RicoS321

Are you holding down the enter key after every post? Fowler seems to throw his name into the hat for every possible job. It seems strange that nobody outside of Asia has given him an opportunity. I think he'd be better placed in the lower English leagues and working upward from there. Carrick would be a better shout if we hadn't just employed a manager with zero experience. I doubt Cormack would want to take that risk again. To be honest, I've got little desire to sign a big name ex player from down South, there seems to be little evidence that any of them are any good or that there's any link whatsoever between being a good player and manager. I was hoping we'd actually see someone in the frame that we'd never heard of. I'm surprised that there wasn't a name from the US thrown in. I think he'll have made his decision already though and it's likely between Ross and Goodwin.

2-4 now. Still plenty of time.

You youngsters just lack ambition.

I won the argument about sixteen replies ago, as everyone on here bar you can grasp. You haven't provided a single piece of contrary evidence. Great story though.

Fuck it, I'll have one more go. Every single example you're throwing out is not comparable and you seem completely unable to see that. It's just weird. You do realise that signing an arsenal reserve team player in the eighties for well within budget isn't the same as signing a manager being paid £7.5M? That Celtic signing Postecoglu, well within budget, isn't remotely the same thing? Or your other random attempts at comparison. It'd be like a Dundee United fan questioning why they weren't chasing European success because they got to the final in '87. The fact that you state that your not suggesting we do anything financially irresponsible shows that you don't understand what you're proposing. That means that you must think Solskjaer is willing to take a 95% pay cut to join Aberdeen, which is a little bit fucked up. I mean, I love the Dons, but I'm not fucking delusional, it really isn't that great a job. However, if we humour the stupid suggestion for a second and he agrees to join the Dons. After we've checked his hard drive, what do you think the first demand is going to be from the fans? Ye canna sign Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and nae gie him a budget! You then have to either match those demands or hang the guy out to dry. You can't have both, and one is useless without the other. As soon as you go down the Solskjaer route, you're opening the club up to financial disaster. You become the Huns, basically. It's not a great look. If Cormack is asking Solskjaer then he has plans for this club that are disastrous and he's not fit to be chairman. Luckily, he won't be doing that, because he's not am idiot. As I stated in my original post about Nicholas' original suggestion, it's really unhelpful to have these types of ideas without laying out the critical thought process behind it. Imagine we were one day to get fan representation at board level and this was the kind of idiotic shite that was being added? It would utterly ruin us. I'm not a massive fan of Cormack, but it's really unfair on him to have this type of thinking out there. Anything he does in comparison is always going to look shite.

It's fucking brilliant if true. Not just the fact that he's McGhee, but he's also got a six match ban still to serve after the "incident" against us.

We'll, aye, but I'm guessing the club wouldn't have had to give away a bunch of tickets to kids either.

Nobody is cancelling anyone. Steve Clarke is a terrible example, not even close to solskjaer joining Aberdeen as even a rudimentary examination of evidence would point out. Nor Charlie Nicholas, nor George Best. The onus is not on me to come up with reasons why a person wouldn't take a 95% pay cut (or we spend 70% of our turnover on a manager) it's on you. You must surely be able to grasp that? You're the one proposing something extremely far fetched. You're accusing me of narrow mindedness, which is basically gaslighting. It's not narrow mindedness to point out basic arithmetic and critical thinking. You then try and couch the argument more generally as if I'm suggesting all foreign managers are terrible suggestions or that we shouldn't get someone at the outer reaches of our budget, when the argument is very specifically about Solskjaer. The paradox in your reasoning, that you don't seem to have worked out yet, is that if AFC "show ambition" by spending 70% of their turnover on a manager, then the reverse is also true. What sort of ambition would it show from Solskjaer, and why would we want someone so severely lacking in that regard? What would that say about him? The Knutsen guy is clearly ambitious and feels he can do better than us - fair enough. Goodwin is ambitious and wants to make the step up from St Mirren. What if Lewis Ferguson decided to sign a five year extension because he thinks it's an easy life at pittodrie? We'd rightly criticise him and question his strength of character. He doesn't, because he's ambitious. If the criteria is ambition, then why is the onus on the club to show ambition and not the manager it appoints? Why on earth would you want the club to show ambition to appoint someone with zero ambition? Your logic is completely and utterly flawed, but I'm 100% you know this already and you're arguing in bad faith (because you're clearly not stupid).

