RicoS321

They've upped the stakes it seems (excuse the pun). Barton been betting on the Tims to get beaten by Barcelona. And conveniently grassed up to the SFA. Just like when they needed rid of Ian Black. Calling in the favours. Ironically, betting on the tims to get tanked would probably help Barton's cause with the support.

Perhaps they're trying to pressure him into resigning at a reduced cost (to them)? He might be poison around the dressing room but also, it appears, poison in the eyes of the scum fans too. Those fuckers need to be kept onside by the folks in the boardroom misappropriating all their cash.

Decent game like, good comfortable win in the end. We played some nice stuff at times, without really threatening much and they played some nice counter attacking fitba. Good response to the goal, great play by Maddison. I was critical of his work rate and back tracking last week, but he appeared to do a good bit more this week and crucially he was almost exclusively in the number 10 roll so that he wasn't expected to track as much. Be interested to hear the opinions of those who made it down as to his work rate. He's obviously a classy player, hopefully he'll manage to retain that performance level for the remainder of his short time here. Belter of a header from Stockley too, he fairly gets the power in those ones. Shame it took Hayes on his wrong foot to eventually get the telling ball into the area! Hopefully the penalty will give McLean a bit of confidence going into the next couple of games, he played quite well today with Shinnie in there with him. Special mention to Joe Lewis who had another assured performance coming for several crosses. He's an excellent 'keeper. Good all round performance though.

She's a Partick fan. Seems more like a Tim.

^^^^This

I can't believe I'm actually sticking up for him here, I've always thought he was a fucking awful signing, and was raging when Calderwood brought him in but saying he's above average SPL wasn't supposed to be a compliment. Anyway, here's the list of goalies for that season. Forster aside, I'd have been raging had we brought any of these in instead of him (maybe Mannus at a push): Fraser Forster Lee Hollis Rados?aw Cierzniak Dean Brill / Ryan Esson Alan Mannus Michael Fraser David Cornell / Marian Kello Craig Samson Scott Fox Ben Williams Jamie MacDonald Gads, what an horrific bunch of goalies. I'd say Langfield performed better than all of those bar Forster that season, and that really isn't being complimentary. None of the above would have taken us further in the league certainly, but we may just have lost the cup. This is not saying that Langfield is good, it's saying that the standard of 'keeper in the SPL is fucking awful. Apart fae Lewis, he seems decent. Also, I'm ace at goalies, the best at goalies. I do the best goalies.

McInnes's priorities, not Milne's. There's a difference. McInnes was working within Milne's parameters (budget). I agree with the rest, so I'll try and explain myself on this. Good is a relative term, that season was good by his standards (he also made saves in the Alloa game on the way to the final). It's relative to the other options too. I've always stuck up for Langfield as an average, sometimes above average SPL 'keeper, and I stand by that. That's not what we should be settling for, obviously. We had Rae, Hughes and Clark (possibly still Milsom too). Vernon and Magennis up front, Robertson at left back and Jack at right back. McInnes had a budget, and within that budget we have to assume we had the funds to buy a Brown or a Lewis. The question of priority then goes to the either or scenario. Would we have been better not getting Rooney, Logan or Flood and getting a better goalie? I'd argue that the difference between Langfield and Lewis was significantly less than between Clark and Flood, or Rooney and Vernon. In the end, we dropped Langfield (because he's a total fucking spastic as you say), but downgraded him to Scott fucking Brown. Imagine we'd done that a year earlier, and missed out on Flood or Robson because we were dicking about trying to find two goalies (we had to sign Weaver that season as we ran out of time to address the number two position)? Flood, Robson and Rooney were absolute certainties to walk into our team and make a difference and they had to take priority. Langfield - as proved - was acceptable enough for one season as number one under McInnes (he should have been long gone by that point, but for the incompetence of Brown and McGhee before him). Scott Brown was a worse signing than Langfield's additional contract in my opinion. We'd had a whole year to look at options and came up with a shite one.

