RicoS321

A direct conduit to and from Cormack, aka a yes man. I think he's there to form a barrier, and not to have ideas of his own. Or, he has ideas and is heavily involved, but is simply pish at his job. It's fairly clear that the director of football was a really important role for the way we structured the club post McInnes. It's failed to assist three inexperienced managers and has overseen a total mess in recruitment.

Aye, heard his fucking atrocious interview. "Not really his kind of team"? That's Derek Adams shite that is. Didn't do his research, he should leave now before he fucks off the whole team and drags us (further) into a relegation battle. If he can't get a team to play actual football, rather than kick people then he's not suitable.

Which city?

Just as you say, I expect him to come in and either do his homework or, instead, speak to those already there and run things by them (such as: have we ever created a single chance from a long throw or massive punt free kick). Cormack has been sold on the idea that he's some managerial giant that will bring the entire team together and inspire them to battle, without regard to tactics (95% man management apparently). He's the wrong guy at the wrong time. Robson didn't struggle with motivation, it was tactical ineptitude, so to get a pure motivation guy in was ridiculous.

It's the sign of a guy who has come in and not done his fucking homework. Long punts for every free kick and tactics that have proven not to work all season. I think we (Cormack, specifically) has been sold a charlatan with Warnock like.

Shouldn't have turned it on! Fuck is Warnock watching?

Missed the first half. Questioning whether I should watch the second. Is it a 4-3-3 he's playing? Utter dogshit if so, this midfield needs a sitting two.

I agree. If we point him at just the right angle and tell him to keep running, he should end up at Prestwick airport.

What sort of joke club employs a 76 year old manager anyway?

Again, it goes down to another missed window. January should have been used to carry forward the work of the recruitment team, building on what was done in the summer and further offloading the dead wood. That didn't happen, and we start again, again. That's now Glass, Goodwin and Robson who've had to do major re-builds (maybe Goodwin didn't have to, but he had pissed off most of the squad!), all of which have ended in their sacking. The board should have been managing expectations in each of those situations, and providing significant support to the young management teams that were in place. Expectations should also begin to be managed for next season, with an understanding that building a team takes time. That won't happen, that much is clear. The club have allowed the myth that "backing the manager" is simply a case of spunking cash in a single window - shit-throwing to see what sticks. The fans have largely bought into it too, helped along by ignorant pundits, which is extremely frustrating. We were constantly told that Robson "was backed in the summer" and talk of player budgets and other such shite. The transfer window is a lottery, where 50% at least are going to be shite or require work (Rubezic!). Against any established side, you're always going to struggle. We still haven't found a left centre half that's performed to the level of Considine since he left, for example, and we got rid of the deadwood of likes of Watkins and Kennedy to replace them with much worse players. That's not a reason to retain any of the above, just to highlight what "backing the manager" actually entails much of the time. @OrlandoDon's original post highlights perfectly the problem we have. We're already pragmatically looking at retaining guys that are not very good because of the volume of turnover of players, instead of looking to replace those areas. That always happens to an extent of course, but it's a fairly large extent for us! We've got guys like Richardson and Besuijen still kicking around on long term contracts that are dogshit. Morris and Gueye are two others that we'll have to deal with too. Rubezic, Jensen, MacDonald, Polvara are all guys that in another world we'd be culling back and attempting to sign better players. Instead we're relying on them to form key parts of our team for another season. It's going to be incredibly difficult for the new manager, and I suspect that it'll be someone from outwith Scottish football and thus the signings might be even more erratic. Our best signings this season have been McGrath and Devlin, who were both known quantities with plenty SPFL experience (probably the only two that Robson had any real input to), without those two we'd have been significantly worse (imagine a McGarry equivalent at right back, or another Polvara or Philliips ahead of McGrath).

Oh, sorry, forgot to complain about the earliness of this thread appearing. Disgusting. Makes me sick.

