RicoS321

He missed 18 games in 9 seasons according to your own statistics. That's a sign of a player who most definitely isn't injury prone. Who else has an average injury rate of 2 games per season over nearly a decade? There's no pattern there until he reached Aberdeen (why do you even think that there is?), his ankle injury clearly taking its toll more than normal for that type of injury. He's a guy that has always prided himself on his fitness, so I think a degree of bad luck is apparent in this case.

He wasn't injury prone though. He also doesn't come across as a charlatan at all. Could you not accept that there might be a possibility of bad luck in this instance?

Fuck, I forgot about Stephen Hughes! Hartley was decent for a few months, just couldn't retain his fitness and Rae wasn't totally shite. Robson was good, Anderson too. In reality, we don't actually take too many older players back up the road. Bryson was still a fit guy in his early thirties, there was no good reason for not getting a couple of good years out of him, I think we just got unlucky. I suspect the success of our signings of older Scottish guys is probably about on par with our signing of lower league English pish and Venezualan fullbacks. I think it's fairly important not to get too hysterical about it either like some folk do. Transfers are not an easy thing to get right and you're really hoping for 50-60% success rate, so you're always likely to get some dross. It's important to focus on that (arbitrary) ratio of success, which McInnes has been failing to meet for the last few seasons. Ironically, it appears he has a 100% success rate this season with the transfer kitty limited (I'm discounting Edmunson of course). Hoban, Hayes, McRorie and Watkins have all slotted into our first 11 comfortably so far. The pressure of not being able to spend willy nilly is perhaps a good thing. The club just need to get a better setup in place for scouting and rating players.

Difficult to say though, the lack of match sharpness was very clear, McLean, Fleck, Armstrong and McTominay especially. The next set of games will give a much better indication. Seems like Clarke wants to play a back five, but McKenna is the only reliable centre half in the squad at the moment. Think we'll really struggle if we get past Israel, but we could well fluke our way to a tournament if we just avoid getting covid.

That's a fucking awful performance, but a good result. Players just looked way off the pace, which is maybe understandable at this stage of most of their seasons. Dykes did quite well, McKenna fine too. McTominay with probably the worst defensive performance this century. Fucking awful like. Looked like a midfielder playing in defence.

Nonsense. 4-6-0 will bring home a glorious draw.

I think there's a lot more reasoning behind the black vote than identity politics. I couldn't think of a single person who uses identity politics more than populists like Trump either. Unless you think asking for equal rights for black citizens is identity politics, but Trump telling black/Muslim congresswomen to go back to their own country isn't? In reality, if you filter through Trump's various tweets, you'll find almost zero policy, and almost all identity politics. The rest is complaining about "the left's" identity politics. Although I wouldn't be a democrat myself, I don't believe another party (they already have the US greens) would be useful, or about as useful as the Lib Dems in the UK. We've got a plethora of parties in the UK, but our (UK and US) political systems aren't setup for utilising these. We're like the SPFL, whereby the entire thing is viewed through only two lenses. Nothing short of full-scale ripping up and starting again would be the ticket in these countries. If actual democracy is the intention (which I don't think it is). An independent Scotland might help this side of the water.

You could be right like, I just didn't see too many avenues into which he can grow. Already he seems to be an intelligent player, his strength is good, but I don't see his pace improving, which is a big deal for me, and one I think will set him apart from other international strikers. Despite a decent return at Livingston, he wasn't at the level of a Rooney (or Shankland perhaps...remains to be seen) in terms of timing of runs into the box and getting in front of the defender. He's that sort of in-between type striker who doesn't really stand out for one reason or another (like Brophy), but he's got a bit of grit about him that will hopefully make up for that. I was being reasonably complimentary when I compared him to Thompson, I think he was an intelligent player. I think Scotland will need better than Dykes, but at the moment we don't have better, so hopefully we get him out there and give him the opportunity, rather than trying to shoehorn Christie or McGinn or someone else in there.

I think Dykes is average. I'd put him at about the level of Steven Thompson (pre-St Mirren). Mid table championship. Nae quite got the skill of a Fletcher, but strong and good with his body. But I'd have him in the starting 11 for the reasons you state too.

I think that's harsh on Fletcher. I seem to remember Scotland dicking him about before he did the dicking in return. I'd actually have him in the squad even now, just because of the lack of options. I agree regarding McBurnie. Lad's got issues. He's also been pish in every single minute he's played for us.

I don't know what you mean regarding liberal and lord of the flies? For one thing, we don't get much CNN over here, we just see the orange nutjob talking absolute shite and we're expected to decipher US politics from that. Previously, hopey mcchange gave us meaningless oratory whilst firing his drones at Afghani weddings. Most of my US political knowledge comes from books or long form articles in the different US papers. I know quite a bit about the voting system, possibly not so much about the state level differences at the micro level.

But the democrats (as in the party itself) don't think Sanders is a better candidate, they didn't want him near the election. Hence the ridiculous voting requirements in California. The democrats are as establishment as the republicans.

What does "gone so liberal" mean to you?

Out of those that ran, who was the "unsafe" candidate.

Bloody kids. Can't keep their hands off each other.

