RicoS321

Totally agree. It also means that Shinnie has to do twice the work, and it's no coincidence that his poorer performances have been alongside Ball - his passing suffers as a result of the extra shift. Ferguson is completely suited to the role too, which makes today's lineup more frustrating. I understand the use of Ball on occasion (and previously Hoban) when we know we're going to need that extra defender. I also feel sorry for Ball who hasn't done much wrong - especially when you compare the poorer performances from our strikers and our shite midfield signings - but there should be no harm in dropping him because he's not as good as the alternatives. He was mainly back in because Wright wasn't great, but Wright not being great should be a reason to play McLennan or Forrester or someone, not bring Ball in. Ball should be a replacement for when Shinnie is injured or if we're playing away at Parkhead and need some additional cover in midfield in a 4-1-4-1 (or the Burnley game as a good example), or as a sub to shore things up and protect a lead. McInnes is trying to keep everyone happy by playing three players who don't really fit together. It's poor management. Does anyone know our best 11 after that game today?

There is no debate. Shinnie and Ball were signed this season as central midfielders. That's the bottom line. Whether we think either are better played elsewhere is irrelevant, they are recognised midfielders for AFC and the utter bullshit of saying that we started with 6 defenders is just moronic, childish shite that takes away from the actual argument. Shinnie was excellent mid week and against the huns, against Burnley and in several other games this season too. When he's not playing well he still puts in a huge amount of work and plays like a captain should play - aggresively and thanklessly. The real debate is the negative starting line up of two defensive midfielders and Ferguson in the advanced role. It doesn't work against a team that are no better than us, and it wasn't necessary today. It was a huge opportunity missed to establish a style of play (and possibly personnel) ahead of the Tim game in a month and leaves us no closer to finding an eleven that will get near the tims. Ball isn't a bad player, but he should be in a 4-1-4-1 type formation in games against better teams or not at all. Shinnie is asked to do far more work when he's sitting alongside him and until Ferguson moved back today he was anonymous too. It plays to all three player's weaknesses. Ball should have been on with 30 minutes to go after going a goal or two up, not as a start in games like these. I understand that Wright wasn't great the other night, but he did enough to be given another opportunity to develop something with Wilson and have us playing higher up the park. It was noticeable that when Ferguson dropped deep the defenders could come further up the park and we'd have had more space centrally as a result (we'd taken May on by that point who was playing higher than Wright would have). On the speculative punting front, a lot of that was forced upon us by shite management, but the Kilmarnock players were excellent at closing down today and they were very disciplined. Also, the dons really didn't look comfortable on the surface, it looked a lot more bouncy today than it has in the past. I can only assume it either wasn't watered, or the surface is wearing a bit as it reminded me of Hamilton's a few years back. There were several balls that were bouncing further and higher than expected and our defenders weren't taking any chances with it. Agree with TC, a decent showing from May. Plenty of fight there.

No it fucking isn't. Can we stop this moronic shite? Ball is not a defender and neither is Shinnie. Poor setup though. We should be attacking from the start with Wright retaining his position ahead of Ball and then bring Ball on if we need him. Not the other way round. Negative stuff.

Because he was here and he needed some game time, GMS wasn't consistent, McGinn was only here for the second half of the season and we had Christie who was better than Stewart through the centre too. There were a multitude of reasons why he didn't get regular game time there, but I'm arguing that it was mainly through his own lack of fitness that he wasn't given a decent chance as opposed to the bit part opportunity. He didn't earn the right to get a decent chance and so he was left to pick up the scraps of opportunities out wide and sub appearances centrally (he did start at least one game in the centre at Pittodrie as I remember thinking it could be his chance, but I think he was just okay). You, correctly, questioned my suggestion that Wright should be played centrally for us against the hun and other games. For me, Stewart is in the same boat. Neither necessarily deserve an opportunity and should just take the chance they get. However, I quite liked Stewart and I didn't think he did that a bad job out wide, but I could see why he wasn't given a long run in the team as I don't think he worked hard enough - at that level of fitness he was just a half decent squad player.

I know what you were saying. I'm suggesting that you might be wrong. That his unfitness was more of an issue for us than his positioning as evidenced by the times he did play centrally for us but was still poor. Unless you are saying that the times he played wide were detrimental to his confidence to the extent that it affected his performances when played centrally? If so, you could be right.

He played several times in the centre for us as a sub. That's what I was saying.

He didn't fit into our system because he didn't do the work. He played a few times (mainly as sub) in the advanced role of a 4-2-3-1 centrally. I don't see that position being far off what is being asked of him at Killie now. The main thing being that he now looks fit enough to do the tracking back that he didn't really do for us.