A lot will depend on whether MacDonald will be happy spending another year on the bench. I don't think he's good enough to start in a back four, like Jensen he's too slow to move the ball. In that regard, Gartenmann has the most about him. I don't really think any of the centre backs are that good.

Forgot to mention VAR. Two games in a row completely spoiled by it. Ten minutes of stoppage time is a nonsense. We're at three minutes per offside decision now. It's completely unacceptable. The refereeing is definitely getting worse because of it too. The linesman flagged half heartedly for their second goal (which didn't look remotely offside), it was almost like he was trying to second guess VAR rather than thinking there was an offside.

Forgot about Hoilett. He was okay when he came on. Nice first touch. Not particularly quick.

Just back. Wasn't the worst game in the world, although completely indiscernible from Robson's tactics. Very direct and trying to catch out the opposition with quick balls over the top. Free kicks always lumped in, and long throws (after dicking about for five minutes) the norm. We played some alright football at times and it was an open game that was reasonably entertaining. McGrath was good today, Shinnie too. Defending for both goals fairly unforgivable. Roos with a honking kick, but we just let them walk straight through, we still had plenty cover. Devlin pish for the second. Duk was okay on the ball, but he's bloody frustrating. When you evaluate Mackenzie's performance, you always have to caveat with the fact he's playing behind the most unpredictable player in the league, who makes zero good runs and simply reacts to the game. Anyway, coasting towards bottom six. I think we needed to win this one to have a chance.

Raith beat utd in the championship. Some hit for the winner.

That's not what happens. If the linesman doesn't give offside then it's because he doesn't think it's offside. If the goal isn't scored, it is brought back.

I'm not overcomplicating anything, my opinion is that we should stick with a linesman making a call, as has worked adequately since offside was introduced. The linesman's decision was absolutely fine on Wednesday, it was a close call, he flagged immediately and you could tell by Miovski's immediate reaction that he, himself, thought he was offside. The fans in the RDS were quick to sit down with few complaints (I thought he was way off initially, it was a very good run). You're suggesting something far inferior, where an out of line camera is being used. You must realise that a camera being out of line would be a massively flawed way to do anything, and if you thought that precise nature of the shitey computerised system leads to conspiracy, then that would be four hundred times worse. I genuinely can't believe anyone would think that was acceptable. If Miovski had been on the six yard line, he'd have appeared about two yards onside with an 18 yard camera, that's how the parallax effect works. It's why linesmen are trained to always be in line with the last man, it's the most important part of their role. You must have seen countless examples of a ball that looks over a line from one angle, but not from another, but the definitive angle is always on the line? The complicated part is what I suggested would improve VAR, not what I actually want. These things will be happening anyway regardless of what you or I think. They're all software related and will be no different to the game going fan than the existing situation, just that we'd be removing the controversy caused by people not getting the whole camera position thing.

Eh? Are you serious? Why would someone looking at a picture taken by a camera out of line with the incident be better than a linesman (who has been trained for years to be in line with the play) in real time? That's probably the most bizarre take I've heard about VAR. At the risk of sticking up for it, you clearly have zero understanding of how it works. Nobody is "drawing lines", they are merely there to give a graphical representation for people. The VAR officials select a frame at which the ball was played (the final lines are of a thickness that allows for the difference in frame rate, always favouring the attacker), they also select the furthest forward part of the attacker and defender, excluding hands/arms and the computer will verify. The cameras are calibrated from the goal line (or perhaps other fixed point) and a decision is calculated based on those points. The lines give a visual representation of that calculation. Fixed camera positions will give a massively distorted view of reality (I thought everyone knew this instinctively, I'm getting into the realms of father Ted here: "the smaller ones are far away"). You have to imagine the image rotated until it's in line with the blue line. Look at the image in question to illustrate this. On the far side you have Bevis Mugabi (next to McGrath). You can see the relatively straight line of the grass passing outside him on the near side, going right through him and exiting on his opposite side, but nobody argue that he is straddling the line there, he's clearly closer to our goal than the line, but the optical illusion presents him half over the line. The linesman gave offside in real time, which was enough for me, and enough for everyone for 100 years. In my opinion you just ditch VAR. Your suggestion doesn't work, because it very obviously doesn't work, and would be less accurate than the linesman (Douglas Ross excepted). They could just stop showing the illustrations of course and simply present the computer calculations and algorithm to ensure it was the same for both sides (which it very obviously is). However, it is the one area in which software developments will catch up fairly quickly I expect. They should be able to develop a simulation that rotates the fixed camera around the centre of the lengthwise pitch (for example) to the point of the offside line (always the furthest point back on the defender), so that people could view the image without the parallax. This should have been a prerequisite to using VAR for offside in my opinion. Secondly, they will likely get to the point where software can be used to determine both the point of leaving the player's foot and the furthest point on the defender and attacker. I would also expect the time it takes to make that decision to be massively sped up. Again, that should have been a prerequisite.

