RicoS321

Yep, reasonable switches. Although resting McTominay or McGinn and giving Ferguson a shot might have been useful. I find the friendlies aren't doing the fringe players much good. Clarke tends to start with his strongest available team and then subs half of them off and things get messy. It then becomes difficult to see if those fringe players would compliment the starting eleven and perhaps change games for us. Ferguson, specifically, doesn't really seem to fit into our system unless in place of one of the above. He's wasted further back.

Did they? I thought it was just the P&J that ran with the "done by the weekend" line? Were there quotes, or named sources?

I am too, but I'm not going. Only the second time I've missed Hampden this century, the other was Morton in protest at the shite kick off time. VAR, ridiculous pricing, just make it not worth the hassle. I actually have a strong feeling we'll win this one, which I've not felt against the Tim in a long time, but I'm just getting a bit tired of it all. To be honest, the extra fixtures for Europe really killed things for me this year. Football saturation. It wasn't that enjoyable.

Cormack himself is known to be a serial leaker. I'm going to give him credit and say that he is using the media to guage fan's response to things. There's a strong chance that things that you read in certain newspapers are from the man himself. I guess that the media are a tool to be used, as they're likely to print whatever they like anyway. Remember the way that the Huns used the BBC to try and get McInnes? It didn't work in the end, but it unsettled the club and the manager nevertheless. Most things that leak to the press are of zero consequence anyway, and it pays to have a little gossip firing around about the club, keeping them relevant. Things like timings are the tricky one, as that unsettles and annoys people, as we're largely quite irrational. Saying that you expect business to be conplete by the weekend, for example, is just asking for trouble. I have no doubt that a lot of these types of discussion are casual and throw away remarks not to be taken as hard deadlines, but a little bit of savvy in-house would know that just compounds impatience. Saying "could be the weekend", or "a week or so" will become "Aberdeen expects... by the weekend/within a week". It's okay to say that we're far down the line but don't want to put a timescale on it incase of unforeseen circumstances. Although we should be pretty fucking good at hiring managers these days.

I'm not sure how it compares to other leagues in this regard (probably similar), but the club is mainly unattractive for reasons outwith our control. There is such a low chance of success up here because of the absolute domination of two teams. The cups are largely a lottery, as has been shown this century (our only win coming through the luck of the draw, for the most part). I doubt that there are many people looking at Naismith at hearts just now, for example, despite a good season (and he's only in that role because the other options were pish). There's also a weird myth that up and coming young foreign managers will come to Scotland in order to get seen down South, as if there are clubs bigger than us who are somehow unaware of the locations from which we fish for managers in the 21st century. As a stepping stone, we're not really an attractive option, as if you're good enough for Aberdeen already, then the English championship clubs that you will attract if you do well will already know about you. It took McInnes a good few years of sustained success to be offered a job, with even clubs like West brom going through about 80 managers without testing their club legend. Alex Neil was the last manager I can think of that actually stepped up from a club lower than the Dons to one higher (Tam Courts went to Honved, but probably not a step up from us). Most managers come here, do badly or do well, then get sacked or move sideways. Taking Aberdeen back to third place would barely raise an eyebrow. Consistently doing it for three years might get Sunderland to take a punt on you. If you're coming to Scotland, then you're far better off going to a smaller club, where the ceiling is a bit higher and there's a good chance to outperform your budget by several league places (like Martindale). Even then, yer Martindale's and Robinson's don't seem to get much traction. I've said it many times before, we should approach our managerial appointments in the same way we do players. Get the backroom in place, with heaps of support, and promote within - preferably - or get young managers from in Scotland or elsewhere. Make it very clear that this is our approach so that fans are less quick to scream at them (although it's not unusual to hear people screaming at our young players!). I just don't believe that we're an attractive club to any manager that is at a club close to us in size, and in order to get someone we'd end up paying a ridiculous amount. Even after that point, we'd still have the lottery of the transfer window, which has an outsized effect on our season (more so than manager in my opinion). I believe that all three of our managers would have greatly benefited from an experienced technical guy above them, who'd have steered them away from the repeated mistakes they all kept making (Glass playing out from the back, Goodwin playing Ramadani in the hole, Robson playing Clarkson similarly (but for different reasons). Obviously, the difficulty would then be in getting the technical guy right and retaining him, but I'm guessing that there are many out there who can combine the psychology and football knowledge without wanting the upheaval that comes with management.

Souttar was honking when he came on. Was McKenna injured, before they took on a right footer to play on the left?

Hearts have picked up Penrice and Spittal for next season. Not convinced Spittal is good enough, but Penrice is decent. That's one of the biggest issues with being manager less - we're not picking up these pragmatic squad signings from within the SPFL. Not necessarily these two, of course, but the handful of guys like them out there that are as close to reliable as you can get when you're doing the inevitable ten signings.

Arse fisher mair like.

Aberdeen are set to announce the appointment of up and coming young manager, Peter Leven, with a contract until May 2024.

Agreed. Although I wouldn't even say it's subtle, it's obviously not the same thing.

Doing it properly would involve employing the technical director before the new manager. For me, unless there's an outstanding candidate for manager that waiting a month to employ would cause is to miss out on him, we get that position filled in the international break and allow them to get the lay of the land before getting a manager that suits their vision.

