RicoS321

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They played fullback as a route in, with diamond the exception, who's development wasn't particularly well handled. A back three could allow a youngster to come in, but a four would be better. I thought it was a shame that Milne didn't get any minutes, but the brief moments I saw of him didn't fill me with confidence yet. In order to breed youngsters, it helps to have a confident and strong group round you too. In fairness, Hancock got injured too, and he might have been someone we could recall and add to the squad and give some minutes. Pollock happened to be first team ready, and that was something we absolutely needed. Our youngsters, unless exceptional, need to be brought in, in a structured manner, getting twenty minutes here and there and gradually brought up to first team level. That's the bit I think we're missing. We're only really seeing the exceptional ones at the moment, with the rest being on the bench until they move on. It's been a while since we've had a player like Considine who is good enough for the first team, and gives us a player for a good while. Guys like Duncan and Barron should be getting 100-200 games for us, and we should have one or two more too.

He was on the bench last week, so assume so.

It's important to differentiate between fullback and wing back though, because there's a good argument to say that neither Kennedy or Hayes are out of position when playing the latter. They are both capable of getting up and down and bring with it the diligence to do so. There's a big difference between someone being out of position and a position not being their best. It's the job of the manager to get that balance right, and he feels that the back three gives us a solid foundation, which I understand. That almost always requires wing backs, so it's then a question of who our best wing backs are, and there's a very strong argument that Hayes and Kennedy are best currently (I'd have Coulson in that role despite the risk). In terms of youngsters, Robson would certainly know if any are coming through, but Duncan would be the one that springs to mind and I don't think he has the diligence or strength to play wing back. In fact, it's a very difficult position to ask any youngster to go in and play because of the requirement to get up and down so much. In a back four, it'd be easier with McRorie assisting Duncan or whoever. We seem to be getting better results with those youngsters that have been out on loan and returning to take a place, so it's unlikely we'll see anyone new (Duncan and Barron aside) before summer.

I think he'll go with your first suggestion, with three at the back. I think we might see Coulson in for Hayes too. What are the rules regarding head knocks anyway? Motherwell made six subs, which means that Hayes must have been taken off as a concussion sub (I don't remember anyone else with a head knock). Does that result in an automatic X no of days out? Or is it just an internal club decision? Either way, I think Coulson probably offered more than Hayes at wing back. Kennedy probably justifies his place despite being a weak link. Clarkson did well in the deep role, so I expect to see that continue, and it'll be interesting to see how Ramadani copes with being asked to do more of the leg work against a decent team.

He always came across really well on RedTV. There was only so long that the Dons could continue to offer him a contract though. The biggest problem for me was that when he returned from injury on several occasions, he wasn't actually very good. There was one game against Hearts he was absolutely honking, missing simple headers by getting caught under the ball and just looked like he'd forgotten how to play. That could have been down to nerves and lack of practice of course, but you'd think Hibs would need a confident, settled player immediately. A decent defender on his day though, a poorer version of Mark Reynolds (at his best), with limited ability on the ball. I look forward to him not celebrating when scoring a consolation goal against us.

Which game were you most impressed with his tactical changes?

Out for the rest of the season after being injured in training. Shame for the lad. Hope for both parties that it doesn't leave him stuck here next season (or even for this one, hopefully he can do his rehabilitation with mk Dons if he's happier there).

Was Duncan Fraser not CEO? I was sure he had moved from finance director at one point. Always thought Burrows came across as intelligent and had a good understanding of the game and the fans at Motherwell. Seems a decent appointment.

Alan Burrows? Not for manager of course.

I agree entirely. I didn't actually know enough about Wilder or Boro or Sheffield utd to realise his level! If he's only just out of a job in October 22, then he'll almost certainly still be being paid by Middlesbrough (gardening leave seems to be the done thing these days). That was likely the same with solskjaer when he was being touted last time around (except he was on an £8M contract). I'd be extremely concerned if we moved to a point where we were paying a manager £1M per season (I've never believed McInnes' reported £750K), or even £500K. I don't think we'd recoup that with results, without a similar uplift in player salaries. Then we'd be way beyond the 60% wages to turnover that I believe we're already in breach of. Unfortunately the market we're in has a dearth of interesting names just now. I'd stick with Robson for a bit longer.

