RicoS321

Just turned it on yesterday on your recommendation, fairly decent so far. I'm not a monster also good. Have to admit, I don't get beyond the BBC when it comes to podcasts, as I've never quite worked out the best app to listen to them. I don't listen to enough either to warrant searching around, nor would I listen to enough to justify another subscription service.

Worth a look?

There are fans from a non scum team? How on earth do you expect the SFA to accommodate people from outwith Glasgow?

Duncan was very good in the second half of the Huns game. The only question mark from that game would be Duk, who massively underperformed - Duncan and Miovski did all the work in the forward areas to make up for it. Obviously he's got plenty of goodwill in the bank. I think that there's more to the Barron situation than just injury, it's almost like he's being phased out for not signing a new contract. Either way, he doesn't fit into a midfield with Clarkson as number six, and I don't see Robson shifting Clarkson further forward to accommodate Barron as number six, or in a two with Ramadani (the latter, in my opinion, is the only option if Barron is playing). If he signs a new deal on Friday, he'll be straight in! Otherwise it'll be the same team.

There are many reasons why interim managers are a necessity. Not least, there was clearly a huge desire to keep Goodwin for as long as possible and give him every chance of succeeding. You can see from Hearts and St Johnstone's lack of appointments that there isn't a whole host of decent managers out there waiting for their chance to get sacked for not finishing third in the SPFL. It's really not that attractive a position, and the strategy also limits the number of managers that we can even look at (beyond whether they actually want the job). I suspect that due to health issues and previous failed appointments, Cormack was also very keen to wait until Burrows was in the door too, and if Goodwin could have staved off being horrendously shite for another month we might have seen a more considered appointment. As it turns out, I think Robson is a really good fit for us and where we are as a club. We're in the process of implementing the recruitment strategy, which is designed to remove significant responsibility from the manager, and we also want clear pathways from youth to senior football. Robson has a lot of experience with our youth team and isn't well placed to interfere with recruitment, to the extent that Mowbray is more experienced and will have more authority than Robson in that regard. It's exactly the setup that we should have had in place for when Glass arrived (as I argued at the time, Robson should have been part of his management team ahead of Brown), but didn't. If the recruitment team can succeed in the coming windows then we have a structure there that transcends Robson and is something we can sell to future managers as a working system. Had we got an external manager, we'd likely have seceded control significantly in those areas and been in the same place again in 18 months time. In the end, it's not just experience that matters with managers, it's ability and a good dose of luck. There are plenty of experienced managers who fail due to lack of luck or because they're not actually very good.

It's not the fans that are asking for this in fairness (at present I mean, it was clearly something expected of McInnes), it's part of the club's strategy and it's very clear that there was pressure at interview stage (at least) on both Glass and Goodwin, and that there was an expectation on them to play exciting football at the Dons. I think most fans will be very happy with the level of performance and entertainment served up by Robson so far. It remains to be seen whether it's possible to be consistent and entertaining in the SPFL on a budget (I don't believe so).

We've got a massive rebuild in the summer and that needs to begin now. If we can turn two of the successful January loans into signings (MacDonald and Shinnie, one down, one to go), that'll alleviate a few problems caused by inaction in that window, but we're still way behind where we need to be. That requires a management decision now, and there's equally as great a chance of Robson getting five pastings as any other manager (unlikely, you'd have to suggest). Pragmatism has to be the key next season. It's ludicrous to expect a manager to be able to get ten new players to gel into some beautiful footballing side and the board need to learn their lesson from trying to force Goodwin to do so. Entertainment will come in the form of results only, unless we get lucky, and it'll be inconsistent too. Exciting teams need to be built over time, and they can't be maintained for long on our budget. Our best side under McInnes took about three years to build, and probably 18 months to unbuild again.

Yes, I was more thinking ahead to next season. If Robson doesn't get 3rd this season he should be sacked.

Should have waited until after third was guaranteed. We've jinxed it now. It's the right thing. Hopefully we're relaxing the strategy too, and allowing him a window or two to build his own team. The whole "third place gets millions" thing is really toxic in my view, and has a hugely negative impact on a manager trying to build a team. Robson will likely get zero patience from fans and board in that regard, but he'll know that and be up for the challenge. That'll mean we can't afford to be precious about style of play and entertainment too.

Aye, it's one hell of a final day in that league. A bit weird that it's on a Friday night, but good for neutrals. Accies and Cove battling for relegation, with Arbroath trying to avoid the playoff, five teams going for three playoff spots up the way and a league decider between Dundee and Queens Park. Not one of the ten teams really has the budget to maintain large squads, so injuries playing a crucial part in every team's season hence why nobody has been able to pull or drop away at respective ends. It's like the SPFL without the scum. Tremendous league.

