making the same mistake that the ref did in our game (whether we like it or not, the rules are now clear and the red card was overturned). There is only one reason that the goalie could have been red carded last night, and that is that the linesman (it wasn't the ref I don't think) has witnessed* the incident and seen the 'keeper hit the player. He's seen contact inotherwords. At that point, we then refer to the Morelos incident to reference what constitues a red card. There has to be intent to harm. If the assistant has seen the incident properly* then he absolutely must come to the inclusion that there is no intent to harm there. It is quite simply a brush off (and even that's being severely harsh) at worst. If the referee/assistant has seen the incident in full* then the correct decision for that foul would be a yellow card. That is the precedent set by the Morelos incident and any referee who doesn't know that given the profile of that incident shouldn't be refereeing in this country. *What I think has happened is that neither linesman or referee have witnessed the incident properly and have made their decision based on the reaction of the player. It's the 21st century. No ref should ever be basing their decisions on the reaction of a player. Players (including even AFC) are taught to go down as part of their training. If you don't see the incident, you can't give the red card. It's exactly why the post-match panels exist - a ref can't be expected to see everything and it's a completely acceptable thing for a ref to say that he didn't see it. Would VAR have solved this issue? I don't believe it would. The ref would have got a hundred slow-motion replays of an incident and would have based his decision on "contact". They genuinely don't seem to understand the rules. I'd say that it's the worst decision I've seen this season. It's really bad. For the sake of balance, I didn't think Brophy's incident was a certain penalty and his reaction to the touch from the hun makes it understandable as to why the ref would not give it (I wouldn't have).

Understood. Nae up on my chocolate biscuits.

Maybe edit that bit oot min.

Aye, SDP were popular in a UKIP style. Lots of votes but no representation. The independent group are riddled with types who wouldn't dream of dismantling FPTP. They just want their parties to return to whatever state they were in in 2000-2010(ish) so that they can re-join them. They are not required to have by elections as we are in a representative democracy. We vote for a representative who will put forward the views of their constituents without being held to party political views. That many peopl might think that they were voting for labour is neither here nor there. They were voting for a candidate who belonged to a party. Otherwise we'd just have parties on the ballot.

It's also a heap of nonsense. Some people don't work hard. That's always been the case. If Ian Robertson had just worked a bit harder he could have been a better left back. If Dennis Law had pushed himself just that little bit further he could have ended up at the dons. In reality, there are very few people of any generation who actually reach their potential in life. There are numerous examples (McKenna, Fraser, Jack, Shinnie etc) of young lads who work very hard and make the grade so the generic "lack of desire to work hard in the younger generation" doesn't stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever. Look at the young kids striking over climate change because their parents and parents' parents fucked up everything for them. It's just lazy, ageist stereotyping.

I actually wouldn't mind that. For example, I don't think Ross will be good enough, nor Rogers. I think that we have to be able to write off players - and even get that wrong - quite quickly. To me, there's a responsibility to the youngster too and that can sometimes mean telling them to keep trying elsewhere/go down a level or whatever. We seem to want to have it both ways though, by keeping them on longish contracts and then spend 54 games as an unused sub. I actually think that the way we treat our "failed" youngsters is vital to the success of our succesful youngsters too. If we're getting rid of a young player, we need to do all we can to find them another club and help them in their future career. We don't want to be in the position that we were a few years back where we appeared to just drop players (a lot of players) on a whim. If a player - like Ryan Fraser for example - sees his teammates treated as cash-cows then he's not going to give a shite about signing a new contract to ensure that the club gets some dosh for him. We need to foster an attitude that says that yer kid will be well treated at our club (we've already got an advantage over Celtic in this regard...) regardless of success.

Aye, totally. He seemed to have full confidence in his starting eleven no matter how shite they're playing up until the 65th minute. Although there have been a number of half time subs this season, which shows a nudge in the right direction (or individuals are just playing even shiter). It also takes him at least 5 minutes to get a sub from finishing the warm up onto the pitch. In my opinion, the lack of quick change was partly responsible for the second St Mirren goal at the weekend. Managers seem not to notice that subs can sometimes just break up the game for a little bit and often take a sub on directly after a goal rather than pre-empting it (Wilson on Saturday). We certainly don't. Not a visible one anyway. McKenna is still being held up as the example of youth doing well in our team, but there has been nobody following him and nobody preceding him either (under McInnes). We've narrowed our squad nicely since January too, so there should be the opportunity for more game time. We're still making the squad-pandering subs that keep likes of Ball and Gleeson happy in games where there is no danger in bringing on a youngster.

Yep, that's it. I missed the full 90 minutes he got v Ross County in the season 15/16. So he's had 3 full 90 minutes and two of those were on the final games of the season (both meaningless - notably he didn't start v Celtic in the meaningful last game of last season). It's a good overview min, cheers. What stands out for me is the 54 unused sub spots he's filled in the league (70 odd in all tournaments). That must put you in a certain mindset. It also strikes me as a more systemic issue that I've highlighted before. We should really be putting targets on McInnes to play youngsters in X number of games. Come January, if a youngster is unlikely to fill their quota then McInnes has to either strive to meet that target or send them out on loan. At no point should Wright have been playing 27 minutes of fitba between last January and May. It's easy to criticise McInnes for this, but it has to be a club responsibility. McInnes' job and career depends on winning games, so if he feels he can definitely win games without the "risk" of playing youngsters then he'll take that option. Youth team minutes/games stats and targets from above down would highlight a club strategy/approach that would also give McInnes a bit of leeway(excuse) if those youngsters are not up to it.

It is compared to Corbyn's labour party though isn't it? It's very much wedded to the Blairite position, or the Ed Miliband position at best editorially speaking. Overall though, Rocket is right, there is an economic system designed around globilisation and maintaining a status quo. All of the UK's papers sit comfortably within that framework. That one might think an Isis girl should come home and the other think she should piss off to a brown country is a irrelevant distraction that give the impression of a left and right. What would a "centric voice" do to break up traditional politics? How would it solve our systemic global issues? The problem with centrism (very generally speaking) is that it doesn't solve any actual problems because to solve them you have to go one way or the other. If by breaking up traditional politics you mean dissolving the power of the labour party then you're right, it works. That has almost zero chance of breaking up FPTP and as far as I'm aware that isn't the intention of these well-meaning and principled politicians.

I think it is a subject that Labour probably recognise they aren't going to win either way so they try and say as little as possible. The faux outrage by the "rebel 7" is exactly that though (perhaps bar one or two). Self serving cunts.

As far as I'm aware, he's not completed 90 minutes in the last couple of seasons (if at all).* Aye, fair enough, although we finished second which was a decent achievement. Regardless of whether you or I think that Wright should have been getting games, the manager clearly knew in January that his chances would be limited and it was irresponsible of him not to send him out on loan. He got 20 minutes of football after the January window. It was a ridiculously bad piece of management (from the outside, looking in - he may have been being a complete dick behind the scenes). *Edit: he played 90 minutes in the Hamilton opener at the beginning of last season and the Partick (hat-trick) game the previous season.

Chukka and friends resign to create new new labour. A new type of politics for the 21st century, leaving Labour as the only remaining no-jews-allowed party. A great day for politics. A new beginning.