Yep. Or Barry Robson. One of the first things Cormack said when he came in was that he wanted good succession planning at the club, and I was delighted as I've been saying it for years. When McInnes was getting in his own sports scientists, scouts etc if concerned me greatly. Cormack made absolutely no changes to the club that hinted at succession planning, and we didn't have recruitment or DofF positions filled when Glass arrived and we all saw the disaster. Whoever we employ as manager, we have to do it on our terms (compromise, to a degree of course), with succession in mind, always. If Wilder were to come in and immediately say that a person was underperforming, then that's fine, but we don't need him picking his mate from Halifax or wherever, we go through a proper recruitment process to get a new person. Similarly, he should be able to identify players, but those players must be filtered through our recruitment team and processes. None of the above managers have experience of taking a player from their country to play in the SPFL and as we've seen on many occasions, good players aren't good everywhere. If Wilder is a great coach and manager, and he can add his specific talents to the recruitment negotiations, allowing us to sign players who might not otherwise come to us, then that's certainly worth getting him here for. Those qualities are specific to him, but they're things that we can look for in a replacement when the time comes. What we never want to go through again is an exodus of staff upon a manager leaving because he was the one in complete control (and in McInnes' case, probably left it to stagnate). Edit: to clarify, the line should be drawn between manager and first team coaching staff, with the rest falling under director of football.

Even if it wasn't, seems a good excuse to watch it again.

Clarkson has worked out well for us. I don't think it's fair to say that there should be no loans this summer, but we should be working towards a position where loans are phased out for the most part. We are in no position to be signing the 6-10 new signings we're going to need, regardless of how good our recruitment team is. Loans are really useful when you have used up all your recruitment resource on various players that have either gone elsewhere, or are signed but quickly turn out to be shite. With the best will in the world, you're not going to be able to commit the time and effort into checking out any new guys halfway through a window, and you probably don't want to commit to anything long term. Coulson was a guy who was struggling to find a way in his career, like Hoban, Lowe, Logan etc and we utilised them in the hope that we might get them to stay (Coulson might have had the manager not changed here, and there!). They're experienced enough to go into the team and perform a role, and they're not playing for another SPFL team. Young players are fine if they are exceptional talents like Clarkson, but I'd rather we forced our own youngsters on our manager where possible. We've had too many shite ones to balance against the good. Scales was a signing made really early in the window for a key position and should never, ever have happened. He's like the poster boy for terrible loans, despite not being too bad a player - just a lose:lose for the Dons. I'd be comfortable with 2-3 loans per season. Those in January probably need to be supplemented with pre-contract agreements to ensure that we're not lagging with the squad. Overall though, we just need to be much, much better at recruitment.

The club has to make it's position clear about who is in charge of what part of the business. If we can convince the player that the club has the majority say in signings regardless of the manager then the player might stay. In other words, he'd be no less likely to be signed by a new manager or no manager as the manager is just the guy doing the coaching and management, with all else being the club's focus. Never was there a greater need to enforce that segregation in my opinion, stagnation does nobody any good. McRorie is a utility player. All things equal, he's not good enough at football to be playing every week. He's second best to everyone in the positions he can play. He's a better right back in a four than Kennedy, but dubious as to whether he's a better wing back - I think that'd depend on the opponent. The confusion surrounding McRorie has existed since he joined, and even at that point he was playing right back for the u21s. He's played every week he's been fit, so his development isn't really something the club has been shirking in any way. At some point we have to decide that he's not going to be the guy that bosses our midfield or marshalls our defence, or bombs up the right and puts in a fizzing cross. He's technically deficient, with a fantastic work ethic and drive. He's basically Ricky Foster. Right back should be his role, but we should also be looking for a right back in the summer. I think he could do an excellent job of man marking someone good in midfield too, if we ever need to try that against a good team.

