RicoS321

Really? Were you scunnered when we demolished Dundee 7-0, Motherwell 7-2 and Partick 6-0? We played fitba we haven't seen since Miller was in charge last season. He's bought relatively badly in the summer it seems, but that can be put right in January.

The problem is that your making two points here. Surely the latter point "he allowed to drag on" is utter shite and we can all see that now? He had no offer. There was nothing to allow/disallow, the situation was outwith his control. Entirely. When the huns made their move, that was when the offer was there. You seem bitter, still, that he acted professionally, waiting for an approach, mulling it over and then deciding it wasn't for him. I think that's the only thing he could possibly have done, and those of us questioning him (including me) have to accept that we were wrong. Since the huns were rumoured to be approaching McInnes, we've played Motherwell and Rangers (twice) and Killie. Our line-ups against the hun (first game) and Motherwell were shite, but not untypical of the way McInnes approaches games like these, so obviously have nothing to do with the speculation. The final hun game, we (and McInnes especially) looked affected by the rumours and I don't think we can take huge issue with that given the intense press hassle. We're having a poor season, but actually our points total is pretty good considering we are seriously weakened across the pitch. It comes down to quality of signings, and I think we have to give McInnes a bit of time here as he had a huge - enforced - clear out in the summer. I suggested at the time that he was going to need at least a 100% strike rate in the transfer market to replace McGinn, Hayes, Jack, Taylor and add another striker or he'd have to buy in at least 8 players to hope that we can get 50% of them to click. It seems that we have the makings of a decent squad, but are probably 3 players short of a team that can finish second (centre mid, winger, striker). I think that's reasonable given the turnover of players. We simply need to grind out results (as we have been doing in the main) until January and act then. McInnes has done more than enough to allow him this time to re-build and we probably owe him that. His obvious flaws aside, at present we are better with him than without him. Hopefully the rejection of the huns will galvanise us until January. In the scheme of things, he's nae bad. His points returns in recent seasons suggest he's capable of getting us to second place. We had an hysterical point at the mid-point of last season, where we turned it round and had an excellent end to the season, there is every change to suggest we could do the same again. Pragmatism suggests McInnes will be our best option.

Genuine question, would it have been okay if she was ugly? By that, I mean, would it have made the news?

Jim Traynor.

Nope, he came on and played in the centre. We were 4 goals up at the time I think, possibly the Motherwell game but maybe Stranraer. Harvie is a right back isn't he? Hence why I wasn't suggesting he start at left back. He should see more game time as cover for both Logan and Considine/Shinnie though.

Aye, it was. We're not ready to change manager yet, we're not set up for it. McInnes can hang around for a good while if results allow and we get a structure in place that allows for good succession management. Not just in manager, but in club setup. Big January ahead. McInnes will need to get some decent signings if we're to manage to reclaim - and hold - second off the hun.

Aye, it's a fair point. My thought was that if Ross was coming in that it would be for Wright anyway. With that in mind, I was hoping Wright might get a few starts while GMS is injured to get him hitting a bit of form. Happy for that to be Ross instead, but I thought he was more of a central player.

There was no clause in his contract according to the beeb. The huns would have had to pay whatever the dons ask for or a tribunal if McInnes had resigned. A huge slice of apologetic pie like. When the national broadcaster says things like: "McInnes expected to sign shortly", "it is our understanding that he wants to go" etc etc, it's difficult not to get taken in by that. It really is an absolute disgrace of a situation. Taking 48 hours to consider things and speak to his family is really nae that unreasonable at all when you see it written down! Say what you like about his tactics and so on (I do, regularly), that's phenomenal loyalty. If ye'd said ten years ago that a dons manager would turn down the huns to stay at the dons, you'd have been laughed out of Pittodrie. Is it a sign of how far we've come, or how far they've fallen? Well done Milne. Keeping those photaes of McInnes and Ash Taylor's wife really paid off.

Returning customer?

Welcome aboard. Disagree. We're nae huns. Having them here shouldn't stop us calling them out and completely going full pelt at them for their despicable reporting; especially the BBC in this case. Name individual journalists and really attack them where it's due. The shite-rags can print what they like, they're barely literate anyway. We don't stand up for ourselves, which in this instance has been the biggest problem. We should have slaughtered McLaughlan for his shite stirring hun-bidding in recent weeks, and that needed to happen at a level above McInnes. Banning is for people who are stupid to put their case across forcefully enough, or have got some sort of insecurity due to past guilt (see: the huns). We're better than that.

Their losses are generally - now - due to player and manager purchases though, which is where the soft loans come in. If they stopped, then they just wouldn't be able to fund signings rather than go bust (at present). Their wages to turnover ratio is still pretty decent I believe (maybe even better than ours?). Given they have no hostile investors, and their existing loans have been converted to equity, there isn't the facility for them to go bust unless they miss the top 6 or something of that ilk. The huns don't need £20M to challenge the tims, they just need more points. If they picked up one win against the tims in a season, they could still easily mount a challenge by winning a massive majority of the other games. Something McInnes is pretty decent at. Hopefully double agent McInnes will put in big 6 figure offers for Tansey and Maynard in January.

