RicoS321

Have you done the match thread for the Peterhead game yet?

Leighton Clarkson, or Jim as he's known to his friends, apparently coming on loan from Calvin Ramsay FC. Hopefully we'll ship a few out soon. We seem to be building a big squad and there'll likely be a few duds included so best to keep things a bit lighter and let some of our own youth fill the gaps.

Think he was central. The reason I say he doesn't look like a winger, is because he appears to have quick feet, but doesn't look that fast. I also thought his tracking looked a little suspect. Sort of guy you could leave quite high up and maybe sacrifice in the games where possession is hard to come by. That is just a prediction from the cameo against the Tims though, but I like to go out on a limb early to give me the best chance of being proven wrong.

Don't think Roberts is a winger. Looks like a central player to me.

Work? On your birthday? Bloody Nazis.

Shayden Morris' Wikipedia page changed to read playing for Aberdeen, so it must be true (#mcgheesLaw).

St Mirren were by far the better team against Motherwell, but had nae striker (although big Curtis will likely do the business). We'll look a lot more aggressive with McRorie back in midfield, which should be enough to make the difference.

Pretty rank if so. We should ban the BBC from Pittodrie.

Also worth noting that Ramadani was way out of position, giving Jota the opportunity to run at Polvara, who just got done. But, yes, you would get away with those against Hibs or someone.

I mean, he is the new Jet, so it's quite fitting (unlike his strip). He shouldn't have been on the pitch yesterday, he's nowhere near fit enough. Ramirez is wanting away, but as an attacking threat he offers a lot and should have been the player coming on if we were trying to get back into that game. We effectively let the game go by taking on an overweight player, who couldn't keep up with play. Miovski doesn't look match sharp yet, but that's a different thing to Duk's "breathing oot his airse".

I think so. At no point has he looked any better than Dean Campbell. But unfortunately we'll need him here until January I expect.

To be fair to Goodwin, he had a hell of a lot of recruitment to do. Also, he loaned Scales before the fixtures were announced and before Barron got injured. It's not a ridiculous gamble to hope that we might play the Tims a few weeks down the road when we had signed another midfielder or defensive cover. It backfired as a result of us playing them in the opening game really. Polvara is a young lad who was signed by Glass (I seem to remember a suggestion that it was him that had seen him before, rather than our recruitment team, but not sure how true that is). Goodwin has done exceptionally well to get rid of all of Glass' signings in a single window bar Polvara (Ramirez and Bates are clearly gone, but not gone), and so the recruitment criticism is a little harsh. Of all the signings made so far, Duk is the only one I think looks gash, with the rest (Richardson was decent in the second half today) under scrutiny, but with no massive concerns yet. We should expect a few of them to be duds, and a few more just to keep the first team ticking over and hopefully one or two will turn out good. It shouldn't be forgotten just how big an exercise has been/is being undertaken this summer. I think it'd be fairly naive to expect anything great this season.

Fairly honking for the first 35 minutes with the midfield all over the shop. Polvara not up to it (yet) and Ramadani terrible until the last 10-15. I was already to come on and give him abuse but he finished the half well, like he'd suddenly realised he was playing fitba. Richardson poor defensively as expected, but Stewart not really helping him either, he's very fixed in his positioning today. Coulson been very good, he'll definitely be starting every week. McRorie been okay too. Hayes was doing well, but then that horrendous miss... All to play for though. The tactical change seemed to help, with Hayes offering the midfield much better protection and Vinny a lot more attacking. Kennedy started well but poor defensively and not quite incisive enough. Miovski worked hard, not had much opportunity.

Would it not have been Tim TV you'd have had to use because it's an away game? I have a red TV international subscription, and I get the ferry to Calais so I can watch it from outwith the UK. Although it isn't cheap. Totally thought the game was at 15:00. Fucking awful time for a fitba match. Not got much hope for this one. With a bit of luck they might not be up to speed.

To be fair, think he got the first sending off correct. No idea what happened at the end, but losing control of games is a madden trait, so I'm guessing that's what happened.

Sounds like they were just using him to push through the purchase of another player. Bit of a shite way to deal with a player like. Sleekit cunts.

Looks about right Panda. That's a fairly weak side, with a few big holes. A defence that looks ripe for errors, a midfield lacking mobility (although I do think that Polvara is getting better) and a striker that looks (or looked) well short of match fitness. To be honest, I think we should gamble and throw Bates in regardless. I previously wondered if he might try a 4-1-4-1, with Polvara sitting in front of the defence, but I'm not sure who we'd be able to shoehorn into the spare midfield slot. It's mental (whilst also being glaringly obvious, since it happened for an entire season) how fucked our team is with only a single player missing.

Fucking impressive to be binning your manager before the league starts.

I guess we've still got Porteous to boo when Hibs come to town, but it'd have been nice to have a backup.

Was it difficult getting tickets for the away end?

I think you're right. Sometimes it just doesn't work for a player at a club. There's no doubt in my mind that he's been hung out to dry a little in his time here. He seems like a fairly honest loon who's trying his best too (aye, Gallagher, I'm having a go at you). I suspect he'll be a high earner in the squad and, with Stewart being made captain, he's not going to be getting many minutes at right centre half. Best for everyone that he moved on. Hopefully we'll add in a sell-on just in case.

I'll be a little disappointed if we do too in some ways. Scales signing has led us to this position. It does make letting Turner go seem a bit strange now too, with the suggestion that it was to make way for Hancock. Turner at least looked ready to challenge for that position, if we're saying that Hancock needs another year (which is fair enough) then surely Turner would have been the cheap option that solved the problem? It looks like we're on to the hit or miss signings now with this Coulson loon. We'll likely be paying a good wage for another centre half to sit on the bench. I'm not going to blame Goodwin for the above of course, the overhaul in the summer was massive. Inevitably there will be poor signings in there, and so we'll likely see even more late signings to make up for those. I can't see anything other than a big squad this season with an expensive bench and zero opportunity for youth to come through (sound familiar McInnes?). Personally, I'd like us to be patient and not do too much business between now and January and have a good look at what we've got. The comparative success in the league cup has, unfortunately, covered over the fact that this should very much be a season of transition, working towards a more balanced squad and towards the club's long term strategies. If we get more and more signings (especially permanent ones), I can see us building a bit of a mess for the coming years. Maybe loans (like Coulson) from here would be fine.

You're right. Bates it is then. Edit: whilst I was slightly joking above, if we don't get anyone in before the weekend, our choices are Bates, Hancock or McRorie into defence leaving Polvara and Ramadani in midfield. You're concerns over Hancock are exactly the same as mine over Polvara. Would that be your choice? Maybe we should start a match thread for this.....

It's certainly the strategy that the fans have been crying out for. I think it's very high risk and the league cup group stages are not that indicative of anything (just as Europe wasn't last season). I'm not seeing a stand out yet in our signings, with Hayes and McRorie probably being the best performers so far. Ramadani looked good in the earlier games, but didn't dominate at all against Raith. Stewart looked like he could do a job in our league without many issues. The passes he gave away were not really of concern as there was an element of trying the difficult pass against a lower league team. He looks like he has the ability to do the simple things well whilst being solid in the challenge. Pace definitely an issue, and Scales covered well in that regard. He looks good too, with the obvious issue that he can't play in 3-4 games. The rest remain unfit or untested. I have a feeling that Roos and Richardson will be the inevitable duds that you always get when signing multiple players. We are going to need a couple that stand out from the rest in order to be successful though. We need real evidence that this approach is working better than simply picking up players from the SPFL or that have played here previously and not made it down South.

That's just elevated my rage.