Yep, pure speculation, based on his reasons for leaving Swindon. It probably makes just as much sense that the club instigated the short term deal because they hadn't had the chance to give him the once over. Or both parties agreed that without a manager, they wouldn't be keen to make it a longer deal. Either of the above, it concerns me greatly that we don't have any decent defenders at the club for next season and I'd hope that if we see another few good games from MacDonald then we look to sign him on a longer deal regardless of whether we've got a manager in place or not. The new manager is on a hiding to nothing already, one less centre back to think about would be a god send.

Well, obviously. I like to give my first impressions on players, it shouldn't have to be said that they come with huge caveats and that they are just predictions. I've probably seen more of them in the last week than our scouts did before we signed them too!

From first impressions, both are better than Scales. Scales a better footballer, perhaps, but doesn't have the strength and aggression of the other two. Pollock looks a little like McKenna did at that age and I think he'll move on to bigger things next season. MacDonald would be a great signing, but I'm concerned that he instigated the short term deal, rather than the club, with the intention of going back down south. He looks a very good fit for the SPFL, and is probably the exact sort of known quantity we should be insisting on for next season (assuming he plays as well over the next few games).

99% of the time, I know why the referee intervenes, I just don't agree with him doing so, the time it takes and the ruination of the spectacle for the fan in the ground. VAR is for people watching on the telly, and it can only be that. Yesterday's game was just getting quite enjoyable and the ref was doing well until VAR intervened. It took an age to make a decision and the atmosphere and flow was completely lost. There is no version of clear and obvious that will ever, ever work, because clear and obvious can never be defined. I wish people would stop saying derivatives of "if they'd only use it when it's clear and obvious" or "VAR itself isn't the problem, it's the way it's used". Reekie's good suggestion of one challenge per game aside, which I'd be okay with, there is no "version" of VAR that works or will ever work. We have got the system that everyone has. This is it, this is what everyone watching on TV wanted, this is VAR. Football ruining pish, as was in evidence everywhere before it was forced upon the fans of Scottish fitba because our clubs were too spineless to say that it's shite. The next change that has ruined the game is the increase in subs. Again, it takes absolutely ages to make a sub these days and now that there's 800 per game, you just get bored. I hate injury time subs at the best of times - I think they're an insult to the player - but by the time the Dons decided to do two of them yesterday, I wanted to shoot myself (or maybe just leave). Motherwell made six subs. It's absolutely ridiculous that we can pay millions for a failed video system, but we can't even get a board that allows two or three subs to occur at the same time. One sub comes off. Then the board goes up again. Then the next sub comes off. Then the board goes up again. Then the third sub comes off. Then the opposition makes their sub. It's painful. Have a home and away board with three numbers on it with the numbers of all players coming off (red for home, green for away). Give players thirty seconds to get off the nearest edge and then put up the numbers of the players coming on (which is only for the crowd, but in reality isn't required). Any home and away subs can take place at exactly the same time, no single file bollocks. It's like we're trying to drain any speed or excitement from the game, and having so many subs - usually all in one half - makes for a shite experience in the ground. That's basically it, the game is becoming shite.

That was a decent performance. It was a good, solid setup, doing the basic things well as tlg says. It was a McInnes like performance that very much suggests to me that Robson is looking for the job permanently. No risks and no experimentation, just remain solid and let the good guys do their thing. If it hadn't been for var trying to suck all enjoyment from football, it'd have been a perfect day. It was an interesting midfield setup from Robson, and it worked well. He kept Clarkson deep and central in a flatish three, with Shinnie and Ramadani expected to do the box to box stuff. It brought Ramadani out of his comfort zone, showing him up a little, whilst forcing him to try things like his eventual great assist for Miovski. Two world class finishes from Bojan today, and that's why the rumours happened when he hit his last run of form. Clarkson's pass for his second was beautiful. Coulson is a delight to watch when he's well protected by a functioning defence, and they were excellent today. I like MacDonald, he was really composed in that three and knew when to punt and when not. Pollock will be a great player. Kennedy did what was asked of him with a lot of hard work. Him and Hayes are the cautious and dependable options as wing backs and, as Elgin says, there's room to improve the right side. I'd even consider giving Richardson a run out just to see if he can learn to run very fast at the touch line and kick it sideways. Just the kicking bit for him to learn. Would like to have seen changes but, as I mentioned earlier, I think Robson is playing no risk fitba to win himself the job.

