RicoS321

You could be right, but it's very important to note that this is not what the club think. They've intentionally gone down a route that takes a lot of the role an experienced manager would take on (Scottish managers anyway, not the case in Europe) in-house to provide a support base for the manager. That's why we got rid of McInnes (who wanted to retain control of transfers, sport's science etc) and employed three inexperienced managers in a row. It's going to take a lot for the club to admit defeat on that (in my opinion they shouldn't), and I suspect that the type of experienced manager that you or I might think are a good fit for us may not want to give up complete control of key functions. For me, the obvious route is to get a good football director in first and let them try to get the best out of Robson (he does have some good attributes, I think he can motivate the players, and there's no question of them not playing for them like what happened under Goodwin). If/when that fails, then we let him go, but retain the structure in place for the new manager. We then go to the market to find a manager willing to work to our structure, and not one who will rip it all up. I believe that there's a real danger that we get the next guy in and hand him the keys and we're up shit creek again when his shelf-life is reached. We've taken a long time to recover from McInnes leaving, and I would expect the same again. I'd like to see us sticking to our guns and getting the right strategy in place and let the young managers fail on fair terms, when we can really say that we've done all we can to make them a success. That hasn't been the case for the last three.

Excellent. Good that we injured him first.

Good post. I actually agree. I also believe that the first step should be increasing the support to the manager, which has the dual effect of providing for the next guy too, if the need arise.

I think people are giving Glass credit where none is really due. Mainly because he once got a draw at the Huns as far as I can tell. He was completely wedded to playing Bates out of position, despite it being obvious for months that he was struggling, and continually tried to play out from the back when the opposition could see it a mile off, so the similarities with Robson (and Goodwin) are fairly clear. If we had the right backroom staff, I suspect we'd be getting more from Robson, and would have Goodwin too. Pretty much any club where you hear the "manager X is doing the same thing every week, even though everyone can see it isn't working" is missing managerial accountability. Someone to stop the manager and make them explain themselves, and question themselves continually. I'd actually argue that Glass had the most accountability, as he had a team of tactics and specialist people who likely questioned him regularly (and I think that showed on the pitch in some respects and is probably why Glass seems to be the guy we think we might have missed something with), but it wasn't at the right level, in my opinion, to have an effect.

That's because you're not a Hibs fan. My mate described it as a ridiculous obsession with a 4-4-2, that he refuses to change even when it's clear it's not working and doesn't suit many of the players. Which, sounds familiar.

If the fmb had been honest with supporters, told us that they were giving a young manager a chance to learn improve and asked the fans for a bit of patience. Perhaps if they'd said that this season would be largely a free hit to bed in some players and a system, because the turnover in the past few windows has meant an imbalanced squad with a lottery in the window that would likely result in a squad a little below par. If they'd said that they wanted to design a structure around inexperienced managers with a strong background team that would hold that manager to account, whilst giving him a sounding board for advice. They didn't say, or do, any of those things. They got us an inexperienced manager and asked him to do the role of an experienced manager in a season that saw us have our largest number of fixtures in a long time. The fmb should be aware that the fans aren't happy with the fmb.

Anthony Stewart was a stand out for Wycombe. It's a very high standard, and we should be looking to pick up their scraps. They're up there with Morecambe.

Was he not linked with someone else? Sure I've seen the name before. Anyway, will be interesting to see what is meant by versatile. I was really hoping we wouldn't get another midfielder, I don't want us to return to Clarkson sitting behind two, but Robson is absolutely adamant that is what's happening. Wonder how long it'll take to realise that this guy isn't Ramadani either, and we're now stuck with another fucking midfielder that we need to shoehorn into the side?

I think we should go down the route of getting a proper manager like Hibs have done.

VAR goals that don't occur without VAR. That's a good way of putting it. Exactly correct. It'd be interesting to go back through VAR awards and classify then as VAR goals ("of VAR" or not "of VAR") and otherwise. Similarly with decisions against. The game was fine before it. What was needed was a complete change of attitude towards referees from the bottom up. I attended an under 15s game the other week and the ref was getting abuse from players, coaches and supporters. As always though, we don't deal with the underlying problem, we use "technology" to deal with the symptoms and then call it progress, accusing anyone who calls it out as anti progress, or a luddite. Then cajoling them by warnings of being "left behind" and other such bollocks which fail to examine which race we're being left behind in (a race off a cliff into a giant pile of elephant shite in this case). In this regard, football is just a mirror to the rest of our world, we must obey the overlord of progress (towards what, is never defined) and technology (and science). Watching the game yesterday showed how bad things have got and that they will only get worse. It's not just the VAR, it's the entire attention grabbing model that's pursued, so that you can't just enjoy the game. The English game is far worse of course, when everything is just 100mph, with uber-athletes. There wasn't an instant yesterday, watching it, when you were allowed to pause for thought. Every throw-in flashes towards the manager, a player's face, a replay, with no time to digest what you're seeing. They might as well have had strobe lighting, it's so full on. Designed to grab your attention and keep you locked in. No time to see what's happening, the essence entirely stripped out for television - it's no wonder that VAR made sense to those who are television people. It's become a spectacle. The controversy bigger than the game itself. I'd like to at least make it to thirty years of season tickets in a row before I give up though.

Thick as shite bellend John Collins? Sacked from every job because the players disliked him because he was a total penis? Barely able to string a sentence together, atrocious pundit? Most irritating voice in the history of voices? That guy? I'd rather we offered Robson a 14 year deal.