Devlin is available on a free, he's experienced, positionally aware, gets assists and regularly makes it to the back post to get on the end of things. I don't think he's as good as McRorie, but he's not far off it. The point being is that if you had slotted Devlin into the side a few weeks ago, we'd likely be in the same position as now, and that's just a guy I'm picking because I've seen him plenty of times, the scouts will have better shouts. McRorie has some really big flaws to his game, hence why Ralston is in Scotland squads and McRorie never likely to be in contention, they're not comparable. McRorie wasn't good enough for the Huns, he was getting pushed further and further out (that's not a criticism) as they spent more and more. Dean Campbell would be an equivalent for us. We replaced Ferguson with worse players but have adapted and made do and are still in third. I doubt we'll get anyone as good as Clarkson for next season either. Duk, Miovski, Ramadani, Shinnie (I'd argue MacDonald and Roos too) are also players as good or better than McRorie in their respective positions and the incremental improvement McRorie adds will be taken up by signings in other areas, even if we don't improve on McRorie. The turnover is our biggest issue, but I suspect that's why shitey Bristol are having to pay so much.

Exactly, that's pretty much my point. I'd say that £2M is that for a guy like McRorie, and it'd be very unfair to not give him the opportunity to look at it and see if it's for him. It's a really high offer and very difficult for the club to turn down. I think it's exceptionally unfair to suggest we should be holding out for more, especially if you're saying that he shouldn't be sold at all (I'd be happy with that). By saying "every player has their price", you're essentially saying that he's replaceable, as regardless of the amount received we'll get the same amount to replace him (<£500K).

I'd rather we kept him too, to save us having to sign another player, but that's not a basis for his valuation. I don't understand how you arrive at >£2M at all if I'm honest, it doesn't really make sense. He's either not for sale at any price, or at a value that clubs are willing to pay. Given that we only ever spend a maximum of £500K on players (Hernandez is a massive, erroneous, outlier that looked like a money laundering exercise rather than a serious signing), I don't see any difference between us getting £2M or £3M (or whatever). Yet you seem to be saying that a higher offer would be acceptable? I don't think that there's a single player worth more to Aberdeen than £2M as it's not the market we operate in for signings. Clarkson is probably the closest to that, but it's arguable that Barron could cover that role and still get the team to third. McRorie isn't the difference in a league position, unless we replace him with a corpse. He could have been missing from any of our recent games and we'd have had the same outcome with Kennedy. He's just not a player that takes us to another level, or offers goals, assists or last ditch challenges.

It's entirely a question of whether he's a £2M player. Quite simply, nobody would pay more and the deal would be off. He's not worth £2M in my opinion, it's a very generous offer, boosted by the reasons you give. He's had zero assists (barely had any completed crosses) and two goals all season and his spells in centre half and midfield have been fairly poor, so his utility isn't really worthwhile either (so we're really just looking at a wing back to replace him rather than a utility). We won't spend the £2M, obviously, but we could likely pay a fee for a couple of players with any money that is made available. He's only worth more than £2M to us if we replace him with another Richardson. Your ignoring the marginal gain you get from having any other player in there. Even Kennedy managed 80% of the McRorie role, whilst being better at crossing. If you got a proper wing back in you'll lose very little. As I mentioned previously, Devlin at Livi would go a long way to plugging the gap, and I'm sure the recruitment team could come up with better. This isn't the 16 goals from Lewis Ferguson we're missing, nor the vision and passing of Clarkson or the goals of Duk or Miovski. McRorie doesn't win us games. He's a strong, hard working professional that won't be easily replaced, but there are a lot of players out there that can give you something close and probably better in other areas of their game to make up for it. McRorie himself leaving wouldn't be the problem, rather the total turnover of staff, which his departure compounds. I'd be very happy for him to stay on those grounds. If the Dons feel that there are too many leaving, then it's not a case of asking for more money, it's saying that he isn't for sale at any price.

Fantastic signing. Great stuff. Well deserved.

Cove hold Dundee to take the championship to the final game and take themselves off the bottom. Truly magnificent shitfest, with Reynolds and Logan (at left back) taking game management to extremes not seen even in the McInnes days.

I'm just glad you got it. I should have put major in bold.

Didn't realise he was a military man.

Looks like the Dons are set to join in the ruination of Scottish football, this time the Highland league. Making a complete cunt of the pyramid so that our young players can all play together every week. Once again we jump into bed with the scum.