The two are not comparable. A blind monkey could have seen that Hart was shite and clearly not good enough - did anyone who watched the euros not draw that conclusion (I thought he was pish long before that, but I don't watch a lot of EPL)? When your "scouting" the best players in the world (i.e. known entities) with unlimited funds, it's pretty easy to get rid of players and replace them. Give Pep zero funds, Jim Leighton as coach and scout, and a team requiring a striker, two midfielders, two fullbacks and a centre half for the first team and then ask him to prioritise because he doesn't have the resources or time to scout and replace them all then see what he does. In the end, whilst it doesn't suit the narrative, McInnes' (not McGhee, Brown or Calderwood before him) decision to give Langfield a contract was entirely vindicated when he went on to have a good season, giving us time and funds to address our midfield, striking and right back positions and in the process win a trophy (even with the: we'll never win anything with Langfield in goals mantra) and finish 6 places higher in the league. The facts speak for themselves, and they don't remotely suggest that Langfield was a good 'keeper, just that there was a system of priorities both on and off the pitch that had to all be dealt with. If we'd not taken in Flood or Robson and replaced Langfield, I don't believe we would have won the cup, same with Rooney and Logan. You also seem to ignore the fact that he also had to "fuck off" Chris Clark, Gavin Rae, Stephen Hughes and so on who weren't good enough to fulfil the objective. McInnes's big mistake was replacing him - and it was meant as a replacement - with Brown. Langfield was a more than adequate number two, and he shouldn't be held to account for the absolutely atrocious signing of a 'keeper who was actually worse than him (see McGhee for a list of fucking awful replacements too). We shouldn't have seen anything of Langfield in that second year, but we brought in a useless cunt. Unfortunately, McInnes' targets aren't on the TV every week so that even a child can see their obvious qualities, so he has to scout lower English league pish. I'd argue that we got lucky with Ward coming available, and whilst Lewis has turned out to be good it was clear with the signing of Alexander that McInnes wasn't 100% confident about him. That shows either that AFC doesn't have good goalkeeper scouting, or that it's a very difficult market to operate in. Probably a bit of both.

Maddison looks tailor made for the hole in a year's time! The problem we have, is that we don't have two adequate holding midfielders with Jack out and McInnes unwilling to play Storie. I'd also argue that Stockley and Storey are both pointless in a 4-2-3-1. I'd play 4-2-3-1 if we can have a midfield of Storie and Shinnie (with McLean, Pawlett or Maddison in front), but a 4-4-2 if we're not playing either Shinnie or Storie in midfield, as McLean (or Pawlett or Maddison) does not work in that holding role, it is detrimental to his game. I think that a 4-2-3-1 with McLean as one of the holding midfielders is worse than a 4-4-2 with Rooney and Stockley and Shinnie (deep) and McLean in a two man midfield and playing more directly.

Talk about cynical timing as well. Impressive stuff from the dead pig shagging fuck.

I think defeat to St Johnstone would be worse than any result against the huns. The huns game will take care of itself in terms of motivation, fans backing etc, and it needn't have any negative effect on our season even if we lose. However, losing the St Johnstone game would prevent us winning a very obtainable piece of silverware. It is the game we really need to be up for, and the one that is a test of McInnes' management skills. We should just be beating Dundee, so there'd be no excuses for losing that. Lose all 3 then questions need to be asked. I've made the point in the past that managers are pretty much accountable to no-one, which causes issues. It'd be nice to be able to hear about the in-depth decisions made by the manager with someone asking the questions that we all ask after watching the game, but our reporters are both sycophantic and unqualified. Is there anyone in the club that is asking the articulate football questions of McInnes, holding him to account on his decisions? Or do we just wait - like we always seem to - until his position becomes untenable and its sacking time again? Shouldn't that be Craig Brown's role (I am definitely not saying that Craig Brown should be the person, but the position should exist)?