This in every way. Anyone who's ever played football knows what happened. If you're running at full pace and an arm comes towards you from your periphery, you raise your arm instinctively to block or defend yourself. In McRorie's case, he even tries to get it over/round the player too, as you say. There is no malice, no arm where it shouldn't be or any of the other bollocks that people who watch the EPL or pundits will tell you, it was all entirely natural. He wasn't "a bit silly", a "forearm smash", or any of the other cliché'd pish, it was an entirely involuntary action, caused by the defender. An unfortunate collision in a contact sport, in a tenth of a second. Most importantly, it wasn't "out of control", or a well documented situation like jumping for a header with your arms out, McRorie was the player being tackled. It was, without question, a defensive block rather than offensive. That is what the referee, and everyone in the stadium, saw at the time of the incident and why the referee chose to act the way he did. He didn't miss anything, he wasn't confused by what happened, he saw exactly what occurred with his eyes and interpreted it as above like everyone else. Then VAR intervenes. That's the point where all context is lost. We're now being asked to analyse something completely different. We're now being asked: "does this player make contact with Dunne's face?". The focus is changed, the picture slows, and you're left with a red card. It warps the thought process entirely. All it takes is for the referee to go to VAR without a clear picture of what he saw and how he interpreted it in his mind, and he'll change it. That's why Collum didn't change his mind in that Hun game, because despite what we may think of him, he has the courage of his convictions and he went over to the monitor with the attitude "I gave a yellow card because this is what happened when I watched the incident". Irvine was a weak referee, throughout the game, who would never have had the decency to say to VAR: "well that's not the way it happened in real time". Because the images might be the same, but the context most certainly isn't, and that's the most important thing. It's the equivalent of me making a homophobic comment about the referee quietly to my mate who would understand the satire involved, but having it secretly recorded and played back over Twitter to screams of "ban him for life!" (that didn't happen by the way!). When you remove context from a situation you can make it seem like anything has occurred, it's extremist behaviour, and football is just mirroring society as it scrapes the barrel of surveillance looking for offence.

If McRorie is able to play, I'd play a back four.

He was on the injury list last night, as was Richardson. Robson took on a plucked from thin air loanee instead of Duncan or Barron last night. I suspect he'll be seeing himself as a serious contender for the job and will be looking out for himself rather than the promotion of young players.

a) nobody should ever read the sun b) thanks for providing a screenshot rather than a link.

VAR needs to be shot into the sun. That was a fucking disgrace. Anything can be made to look like a red card if you watch it over and over again and remove all context. In real time, it wasn't a red card, because it wasn't a fucking red card. Two people clashing together, both with arms out and running fast in a contact sport. Context is absolutely vital, and is only available in real time. The weekend's incidents in the Hun game also showed the same. Stoppage after stoppage before and after from a ref that had no idea what football is, and completely lost control of the game, with var checking every movement, rattling him further and further. It was a terrible game, with all spectacle being removed. I didn't even enjoy our pen. A great run from Duk, who only wanted to get beyond the defender in order to stop, wait for contact and throw himself to the ground. There's a lot to dislike about the modern game. The lack of subs was shocking. Barron should have been on to shore things up at 1-1, and it needed to be decisive. You can't prick about waiting for things to happen. It was an extremely lucky moment that brought us back into it, and we weren't likely to get another, we should have shut up shop and tried for the point, with maybe a push in the last few minutes, or hope to get one on the break. Poor management. We simply can't afford those errors at the moment. The new defenders looked okay, it was great to see some aggression and strength, but it was difficult to tell if they'll be any good as we were a little disjointed. Pollock didn't look comfortable at all with his left, but he didn't dick about with it, and the other lad looked a bit clumsy at times, but it was still an improvement. Shinnie was good, as was Clarkson. Ramadani seemed to lose it and isn't at it just now despite a lot of effort. Duk worked hard tonight, but was done around 60 minutes (despite the pen).