Well beaten in the end. Couple of bollocks decisions, just like we got in our favour the other night. We've now been conditioned to believe that a player having a ball belted off his arm is a penalty, it's difficult to even have a conversation with anyone who agrees with that. It's like an entirely different value system. There is nothing sporting about their penalty, absolutely no merit in it, but everyone is now fully on board with that type of call. With VAR finding them everywhere, the game's fucked. After the pen, we really struggled. The changes failed miserably. The first was an obvious sub, bringing Duk on. However, he got five minutes to add something to the game, before the double sub destroyed any shape we had left. I guess that's the problem when you always make your subs so late. You condense the time available for further changes and so any impact the first subs have is nullified as they have to switch almost immediately. I understand that there is pressure to make changes, but spread them out and allow players to come into the game (or do the opposite and make a triple change). Fairly clueless tactical response to going behind, given we were the better team for a large part of that match.

Yep, it's fucking awful. Ruined the game the other night, and ruining it today. For what? Lots of shitey penalties for a ball hitting someone's elbow with their back to the play. Offside given for a toe beyond the defender. Context removed from every single decision. All massive negatives. For the one decision every three months that actually required a video replay for a genuine error. Absolute fuckers that brought this shite into our game. Absolute fuckers who are still saying shite like "it's not VAR, it's the way it's being used". Anyway, a very good first half from the Dons. First to every ball and pressing well. The midfield all playing well, with Clarkson doing the business with his passing. Shinnie been outstanding today so far too. Setting the tone. As is so often the case, when he plays well, the others respond. Miovski's finish was just top class too, he's ace. Edit: to add, once again the ref and other officials saw exactly what happened in real time. An accidental coming together. The player saw our goal go in and walked away without complaint as he knew he wasn't fouled. The ref saw it in context, he knew what happened.

Amazing finish from Miovski. Another nonsense VAR intervention. Contact fucking sport.

Jesus fucking Christ. That's all we need. Another game of fucking football. It is the logical conclusion of a sport trying to get every single decision "correct". Right lads, try it again from the top, nobody goes home until we get this right.

Back four then, looks like the widthless 4-2-3-1 again.

It basically means hearts to beat us by more than one. Put on £10 and you'll get £30 back. Obviously no Dons fan would ever bet against Aberdeen, as that would be Hunnish behaviour.

I don't think Clarke will be leaving before the Euros.

Hopefully we've learned the lesson of McInnes' final window here. You simply can't afford to miss one out, it sets you back two at least. We should have the structure in place where trusting Robson or not is irrelevant. We've got an independent recruitment team who can target players and the manager is just a small part of that (or that certainly seems to be our strategy - a good one). You don't need to do a great deal in a January window, just keep things ticking over with getting rid of deadwood and adding players in key positions where it's clear to everyone we're lacking. Also, identify pre-contracts and try and have them in place (preferably before the window closes, which might provoke the parent club to sell on the cheap). We're not building a squad. Not doing this in McInnes' last window killed Glass' tenure completely. It'd be a disaster if the board hadn't learned that lesson.

I don't think Barron and Clarkson work together in many of the options (that Robson uses) in a three/five. Clarkson further forward works when he's in the middle (although it needs width), but when we do Robson's preferred European style, that involves two higher up, who drop wide when defending - not really something Clarkson does well. Barron doesn't play well further forward full stop, so that's out. We could play a 3-4-1-2, which would suit Barron and Clarkson, but that would involve dropping McGrath, which I don't think Robson will do. It's the same problem we've had all season. If Barron starts, it has to be at the expense of Clarkson or McGrath, not ramming every midfielder onto the pitch at once because three players who play similar roles are also very good.

Really, really looking forward to another game of football. More games, thick and fast, that's what we need. I agree @manc_don, think we'll go back three. I actually don't think that'll be a bad thing though, because we're away in a difficult fixture. I think he'll play the 3-4-2-1 setup that worked a couple of times in Europe, which is vastly different to the single sitting midfielder he played in every other fucking game. It's a stuffy setup at times, but does allow two (Polvara and McGrath would be my guess) to get close to Miovski, whilst allowing the fullbacks to get higher. In theory. It would mean dropping Barron (because he won't drop Clarkson for contractual reasons), which he'll be fine with. Obviously, the injury to Rubi might mean he sticks with the back four.

Pollock off to Derby for a few years. We'll pick him off if he turns out to be a player.

Super fans like me need to top up our status somehow, otherwise it would be unfair.

Aye, that's the thing though, it kind of has to be Rubezic that leaves for Pollock to come in. Can anyone's heart really survive a defence of Rubezic and Pollock? Mine couldn't, it'd be frightening. We'd win a lot of headers. They're both right footed and not really good enough at football to play on their wrong side. They're both young (for defenders) prospects that we'd look to sell on and so must start. We'd have to play a back three to accommodate that. Every week. If/when we miss out on European group stages next season, we don't have the additional games for which to carry additional squad players and offer rotation. Defence isn't generally an area that lenda itself to regular rotation and we don't have a manager who can navigate that anyway. I think we can really only afford one project in defence at a time and, for all his faults, we've chosen Rubi at this time. Pollock would be a great signing, but we'd be doing it just because he's available and for fear of missing out. The timing is wrong sadly. Also, Milne might have something about him and we need to fully investigate that.

I don't think we should, unless we're getting rid of Rubezic or Gartenmann isn't signing. He benefited massively from MacDonald being in the centre last season as he was very slow on the turn and to get back into position. I think he was a little overrated. Not completely averse to it, but only with space freed up, and maybe not with Robson in charge as he'd likely try and shoehorn four centre backs into the team. I think he's struggling as it is to deal with a squad of multiple players who play in the same position. If it was the summer window, I'd be much keener.