RicoS321

£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!

If we take him for free, then they can have half of any future transfer fees. Just like Duk. Seems reasonable.

That's a bit harsh. On the reliant robin. Willie Miller keeps calling him a Rolls Royce of a player on the radio too, seems McInnes' original description (which we all probably agreed with after his first couple of games) has stuck. He definitely brings a lot to a team and squad, but he'd probably be in the land rover defender (not the new abominations) category. Very reliable, easy to fix (he's always down injured and is invariably fine) and can run forever.

Wigan offloading Shinnie apparently. Hopefully get that one tied up shortly.

Once you started the thread, I felt I had no choice. It's a form of entrapment.

Alternatively, we double down on the strategy, in the hope that the law of averages will return one good *ayden.

Continuing on, the squad for next season so far (and apologies again to those missed), and a view on whether we should keep or not (or will be outwith our hands): Roos - keep McRorie - leave (outwith our hands probably) Hayes - keep MacKenzie - keep Stewart - leave (fire into the sea) Richardson - leave (cut our losses) Ramadani - keep Barron - leave (outwith our hands probably) Duncan - keep Morris - leave (cut our losses) Roberts - leave (cut our losses) Besuijen - keep (borderline, would be interesting to see if Robson can get anything out of him) Duk - keep (outwith our hands perhaps, although the game yesterday will have shown many teams that he's far from the finished article and might not be worth the investment if not playing every week) Miovski - keep (outwith our hands possibly, but I think we'll get another year, or six months at least, from him despite that header) That leaves a maximum of 14 signed players for next season, with 4 of those definitely not good enough, another 2 likely to leave, with a further 2 possibly leaving, which gives us a minimum of 6 signed players for next season (two of those being McKenzie and Besuijen who probably aren't quite good enough). Of course, we should have a great chance of signing Shinnie, and hopefully MacDonald can be persuaded too. If we take the middle figure of 10 signed players, of which two are squad players (I think we can rely on Hayes to play a good chunk of games for another season), then we'll need at least another 5 players. At last season's rates then we'd need to sign 10 players at least to replace those guys. That's a mammoth task, and a lot of first teamers.

We all know that this thread shouldn't have been started until May, but seeing as it has, is it worth including a review of this season's signings to give an idea of what to expect this summer, and also a break down of the squad for next season so far? That was a rhetorical question, of course it is. Signings Roos - success Miovski - success Duk - success Ramadani - success Stewart - failure Morris - failure Richardson - failure Roberts - failure MacDonald - success Myslovic - failure (borderline, perhaps, potential to turn it round) Loanees Clarkson - success Coulson - failure (borderline, but he hasn't held down a place and has performed worse than Hayes) Shinnie - success Pollock - success Markanday - failure Gorter - success (not going to be here next season, and not going to get minutes this one, but clearly a good goalkeeper) Apologies if I've missed anyone. That's a 50% success rate in terms of signings and a 66% success rate in terms of loanees (Coulson and Gorter both debatable either way). I'd say that's fairly decent, and probably quite indicative of what we can expect in any given season (two windows). Had we not had the exceptional January window of 66% success rate, we'd have been struggling for top 6 in my opinion, but given the tremendous turnover in personnel last summer, that's exactly what we should have expected and also indicative of what will likely happen next season.

His best position is the one he's currently playing in, wing back as part of a 3/5, he can also play right back too. At best, he's a stop gap for centre mid and centre back, you definitely wouldn't want him playing either for long spells. £2M would be an absolutely fantastic bit of business. We will very much miss his athleticism and ability to run with the ball to get us up the park, but his decision making is poor (he was very lucky to get a free kick at one point yesterday when he turned into trouble instead of just keeping going, and that sort of thing happens quite regularly) and is passing is week. I think he's maybe had a couple of assists all season, and it's rare for his final ball to cause difficulties for the opposition. That said, it's a terrible time to be losing him. We've got such a huge turnover of staff this summer, we're already on a hiding to nothing in terms of recruitment, so a known SPFL quantity is of massive benefit. Barron is an interesting one too, it looks like offers are beginning to come in for him. I think he's a great player, who'll go on to have a good career, but I also think he could massively benefit from another year here, especially with Clarkson moving on and leaving that number 6 role as Barron's to lose. Ryan Duncan barely featured prior to signing his new contract, and has featured heavily since, and Barron has hardly kicked a ball since not agreeing a new deal. I wonder if this is a new hard line that the club is taking with young players? I'm not sure I agree with it, and I'd love to see Barron spend his final year here and kick on as I think that would be hugely beneficial for the team.