Division between the supporters and team perhaps? Creating unrealistic expectations, that sort of thing. It's not a big deal of course, but the whole point in a public broadcaster is that it should be able to set an example and not have to resort to clickbait. Generally, the Scottish football page isn't that bad for headlines, comparatively speaking.

Aye, I'd like to think Shinnie apologised after. He seemed to be suggesting MacKenzie should have stayed wide, perhaps to waste time, but it was still a shite pass from Shinnie.

Wouldn't know, given that the impartial BBC chose not to cover it. How on earth was that not on the radio? Fucking ridiculous, they don't even pretend. I thought we were going for Doc now?

Good victory. Probably our strongest lineup at the moment. Nothing special, but just played like a team, and worked hard all over. Should be a good confidence booster I'm time for the international break and the new manager coming in (not convinced it'll happen that quickly). Thought McKenzie had another good game, Hoilett very much brings the best out of him.

Turned on in 27 minutes, perfectly timed for missing the first goal. Thought we looked decent on the ball at times, with Miovski looking sharp. That bicycle kick was some hit. Clarkson also looking up for it. We look frail, as always, at the back. Didn't see what happened to Devlin, but Milne doing okay (although another fullback who can't take a throw-in). Just like midweek, another absolutely nonsense VAR decision. A minor nudge and a brush on the arm. You can't help but think that they have given the foul in the full knowledge of what happened the other night and didn't think they could ignore it. Edit: Hoilett seemed to let the game go by him in the last fifteen. Not sure how he started, but hopefully he'll get involved.

Aye, I'd probably stick with the same lineup and hope that Barron of the Killie game turns up. It's essential that the triangle of three in that midfield perform together. The biggest problem we've got, which isn't unusual when in a rut and late in the season, is that we've got absolutely nothing on the bench to change it up when we're struggling. Duk is a lost cause until summer anyway, and Sokler hasn't really shown anything beyond one good game against the Hun. We've got no exciting young winger, or a big lad to change tactics.

I think it's a little revisionist to say that Robson had Clarkson punting long balls for Miovski to chase. Firstly, Clarkson doesn't really punt, he's an extremely good passer and, secondly, it worked very well in the run in last season with two high midfielders. The two wingers point is valid to a degree, however a back three is fairly pragmatic in Scotland and the two wingers were replaced by an on fire Duk and McRorie bustling about fairly high up the park too. You take all those things out, and add in a defence that doesn't really like defending and you've got to move to plan B. For whatever reason, that took Robson up until the day he was sacked to realise. Since we've moved to a 4-2-3-1, it's been fairly obvious we don't have the personnel to play the way Thelin would like, and he couldn't just magic those attributes into the existing lot. A summer of recruitment will be very unlikely to get us from here to there either, so if we do employ the guy he has to be aware that he's probably going to have to do plan B for a while, and the fans are going to have to be patient. I'm certain that Cormack will "go foreign" if he can, so this guy seems as good as any other. I'm just very wary of when people say "this is how a manager likes to play football", especially when we've just sat through six months of Robson setting up the way he likes to play football in full view of the evidence that it was failing miserably. Pragmatism is going to be required for some time, something a guy like Steve Clarke understood at Killie for example. Playing it simple, to the strengths of the players available, and keeping their individual instructions simple.

That's basically what Robson attempted but failed. For all the accusations of us making long ball punts under Robson, it was very clear that was never the intention. Clarkson was clearly instructed to move the ball as soon as he got it for the over the top run, or flick on when we had two up top. Shinnie and Ramadani provided the high line last season, which we couldn't replicate this one. Because that's the issue, isn't it? If we can't implement this lad's first choice strategy because the recruitment doesn't quite return the necessary players (high likelihood), what's his plan B, and will we show the required patience if he needs three windows to implement? Also, what does he do when Livingston sit inside their own box for ninety minutes? I'm not suggesting this lad wouldn't be a good manager, of course, just that these computer game analytics don't generally give the whole picture. Anyway, get him in. Even though he refuses to come because we're shitter than his current team and the myth that you need to move to a country within the UK in order to "be seen down South", is exactly that.

It's actually not that strange, it's exactly what our supposed strategy should allow us to do. It's what data Dave talked about when he first joined as chairman, before spending the next four years making an utter cunt of it.

Who cares? He's not obligated to be at the club full time, and if he's farmed out his duties in picking the next manager, then that's a good sign.

No we don't. It doesn't exist.

One thing is very clear, we don't do enough work on free kicks, defending or attacking. I'm very surprised by the return of the long throw and punting freekicks into the box. We switch off at freekicks, like the one that led to their "penalty", every game. I think that the new manager might have to give up on Duk this season too. Hoilett was doing okay when he came off, and we were well in the game despite being off it.

Aye, that was all round pish, a bit like the state of the club at the moment. Players just look disillusioned. Dundee deserved to win by one of the numerous chances that they created, but no team in the world of football deserves to win by a game ruining decision like that one. In fairness to the refs and VAR, they're doing exactly as the system instructs them. Thank fuck for the international break.