RicoS321

Fuck, that was awful. And cold. Shinnie, McLean and McKenna a'rite, the rest atrocious. Rooney out wide is criminal, and punting it to May just a waste. Anyway, both teams were horse and we're still in the cup. Until next Tuesday, anyway.

Apparently supposed to be back in training some time in March, so more likely April when we see him. Could really do with him for the post-split fixtures.

^^^This. The charlatan should have been telt to get to fuck in January. Pointless sub on so many occasions. Zero benefit to us.

Surely the joke is the opposite? The martyrs risking themselves (I ken, there's zero risk in the NE at the moment) to get to their meaningless jobs? Our absolute certainty in the importance of the work we do that a couple of days will make a massive difference. We've attached such a god-like status to work that taking a few days off is deemed ridiculous, almost treasonous. Yet most of us probably sit in bull-shite jobs that could go tomorrow with little effect on the way the world moves. We should be encouraging folk to take the time off, spend it with kids or whatever when the weather is fun (for the kids of course...) rather than sitting through hours of frightened traffic all heading in the same direction. Fuck work, sna's ace. Edit: that wisnae a direct response to you DD

Thank god he's a fit and proper person though, otherwise the huns could have been in the shite.

Nah, it was far more nuanced than that min.... Basically, I think he should be getting a 50% return on good (or good enough) players and it's unfair to expect anything more. Up until this season I thought he'd just about got there. My issue has always been the glaring errors when signing players that he should know are not good enough, such as Tansey, Maynard, Goodwillie, Storey etc. These are easy mistakes to cut out. If we exclude those - which you obviously wouldn't - then he's still doing okay, with the massive caveat and generosity of counting May and GMS as decent signings. I think they both could prove good (not amazing, but first team regulars). They aren't value for money at the moment and I think they are the difference between us having/not a good season. Still plenty of time for them to turn that round. I've also said that we should cut him a bit of slack in January because it's difficult to get season-changing signings without sinking a fortune (or trading insolvently like the huns). Overall, I'm pretty apprehensive about letting him out with the kitty in the summer again, but far better clubs than us have managers who don't have the ultimate/only say in these things and I think that is a strategy that should work for us. McInnes identifies areas where he needs players and the recruitment team identify the best targets and a consensus is reached with the manager (rather than McInnes arbitrarily deciding he likes the look o thon Tansey). Lennon's Celtic days had this approach, and they were reasonably successful at picking up good players.

Meh, end of the season see how the land lies. Our baseline expectation is 3rd place and two semi-finals, or one final with a good draw, or one cup win with an even better draw. A good draw being if we don't get either of the two teams who pay more in wages than us. On one of the other threads recently I attached the study done in Engurland between 2001 and 2012 (and there's no reason to suggest Scotland is different in this regard - in fact probably worse given 4 games a season) that there is a 90% correlation between player salaries (total) and league position. That is quite staggering. It means that we have a 90% chance of finishing third place this season. It also means that only 10% of that positioning can be affected by improved (or shite opposition = -10%) management. I don't believe McInnes does/can get that additional 10% (or even close - very few managers do), and think he's pretty much bang on that baseline expectation. Similarly, I don't think he'll get us below that baseline either. He's steady. For me, most of his issues lie in the transfer market and I think a lot of his tactical decisions would be covered up if he'd got that part right. I'd argue that's the case for both Rodgers and Murty - and in general is supported by the evidence of salary versus league position. In Murty's case, the introduction of Murphy, Goss, Martin and so on will be the buffer they require. Out of our season's signings, zero have been successful apart from loanee Christie and known quantity McGinn. Had we got, say, Moult instead of May and GMS then we'd be having an entirely different season with some of the losses turned into draws/wins and a better league cup and european performance. Had we got an actual central midfielder instead of Tansey then we'd also be better off. Our poor transfer showing has meant that we've had absolutely zero leeway in terms of tactics and that's totally evident when we play better teams. The problem for me is that transfers are season specific and we could get lucky next season (I think Devlin is a good start FWIW) and that could improve McInnes' return and belief in his squad. I think that if we don't replace McInnes, then we should at least look to beef up the player scouting/acquisition team as it's clearly an area he is pap in and needs support. We can't afford another season of very bad value in the transfer market. We have a lot of key purchases to make again too. As ayrshire points out, there have only been a handful of successes.

Did Trump not poof out of 'Nam, citing piles or something? I think I might have made that up.