That's not really that strange though is it? First, it's entirely speculation. Speculation that is very personal and very controversial. If it's personal and controversial, then that level of interference would only be applied to someone who can't easily defend against it, or who's aims are in direct conflict with those of the media dedicated to investigating. Clinton falls into neither of those camps. I saw this PSP thing mentioned about a month ago online (in some dubious places!) by some narcissist pharmaceutical chap who was pissed off at Obama, so I assumed it was balls. Interesting to hear yer mates view on it Rocket. If true, I assume it's as simple as getting her through the election, getting the democrats back in and then replacing her when she starts to get ill with someone of equal dubiety (her husband perhaps!). Maybe with her collapsing, it might bring about further speculation so that the media jumps on it. Surely if Trump knew about it he'd be using it to attack her (unless it turns out that he's actually good friends with the Clintons)?

Interesting game like, very much a game of two halves. Shinnie started at left back, which was great to see, but O'Connor was poor in midfield, sitting far too deep and staying there. It was a bit of a blessing when Shinnie got injured and we moved O'Connor back. Hopefully he'll remain there, and we utilise Storie in the coming weeks. Taylor's passing was awful, but we insisted on isolating him, giving absolutely no options when he got the ball - I genuinely felt sorry for him yesterday, McGinn spent the whole first half in-field (or most of it, he switched wings toward the end of the first half, and Hayes provided an outball constantly). The second half, we were far more direct, with no passing from the back whatsoever. It was punted at Rooney in order to get the second ball in midfield, and it actually worked for long spells. McGinn had a great finish, but wasted two other good positions with lazy attempts at goal where laying off to others was the better option. He slowed down so many quick breaks, it was frustrating. Burns had several great runs, but once again was sacrificed rather than McGinn - Pawlett coming on and had a decent game. A fantastic finish from Vigurs gave them a deserved point (deserving, mainly due to our lack of scoring). Madison was okay, looks decent on the ball, with an eye for a pass. However, he is very lightweight, and his work rate was poor. I think he'll definitely be a good player one day, I just don't believe he'll fulfill that in the 4 months with us. I wouldn't be starting him in the next game Thought McLean had a decent second half, put himself about a lot and generally covered well. He seemed to get better as Hayes tired and Madison provided little assistance. Perhaps he's the type of player that thrives on being asked to hold the midfield together. He certainly played well alongside Storie against Celtic, and there was a marked improvement in effort yesterday. Some signs of real attacking creativity at times yesterday (aye, like, 3 times). Really lacking in centre mid though, and we need to get a settled game plan as we were all over the place for long spells yesterday.

It is like a new signing, if that new signing already lived in the area with his family and had done for several years, played for the club previously before leaving and returning within a month, had played with every single player in the team before (bar one) and could be 100% of fitting in with the rest of the squad. Just like a new signing.

Oot. He was hypnotised by a jap gong it seems.

On the Edinburgh cooncil links? Doesn't surprise me, awful site. I do like public services, but by fuck they manage to make a coo's cunt of absolutely everything. Public sector created websites should be banned.

Aye, it's bland and functional. Like Hertz' style of play. Good work though, the right decision for them.

What the fuck happened here?

Do you think the price of tickets has a negative effect on youngsters playing the sport like? I don't know, I would have thought it might, although I've nae idea of the correlation. I think the fat cunt smoking and eating junk food probably stunts his child's growth, thus making him a shite fitba'r! Also, the lack of places to play for free and the devotion required to be successful are inhibitors. Fuck knows, yer right about the public sectorians though, my mate just picked up a job at the cooncil - he seems unaware of the environment, so should be funny.

It's not deliberate! I'm hoping Morris turns out to be good. I think Taylor had a better game than Reynolds at the weekend also, and I think that Taylor at right centre back is marginally better than either Considine or Reynolds at right centre back (especially Reynolds, who is uncomfortable on his left, never mind his right foot). I suppose when I said I thought Shinnie at left back was more valuable than O'Connor in defence, I was looking purely at the fact that O'Connor can play quite well in midfield, rather than the shambles it leaves in his absence! It just highlights the difference a single player could make. An alternative could be: -----------------Lewis----------------------- Logan---O'Connor---Considine-----Shinnie -------------Jack-----Hayes----------------- McGinn---------Maddison------------Burns ----------------Rooney---------------------- That takes Taylor out of the game. That'll do nicely.