Also, his post match interview was class. He either gets it or talks like he gets it. Very refreshing.

Brilliant result, fantastic second half performance. Scales was immense today, won absolutely everything, and an amazing deliberate strike for the goal. The front three were poor in the first half, but Duncan and Miovski obviously took the half time team talk to heart as they put themselves about so well in that second period. There was obviously an emphasis on putting pressure on their fullbacks too, with Hayes and McRorie playing much higher which just got us up the pitch and allowed the front players to play. Duk was fairly pish today, but wasn't required! Ramadani did brilliantly and Clarkson is just a phenomenal footballer. Roos' saves also top drawer, he did magnificently.

Hayes signs a one year extension. No brainer really.

Harsh. Van Veen has a great touch and is fairly skilful. He's just very slow. He's having a purple patch this season, which I'd doubt whether he'd replicate again. His movement seems to have improved this season, which is weird for a guy in his thirties, but it suggests that it could be a one off (think Doidge had similar for Hibs one year as an example). He's one of those guys that we'll consistently tell ourselves that we could do better than but we end up signing jet equivalents that don't do better. But we should at least try to sign better rather than settling for a guy who probably won't repeat a season where he's maybe had a fitness spurt or just everything going right.

And my daughter is being forced to watch it this weekend. For research purposes.

Good to see the PFA backing Shinnie. Hopefully something comes of that. It'd be nice to see other players, perhaps even clubs, back him publicly too. The extra game pish has to change. That's a guy potentially playing for his future (here or elsewhere) with only a handful of games left to play. It's outrageous that some bureaucratic, arrogant fucker can demean a player in such a fashion.

I actually thought the Morelos one was the correct decision in the end. Nobody seemed to realise that the rules had been changed a while prior to that (including the ref), to allow for a little petulance. Regardless, you're right about subjectivity, but I didn't imagine at all that a subjective process could come to that conclusion. To the point that concluding that the appeal was frivolous has lost all subjectivity and is actually biased (not against the Dons, but against questioning authority as you say). I can't think of a better example of a borderline decision that the appeals process is designed for. I'd love to have seen the club publish it's defence in the statement. I do wonder about the rule that states: "The Claim had no prospect of success". I guess that is there to catch an invalid claim, like appealing violent conduct. At the very least, the SFA should be forced to tell us which rule they have applied in the additional punishment (13.21.8.1.3).

If anything, asking for a review with a new panel is a little bit frivolous. Another three matches?

13.21.8.1 In the event of a Claim being dismissed the Tribunal must then Determine whether: 13.21.8.1.1 The Claim had no prospect of success; 13.21.8.1.2 The Claim was an abuse of process or a delaying tactic for the sanction originally imposed; 13.21.8.1.3 The Claim was frivolous. I don't think it can be frivolous (it could, but it's unlikely). It can't be because of a delaying tactic, because it was a fast track that would always be settled prior to the next match but I suspect it could be a technicality that means it had no prospect of success. Perhaps because it was "serious foul play", which can't be appealed? Edit: or can only be appealed for mistaken identity type reasons. It's a fair trawl through the rules like.

My apologies..... That's fucking unbelievable. Nothing remotely frivolous about the appeal. This borderline case is surely exactly what the appeals process is for?

Disgusting. I'll get back to you in May when this thread should be started.