Did he? I thought it was his agent who lied and that was repeated by Chick Young.

Leave Considine alone, he's ace - proper dandy. You're right though, the only thing going for Considine over Lowe at the moment is that he'll still be here in two month's time. Lowe was a little lax defensively in his first few games, but was excellent against the hun and again last night. I'd have given Shinnie man of the match, but Lowe was a very close second. I didn't think Wright was great last night. I'd agree that GMS was similarly poor, but then he's been excellent the rest of the season. I think it was good management to start Wright again last night after being a little poor against the hun and hopefully he'll start again on Sunday to give him ample chance to sink or swim. Wright showed glimpses last night and he tracked back well when required, but I think we should expect a lot more of him as I think he's a better player than last night's performance displayed. I think he could thrive on the plastic pitch on Sunday with his quick feet and pace and I hope that a run of games could bring the confidence required to take it to the Tim in the final; a confidence that was lacking against the hun. Incidentally, I thought McGinn looked really good centrally last night too, so there's a (good) dilemma there definitely.

Yep, I think Caldwell summed it up nicely. What Lennon fails to understand is the difference between people saying he deserved it and those saying he brought it on himself. He absolutely does not deserve to be coined. He understands the atmosphere in the derby games and made a conscious decision to interact with the fans at the height of the tensions. He needs to understand that there is risk in that.

Good game, Hamilton pish. Shinnie, Lowe top class. McGinn and Wilson good. Their right back was decent, the rest fairly pap. We dominated completely, just a good solid display. Excellent goals too, although the keeper should have had Devlin's (it did dip heavily, but Logan's strike a few minutes later was probably harder to save). Thought McInnes was spot on with the changes. Disagree with KFP, the youngsters were definitely the right call in a game like this at 3-0. Gleeson is an experienced player who we'll learn little about (that we didn't already know) against Hamilton. His problem isn't confidence, it's ability. Finally, I though that the ref should have played on with their number 7's challenge at the end. It was a 50-50 that he lost to the dominant Shinnie, which the ref could have let go with only 1 minute left. I thought that right up until I got back to the car and heard it was Dougie Imrie. Fucking headless chicken fucker got exactly what he deserved - utter gash fitba'r.

Surely we can move Shinnie back into midfield now?

I think we're given option of 50-50 but the club has to pay for them up front. Thus AFC don't want to be left with 5K unsold tickets.

It's always a 50/50 split for finals, so unless AFC state otherwise it will be

Aye, okay, that makes sense. Apologies TC, wasn't obvious enough for me. I'd like to think that Wilson won't be on that type of deal given it's the final year of his contract. Nae like he'll be earning them a fee at the end of it, so in reality will just be punting part of a wage off their books. Will be interesting to see if he's still here at the end of Jan either way,

Is there any evidence that has ever happened in the history of fitba? One club forcing another to play their player on loan? I can't imagine any fitba manager ever agreeing to that. Nor could I imagine Man U every putting a clause like that in the contract of a guy who's leaving for free at the end of the season anyway.

I thought Anderson - goal against the hun aside - looked a little bit lost at times with a lot of running but little direction. I think he'll come good but not sure he's ready to be our first choice this season. I actually thought that McLennan looked the more finished of the two. That said, I'd have said the same about Wilson yesterday, he looked like he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing or where he was supposed to be running. I thought May looked better than him when he came on and that was despite falling over the ball constantly. May actually looked like he knew what he should be doing but just had a severe lack of confidence/nerves and so tripped over the ball each time he got it. Of the two, I think we'd be more likely to play the nerves out of May than get Wilson to play the lone striker role, but it's a shite choice. Perhaps go with Wilson with McLennan in behind on Wednesday to see if McLennan is going to be up to the task this season. It'd be nice to persevere a bit longer with Wright, but he was gash also. Edit: Is it best just to accept that we've only got shite strikers until January and we take the pressure of them and see how it goes? We can complain all we want about each individual, but the alternatives are also pap.

The big one on Wednesday. Hopefully yesterday will give us a bit more belief and we'll give these cunts a tanking. Not that winning against poorer teams has ever been an issue mind. Hopefully we'll start to see some consistency in team selection in the lead up to the final. I've nae idea what that consistency will entail, but I hope there is some. One thing about yesterday that was clear is that we really haven't sorted our striker problem with Wilson. Less useful than Cosgrove has been in recent weeks and arguably worse than May too - looked totally disinterested in the first half and his movement was terrible. Improved in the second, but not sure it was enough for a start. May came on and held his position well, worked hard, made the right runs and then fell over the ball or just missed it. Anderson wasn't on the bench yesterday and I'm not convinced he's there yet either. I'd be tempted to give McLennan a run out, but I honestly don't know. Similarly with Wright in attacking midfield who was gash. With that in mind, I'd go: ----------------Lewis--------------- Logan---Devlin--McKenna---Lowe --------Ferguson---Shinnie-------- --GMS-------Blank--------McGinn- ---------------TBC------------------ I think the set up is the one that's going to get the best out of those 9, and I think that they are our best in those positions. I think we should just draw lots for the other two positions. Most importantly, I think we should stick with whatever option we choose there for the next few games and try and force it to work.