Lennon would never come here from hibs, why would he? Anyway, decent in some big games, but he's had some pretty pap results against pish too. Also a bit of a liability with his mouthiness. I don't think Ross would be amazing, think he's a bit too weak. He certainly was as a player. Intelligent guy though, and we certainly need someone with a brain. Wouldn't be averse to it, and would certainly be better than some of the dross that will inevitably be linked. Expect to see Milne appointing Sacky McNamara before the week's out though given his general fuckwittery in the manager markets.

The soft loans aren't covering running costs as far as I'm aware. That's the season tickets. Of which they have plenty. Their prize winning costs are predictable so their budgeting can be fairly solid. Soft loans only really being required when they have to boot another manager.

They have zero debt. If individuals want to pour their own money in they absolutely can. That won't bankrupt anything. It would take a brave hun to call in his debts and force liquidation. They can run at a profit easily within a season, or at least at a manageable loss. There's no bank available to force the hun into debt repayment and, by the looks of things, no obvious spiv to load on a heap more debt from elsewhere. In those terms, they're actually doing okay.

Interesting one. Dundee playing okay at the moment. Hopefully we'll turn them over with a bit more freedom now that the players are certain that their manager won't be there. Need our more experienced players like Shinnie to drag us through this one. Be interesting to see if there is any tinkering with the line up. I don't think Ross or Harvie did quite enough to start, so I'd see a similar line up to last weekend with Christie coming back in for May. Out, watching on TV etc etc.

Just don't read the Sun. He's very easy to avoid.

I agree. He's bottled a lot of big games, but he's good at points' building. He'll do that easily at der hun, just as he did at Aberdeen when he had twice the budget of the next competitor. Lets face it, it's only the incompetent appointment of the Portuguese wank that kept them in third for as long as they were. A couple of signings in January could make a massive difference to them and take them beyond our reach. Obviously they're not going to get close this season, but a wee tidy up and they could do well. However, there's a huge caveat to that in that they have the overwhelming ability to fuck things up for themselves spectacularly, and then build on that with further fucking up until they're completely fucked. The snowball effect of a hun fuck up is a joy to watch.

That'd be disastrous (Collins). As would Lambert in my opinion. I'm not sure why. I think it's basically because he was a fashionable manager in the right place at the right time who seemed to get jobs on the back of his playing reputation before getting more jobs on the back of having the first job. But then I've no real experience of listening to the guy or seeing his teams play. Fuck it, Arild Stavrum. He'll dee.

Boy from DST on the radio shortly ago. Good opportunity to get laid into the BBC, on a plate, but never. Reasonably balanced, that aside. I think there are times to remain quite sanguine, but this wasn't one of them. It doesn't represent the majority of dons fans I dinna think.

Are you suggesting that he was thinking that he'd wait a few weeks until after he'd fucked up the dons' season?

Fair doos, you think that he was offered a deal by Sunderland but turned it down face to face to them. I think that's highly unlikely. Exactly that, feeding stories, de-stabilising. More than likely arguing among themselves (indeed, the BBC report said that there was not unanimous agreement at board level on McInnes). Also getting their AGM (EGM?) out the way so that they could shift loans into equity and so on in order to get funds together. Any level of speculation in the meantime simply serves to reduce McInnes' value and also fuck up Aberdeen on the pitch.

So what was McInnes' agent's function in the Sunderland deal then? If McInnes knew the offer before turning up, then it would have been a done deal. In McInnes' case, we have evidence that he doesn't receive an offer up front and there's no reason for you to suggest he has in this instance. It's about competitive advantage in negotiation and not revealing yer hand. If McInnes' agent finds out the huns are willing to pay £1M a year, but he turns it down and then McLeish's agent talks to him and finds out he's only being offered £750K then there's an issue. The huns have no need whatsoever to tell McInnes anything until he arrives on site. His agent may have informed them of his own (McInnes') rough salary so they have a starting point, but otherwise the huns will get him in a room with his agent and thrash out an agreement. There's simply very little benefit in back-dooring it.

Except you have absolutely no evidence to back that up.

So McInnes was given the details of his Sunderland contract before speaking to them? But he went to talk to them and turned it down...because he didn't like their faces? I couldn't give a crap about the EPL and Van Dijk, we're talking McInnes here. He won't have had a formal offer from the hun, he more than likely will have been asked the question, informally, of whether he had any reason to outright turn it down without an offer. To which he would have replied no, as any sane manager would.

You should put the photos on here and we'll choose for ye. Can't see that causing a problem...