Sounds absolutely shit. But we'll likely benefit. The amount of yank money (and German in the case of Dunfermline!) moving into the Scottish game suggested something bigger was/is afoot in the European game. This will be a pre-cursor to something bigger and with more money for teams in that middle teir like the dons, hibs, the arabs etc. If we're not already there, we'll be looking at a three teir system (the scum, us/hibs/hearts/utd, the rest) in the SPFL as opposed to a two teir (the scum, the rest). I think a lot of dons fans will lap that up, it's not for me like. If we hadn't already, we'll become everything we hate about the scum but on a cheapened level.

Yes and no. Trump is only the +/- 5% part of the voting, like in the UK (England), most are partisan along red or blue lines regardless. Trump and the Republicans will get 35% of the vote just because of generic voting. The battle is for the 5% swing in those key states. Gerrymandering and cheating the system will take account of almost all of that. Trump's attack on the postal voting system is just another part of a long, well funded and well designed system of voter suppression, ballot fixing and outright fraud. In terms of Biden, I think he's a tool. Just another of the same tired old crap that gave us Clinton(s) and showed Obama up for the non-entity that he turned out to be. That said, his largely inoffensive nature is possibly a good thing (if you want a democrat win). His lack of real policy, his harmless centre right stance might be enough to win by just not being Trump. There's nothing concrete that the media will be able to go to town on him for and - most importantly - his "own side" of the media will back him 100%, unlike somebody like Sanders who definitely wouldn't represent their interests. It might just be enough to swing the vote in the key areas, but he'll need to win big if he's going to actually win as Trump will challenge it all the way and the systemic fraud and Republican justice system will see to it that any moderate win is a loss. The real issue with Biden for me is that he represents very little change in reality. He'll bring in a competent government, make some minor changes that help some of the poorest in the minimum way possible, will do the basics on climate change, roll back on Iran etc. He'll win himself or Harris a second term. He won't have enough of a majority to do anything useful and he won't fix the voting system and general donor-based con that is the American political system. In 8 years time, the public will get largely bored and a more intelligent Trump will come along (Paul Ryan, let's say) with a nastier set of values and the willingness to see them through and the yanks will lap it up. Climate change's effects will be more severe, immigration "worse" and world politics more volatile. They'll vote him in just at the very worst possible time (worse than now). You then get 8 years of a Paul Ryan instead of Trump. You'll simply never get a move from Democrat to left Democrat in the US, it always goes from Bush to Obama, Clinton to Bush and so on. I firmly believe that the yanks (and us) need the jolt of seeing what's really behind there political system, to really challenge it properly. I don't believe they've woken up to just how slimy Trump is and who he represents, because if they did then Biden wouldn't be acceptable either. Nothing short of full scale change of the American (and UK) political system will do. If four more years of Trump is what it takes to get America so low it can revolt, then that's what it has to be. There is no route via Joe Biden (that I can see) to fix the systemic problems that will lead to the breakdown of the planet and thus, I would assume, more war. I'm sure I'm missing something, but for me "not Trump" wouldn't get my vote.

We'll take all those teams, they're pish. Sporting lesbian at pittodrie with a big north sea wind in the air. Belt the whoors back to Portugaland.

I think it was one of those "could go up to..." fees with add-ons etc. From memory, it was £400K going up to £700K. I'm all for McInnes having less power over transfers, but if that's the alternative the club needs to sort itself out.

Cosgrove had great work ethic at the start of last season. He had clearly worked on it from the previous season and was covering much more ground, taking the ball in the channels etc. Scored some great goals too, showing his touch is good. He seemed to take a huge dip when we moved to the new training ground. Whether he took on too much in training, or he got tired being part of a team that were getting worse by the week and hiding behind his goals and punting it to him. I think his own sulky attitude brought him down quicker, but that can be worked on and not unusual in a young player. With the right management he can go on to have a significantly better career than Watkins. I'd be very annoyed if we don't take advantage of that by offering him a much better team and style to play in.

He's not as good as Cosgrove, on the ground or in the air. We can choose to play on the ground with Cosgrove in the team. But it's not really about being on the ground or in the air for either really, it's about getting the ball to them quickly. I'd happily have Watkins of course, he's a good player, but he's nae scoring 20 goals a season.

Aye, mods, I think you missed one when you were handing oot the cairds. This one's got nothing to add to life.

I disagree, we're perfectly capable of playing the ball on the deck when Cosgrove is playing, the important thing is movement in and around him. Our problems last season stemmed from McInnes flooding the midfield with exactly the same player and chopping and changing the wingers every six minutes. If Cosgrove had the movement around him today at times last season, he'd have been a far better player (we did have that at times early in the season). Cosgrove has a good touch and lay off and is excellent when you get the ball to him early. Better than Watkins and Main, definitely. It's when you lazily pack the midfield and hopefully punt it to his coupon that he struggles. Wright didn't do that much on the ball today, but his movement was terrific and obviously Hedges too. Cosgrove scored twenty goals before Christmas last season, and there's absolutely nothing about his game that means we have to sacrifice the way we played today. We can - and should have - both the great movement, quick play and the twenty goal per season striker. McInnes just needs to get that. Other teams can see it in Cosgrove, that's why he has a price tag that Watkins and Main together could only dream of. Obviously, my comment comes with the huge caveat of McInnes getting that!

McRorie been excellent. The Hedges, Wright link up would have been some goal if they'd finished it.

Nice work. Did you hollow it out? Controversial with all that wid. Think I'd have ripped it into pieces for front, sides etc. Looks great though, will be interesting to see if it there's a lot of movement over time. Fit type of wood is it? Looks like a mahogany or gum maybe? Nae really up on my Aussie timmer.