That's McInnes clawed back some of the £750K. I'm reckoning Milne will be thinking it was worth it this morning.

Aye, it was a'rite like. I'm looking forward to the big one on Wednesday though, it's the dream fixture. McKenna started poorly, but finished well, Devlin excellent too. No stand outs otherwise, but special mentions to McGinn and GMS who put in a huge amount of work (McGinn especially, who's defensive cover was top drawer at times). It was just a good all round team hard-fought performance with the tactics spot-on from McInnes. He's got to take a lot of credit for getting that team up for it and believing they could win. Other than a hairy couple of moments from Logan at the end (who otherwise was good) we didn't look in any danger of conceding or letting it get to us. We're not a great team this season, we've got some glaring deficiencies through poor signings and so it's a credit to the perparation, setup and belief that we won yesterday. Well done lads.

He's living off everyone else being shite! The way I see it, we need someone in that role that is going to stay advanced and give them something to consider at the back, otherwise we'll get too disconnected from the lone striker. 4-2-3-1 has been our go to, and it's worked, but 4-1-4-1 isn't exactly a huge deviation from LA-Don. The main difference being that I think the 2 sitting (and they won't be just sitting of course, but it'll give them a point to focus on when we don't have the ball) will allow Wright to largely forget about the defending part, where he has obvious issues. I'm suggesting Wright mainly cause he's our last hope, with the rest proving that goals aren't really their thing (GMS aside). I'd happily see McLennan given a chance instead.

Aye, Old Portlethen has the Neuk, but it's a boozer and nae view of the sea which seems a little short-sighted (literally). Nae tried Lou Lous as it's not quite walkable (it is, but it's nae a nice walk) for me, but I might take my bike up one day though as my wife's family is up that way. I go to the sitting room most weekends with the daughter, which does a good coffee and a nae bad breakfast and the guy that works there is an excellent host; very friendly. It's not amazing like, but it's decent and good for Portlethen which has very little else.

We are all Dave from Cumbernauld.

Maybe Huntly, or Formartine or someone?

Any injury news then, or are we all fit bar the long-termers? This game is going to be won or lost in midfield I reckon. We've struggled to find our best midfield this season and it's the area of the pitch where we're not dominating enough to help the forwards or defence (striker is another issue!). What's everyone's preferred formation for the game? 4-4-2 doesn't work in modern (scottish) fitba unless you play direct with two hoofers up front, because the opposition just play an extra man in midfield and you end up having to pull back an inadequate forward to compensate - it's too easy to play against. We've got the personnel for a 3-5-2. Unfortunately that means we lost out by playing Lowe and Logan as wing backs and sacrifice the width and pace of GMS and McGinn, or play McGinn and GMS and sacrifice defending. If we had two great strikers to make it worthwhile, then I'd be tempted, but we gain little having an extra mediocre striker. 3-4-3 would be acceptable. However, it would mean dropping McGinn most likely, and he played well against Hearts. 4-1-4-1 was roughly how we lined up against Burnley with eitehr Hoban or Ball playing the deep role. It's probably our best combination when we choose to play Shinnie, Ball and Ferguson. I'm going 4-2-3-1. It's been our most succesful setup under McInnes and retains the extra body in midfield where we'll need it when we don't have the ball. The difference between that and 4-1-4-1 for me is playing the middle 1 of the 3 permanently high up the pitch. I think we've got a couple of options in that role, but I'd go Wright. That means one of either Ferguson or Ball drops to the bench (perhaps unfairly) and I'd go with Ferguson from the start. He can create things from deep but retain position to protect the defence. He'll just move the ball more quickly from midfield to attack and I think we'll need that more than Ball's defensive capabilities. Especially if we have Shinnie also sitting alongside him keeping it reasonably tight but both supporting when required. --------------Lewis---------------- Logan--Devlin---McKenna--Lowe --------Ferguson--Shinnie-------- --GMS-------Wright------McGinn- -------------Wilson---------------- It's bloody difficult to pick our best 11 this season, but that team should have us 3 up by half time.