Not convinced by this one. Don't remember us ever having an out of contract player come in and perform well, generally they're out of contract for a reason. Reeks of Warnock not being able to guage the standard required for the Scottish game, like so many before him. I assumed that was why we had the recruitment team in place, to avoid this type of signing. Nevertheless, it's a punt that might work out. I'm guessing we won't be paying over the odds for an ageing winger. As @BigAl suggests, he can't be worse than Morris. Welcome aboard loon.

His name rhymes with toilet. He has the potential to be the next Nicky Maynard. Edit: that wasn't me trying to pen the lyrics to a new chant.

He'll be ready for the cup final.

There's actually nothing wrong with a back three, so I hope not. We've had some good performances this season in a three. There are good ways and bad ways to play a back three of course, and we repeatedly choose the bad ways, none more so than last night. Robson's bollocks was playing Clarkson in front of the three, Warnock's is playing every player out of position and throwing in a Morris wing back for a laugh. A four gives us the most options for changing things up and suits the most number of players in our squad. I would think that every game at pittodrie should see us playing a four, but perhaps away at the Tims or something might see us shift to a three. The best approach we've had to a three this season has been in a 3-4-2-1, cramming the midfield and getting McGrath and Polvara high up whilst leaving two sitting to cover the fullbacks and keep things very tight. I could see that still being a very useful option, especially in games if we need to hold a lead. I don't think last night gave us any indication of what a back three was supposed to do.

You were doing well until that last bit! I don't think it's sycophantic to be wanting the manager to do well and want to "give him a chance". However, I do think the phrase "you've got to give him a chance" is ridiculously overused in lieu of actual intelligent, worthwhile criticism and is often quite damaging (to adopt a little hyperbole!). He's an experienced manager who has just made a ridiculous error that even a young manager in his first role wouldn't make (compare with Leven's only game in charge, for example). He was slow to rectify it, not even attempting to reshuffle before the subs, and was lucky not to be four down (the one Roos tipped onto post/bar could have gone anywhere). Experience means being held to a higher standard, and if you can't be strongly critical of a guy, when merited, then you add nothing. If anything, he got incredibly lucky that Duk scored with his second touch, as had we been held for a further ten minutes, we'd have gone back into our shell. In Warnock's defence, I'm not sure we are/were getting Europe this season anyway, nor a cup win, I don't think we're nearly good enough as a squad. I don't think he'll have been worth the extra money between now and summer ahead of someone like Leven. We actually weren't struggling with man management under Robson, it was tactical ineptitude. If that tactical ineptitude is going to continue, I don't believe that the minor uplift in man management is going to be enough.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the ref gave their goal in real time? The linesman have Miovski offside in real time too, and so we'd have lost 3-4 if VAR hadn't been there. I'd have taken the loss over the soul destroying ten minutes additional time. For our third goal (might have been our second), the VAR display actually said that they were checking for both a foul and offside. Nobody knew if that was a mistake by the operator, or what was happening.