£350K is a huge amount for a Dons fullback and we should easily be able to replace McRorie with that. Richardson should have been a really good signing in theory, he has so much going for him. He's not very good at football, but he should look to McRorie for inspiration there. His physical attributes, used correctly and with confidence and hard work should have turned him into a much better prospect than McRorie. I agree with your point about turnover though, ideally we'd have 7-8 first teamers and a few reliable subs going into each season, with 5-6 going out and coming in. What Cormack failed to understand is that needs to be a continuous process, or it takes years to rebalance. When he failed to back McInnes in his final window, before failing to get Glass a proper recruitment team in time, we were set back a good year or two, and we're still catching up. There's clearly a happy medium there somewhere as McInnes held onto certain players for too long. The club should probably insist that we have a certain volume of turnover every season to force the manager's hand on having players around that are just nice to have around the place, but at the same time ensuring that we have a level of continuity every season so that we can cope with the inevitable offers that come for players who are performing well or are good prospects and don't want to sign deals. At the moment, we don't have that buffer we had under McInnes unfortunately. Guys like Ramadani, Shinnie, Duncan, Roos (MacDonald would be great) can hopefully be continuity players over the next couple of seasons for us to allow us to build up that 7-8 player base. It's not a fast process as we've seen, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear fans lamenting those players and suggesting that they're not good enough over the next season or so.

I agree about the Scots thing, I think that's important. However, not sure about the rest of your argument. We can clearly see when a player is destined for better things than the Dons, or that it's their intention to move on, as was the case with all those mentioned. We also operate within the constraints of our revenue, unless we're interested in becoming the next sevco. The latter is a fairly important thing to me, I'm not that comfortable even with our current level of expenditure to revenue. I actually don't understand how anyone can be a supporter of a team and not care about these things. In terms of McRorie and Barron, I think the former is easily replaceable with the money suggested, and the latter would really benefit from staying another year and making the Clarkson role his own. However, Barron is a classic case of where your logic breaks down. It's clear that (at present) he doesn't want to sign a new deal and sees his future elsewhere. Our (AFC) feelings don't come into it. I don't think you'd find many Dons fans not delighted if he accepted a three year deal. Imagine he did though and next season he plays really well. We'd be in the Ferguson situation where it's blatantly obvious he needs to move on to further his career. We simply couldn't "build a team around him", because to do that would require players of his calibre with salaries to match. In other words, everything we do as a club with regards to players is only ever good while it lasts with every individual, all the while trying to incrementally improve the squad each time we make a transfer. Just the same as every other club in the world that doesn't just go out and buy two squads.

I prefer county as a team and location, but I don't wish any ill on two of our old managers. I think McInnes probably deserves a chance to show what he can do with another year of recruitment, and I'm intrigued to see what Goodwin can do when not forced to implement a flawed strategy in one transfer window. I don't particularly care about the racism stuff with regards Malky, but I would like to see him fail because I don't think he was ever that good a manager and it'd be nice to see him found out.

That has zero bearing on his valuation though. The question is whether he's a £2M player or not, and I'd have to say no, although prices have been a little mad again lately, with Scottish players again being valued highly - similar to the time Hibs sold Brown, Fletcher etc. We will miss him, I agree, but that doesn't mean we can get more money for him. Clubs will look elsewhere fairly quickly, and I'd have thought £2M would be a really big stretch for a guy like McRorie, even if he is an "ex-rangers star". It's an exceptional bit of negotiating it has to be said, and I think we should be congratulating the club on this rather than suggesting we should be getting more. In terms of replacement, someone like Nicky Devlin or Shaun Rooney would easily plug the hole and would likely get more goals and assists too. They wouldn't provide the utility of course. Those two are just examples of course, not players I'm touting. I'd prefer us to look at options like those two in the summer as I think we need a few known quantities in this window with the massive turnover, and McRorie's position seems as good as any to bring in a tried and tested player. The level to which we miss McRorie will only be determined by the recruitment of his replacement. Whilst there is more to McRorie's game, I think we can get someone who does better than 2 goals and 0 assists in 31 games for a lot less than McRorie's valuation and probable salary.

A lovely car. Comfortable and reliable, with emphasis on an easy driving experience. Just like Ross McRorie. I think.

In fairness, we were the shitest of all the top six teams last season and the beaks obviously think that playing the scum at home is the be all and end all. In reality, it means a game that we wouldn't be favourites to win in anyway is now away from home (and after they have anything to play for), with St Mirren then having to come to pittodrie in what can only be seen as a major disadvantage for them. As Panda says, this is actually very good for us. If we can get six points at home then we'd definitely finish third. Hearts aren't taking eleven points in the remaining fixtures, and even four points in those two games would likely be enough. Assuming those fixtures aren't bollocks. Edit: I see you've addressed the point already!