Hmmm, the word "can" doesn't mean "did".

Holy pishflaps.

Scotfree ----->Jesus---->Adam and Eve

Fuck that. 3-0 the dons. Considine hat-trick in the first 20 minutes.

Nope, it's because we're in the UK. This is bigger than just Rangers not paying their taxes. Pheonix companies are useful to donors who wish them to remain available. Rangers are just fucking it up for everyone else by making such a public shambles of their corruption, which should really stay behind doors.

Very interesting, cheers. You can see, over the years, the splatterings of their shady deals going through where everything was bought on credit and leased back to the them. It's safe to assume that was the other way in which the spivs took them to the cleaners on their way back by purchasing each individual asset and leasing it back to the club. Safe to say that what they are doing now is trading insolvently.

Far are ye getting yer quotes?

To be fair, I think that shows a level of self awareness/deprecation and he comes across as quite a down to earth guy on his youtube (I've just watched a few in the last couple of games). He doesn't strike me as the brightest guy, but he looks like he's trying to improve himself off the park and that can only bode well. Good luck to him.

On this one, he just says what 50% of Americans want. He didn't say anything that would have made voters think otherwise in the election, he's standing by his promises. If Americans aren't willing to give up their automatic weapons, then clearly more guns is the only answer. If they're too stupid to understand their circular argument then they should just continue to arm up.

Hunglasses?

Really? It'd be interesting to find out for certain. Could someone email him to ask? twatt@afc.co.uk

You should write the text for the BBC coverage Rocket.

Emmm... Devlin? We've got our centre back pairing in Devlin and McKenna for next season. The glaring holes in our first 11 are in midfield and up front. The only question we need to be asking is: is this useless cunt any worse than the Maynard useless cunt? If not, get him on the bench and throw Maynard in the sea. At one point he was a decent player. He hasn't been for some time. At least he's young enough that we might get something out of him at some point and he's got the right attributes that would do a job for us. He'll be pish, obviously, and probably won't even sign.

To be honest, it's pretty hilarious. Jingoism abound in the commentary too - Balding is a fud. It's the English approach to sporting events through and through - completely hype a person out of all proportion and then blame everyone else - or make pathetic comments that allude to the refs being wrong - when the inevitable happens. The actual people in the studio who play/skate in the sport were quite in agreement with the refs.

It's an interesting dilemma. More importantly, can anyone pick a team and tactics from our available squad that they think can beat the Tims this wikend? Belief isn't enough, we're way off them, and the midfield is a huge problem for Sunday. Do we have the personnel to press them? If so, who? I think that the only tactic could be to overload the midfield and kick them off the park and hope for a goal from a set-piece. The only bonus is their to trip to Russki in the week, but with Shinnie and Christie out and Nwakali being horse we've got a problem on our hands. That said, if we can utilise Nwakali's headless chickening higher up the park - out of the way - then we might manage to force some errors from their defence. If he sits deeper like he did against Hibs, we'll be utterly fucked. We could play Ball and hoof them about the place. I don't think Stewart is the answer and Wright seems to have died or something so we can't play McGinn centrally either. I'll go for: -----------------Freddie----------------------- Logan----Arnason----McKenna----Considine -----------O'Connor-----McLean-------------- McGinn----------Nwakali/Ball------------GMS ---------------------May----------------------- I expect McInnes to shoe-horn Rooney and May in, in some fucked up manner that will allow them just to play the ball around is with ease.

I think he'll walk away one or two seasons into Kingsford. It'll be interesting to see if he accepts the money from the sale of Pittodrie that he is entitled to as part of his preference shareholding. Can't remember from the last accounts, but there's a fair whack due on sale to both SMG (or maybe Milne individually) and AAM as far as I recall.

Did I? I'm pretty certain I said that it was very difficult to get good players in January (although at that point I thought he'd bought the young striker lad to replace Maynard on the bench and give us an option). I certainly didn't defend the previous window, which is when the damage was done. If he'd recruited a proper midfielder instead of Tansey then we wouldn't be having an issue when Shinnie is out. If he'd recruited a proper striker instead of Maynard (or even, god forbid, kept Stockley) then we wouldn't be having this issue. I've said on hunners of occasions that we're short in the centre forward role and everyone knows we haven't had a decent holding midfielder in ages. Chidi shows that going out and just loaning/buying a player to fill a gap in the squad is no use.