I thought I'd start this one early, to take account of our (lack of) activity in the transfer market. I didn't want to whoor new threads all over the shop, so this can just make its way South after the Caley game. The question is: What's team do you think McInnes will play for ICT game (lets assume Reynolds, Jack and Hayes are all out)? vs What's our best team with everyone fit? I'll start, obviously. ICT game: -----------------Lewis----------------------- Logan----Taylor----O'Connor----Considine -----------McLean-----Shinnie-------------- McGinn----------Maddison-----------Burns ----------------Rooney---------------------- I think McInnes will prefer O'Connor in the centre, rather than move Considine back and Shinnie across. Although Depending on Morris' fitness, perhaps he might like him in there and O'Connor in midfield, however I can't see him dropping McLean ever, and I think he'll want to start the new guy as I suspect that was a large part of the deal (that he'd get every opportunity for game time). The rest picks itself more or less. Best team: -----------------Lewis----------------------- Logan----Taylor-----Considine-----Shinnie ----------O'Connor-----Jack---------------- McGinn---------Maddison------------Hayes ----------------Rooney---------------------- As a starting eleven, I'm going with this, in McInnes' favoured system. I've previously said that O'Connor is the best centre half at the club and that we should play him there, however I don't think we've signed well enough in midfield to use that option. I think the Shinnie and Hayes partnership on the left outweighs the Shinnie and Jack partnership in midfield and I think that if we're shoe-horning a player in, it should be O'Connor in midfield because he's still a better option there (alongside Jack) than McLean, Storie, Pawlett or I assume Maddison. I've guessed that Maddison is ace, but that is possibly harsh on Burns who's played quite well recently. In defence, I couldn't care less whether it's Reynolds or Considine, but Considine has been better of late and is stronger on the ball and in the air. I'm not affording Morris the same assumption as Maddison, I'm just - harshly - assuming he's pap, although I'd love it if he was better than Taylor. It really is just that one centre midfielder that fucks things up for us. Whilst we'd still have been slightly short on cover, our first eleven would have looked so much more balanced. It's not good that our first eleven has to involve playing one player out of their best position, very frustrating.

Aye, I get what he was saying. All I meant was that there was no longer the working class fan to sell the game to, it doesn't have to be their target market. How else can people not be horrified by someone getting paid £300K a week to play football? Rather, it's seen as something admirable. If we aspire to these idols, then surely it makes entire sense that we have no problem paying the top dollar to watch them? They need the high prices to give the game in England its status. Fuck knows how that seems to have migrated to Scottish football like, but it has.

To be fair, we don't really have a working class anymore. Anyway, the spending in England made the BBC Scotland news ahead of the dons new signing (as did Utd signing Andreu for some reason). I would have thought that listing all the Scottish deadline day transfers would have been quite easy, and relegate this EPL pish to the bottom of the website somewhere. It's like we're supposed to be impressed by big numbers. I see the EPL like a spoiled child that should just be ignored. I've grown quite ambivalent toward it these days, it used to annoy me, but now I just feel sorry for it and will happily watch the occasional highlight here and there.

It stems from last season like. McInnes was always going to have too much to do in this window (although Killie have managed to take in 16 players!). It's impossible to get all your targets to join, and we just had too many positions needing filled. I think he made the right decision with players leaving (although I'm surprised Pawlett wasn't among them). Unfortunately he let those players go without securing replacements. To the extent that our best team - in McInnes' eyes - probably includes two players not playing in their best positions (O'Connor and Shinnie). I think we have cover in many areas, but only if we rely on two things: being able to change the system and giving young players an opportunity (Storie, Wright, McKenna specifically). We are where we are I suppose, and the Maddison chap looks a decent prospect (albeit somebody else's prospect, and only for four months).

Ashley Maddison? I expect he'll be prone to getting hacked.