Incoming at Dundee. If rumours are to be believed. I can't even say it. It's too fucking stupid (it's not solskjaer).

They've been giving tickets to school kids I believe. Don't think it's the pull of Tam Courts' galacticunts.

Yep, but that was the same with McInnes who built his reputation with St Johnstone and then failed in Bristol. We were the Hibs in that scenario and got lucky. I think Goodwin is a better option than Ross, but I'm still not totally certain that Ross won't turn out to be a decent manager. He had a fairly high win percentage at Hibs inclusive of the terrible run of form that ended it. I'm glad Hibs took the hit anyway of course, and hope it continues under Maloney.

Fuck sake, just admit that you're wrong and grow the fuck up. The suggestion of OGS taking a 95% reduction in salary is patently stupid. It's like talking to someone who's trying to convince you that they can talk to the dead. You're not a moron, why the doubling and trebling down and the changing of subject?

Aye, one on his phone, one on laptop/pc I think. He has explained before, he's not trying to back up his own arguments with a second account, don't worry, no shenanigans.

Jesus.

It's stupid to even get into hypotheticals about a guy on 70% of our turnover. We might as well be talking about getting Fergie out of retirement with the "if you don't ask" chat. There is a wider point on how much we should actually pay our manager in relation to our turnover. I'm guessing we'd go up to £500K for the right guy. Rumours were that McInnes was on more than that, but I'd tend not to believe those (and if true, were likely heavily performance based). Beyond that, I'm not convinced we're really getting value for money, and it would be affecting the playing budget. In our position, recruitment is easily as important as the manager as we've seen and so the extra money spent on a manager doesn't add the same value as it might in recruitment. I'm not convinced that upping our manager budget from £500k to £1M would be massively advantageous. I'm guessing a more expensive manager would require a concomitant (traynor) rise in playing budget, which we couldn't sustain. In terms of guys like Knutsen, there is a wider issue. The game is so global these days that he simply doesn't need someone like the dons coming in to offer him a "stepping stone" to England (the holy grail). He's already high profile and will be on the radar of teams down South (or across Europe). If anything, Aberdeen might be a backward step. He'll look at a team like the dons and see an obvious ceiling that doesn't exist in his own country and recognise its not in his best interests. We'd have to offer him a huge wage, which then won't give us good value. I'm guessing he could already command a £1-2M salary at least at a Huddersfield or some pish. Would we really get 3-4 times better value over someone like Goodwin? I think our strategy of addressing the other areas in the club to give the manager (any manager) the best chance of success is a much better way to add value. Recruitment and youth development are far bigger factors than a manager in my opinion. That's not to say a manager isn't important, but the aim should be strong and competent, rather than inspiring, big name or expensive.

Don't be ridiculous, stop doubling down on something so stupid. I've provided you the evidence, and your clearly not stupid, your just defending a crap point. Your situation isn't remotely the same. You're not taking a 95% pay cut for a start. Aberdeen is fantastic if you're an Aberdeen fan from Aberdeen, but nobody on earth thinks that coming to pittodrie to get abused by the Ned shed is some sort of idyllic lifestyle away from the madness of, say, Bournemouth or Everton or wherever else a former Man Utd manager goes next. The problem with these ridiculous shouts for people on 70% of our turnover is that they automatically make the guys within our budget look shite. I've laid out my position several times. Of the managers I know a lot about, Goodwin sticks out as the best in my opinion. Of the managers I know nothing about, the guy Knutsen seems to be the stand out. I do expect data Dave to have enquired about both of these managers because if we're on a message board having heard of him, then a club looking for a manager will have heard of him. I'm absolutely certain (especially as it hasn't been that long since we last looked) there are lots of other managers out there that the club will have thought about that I haven't even heard of. I've stated already that being "inspired" by a manager isn't a requirement for me. Just as I wasn't inspired by signing Scott Brown, and haven't been inspired by any signing we've made since football turned into money ball. You seem to be conflating inspiring with "unheard of" or "different", but for me that's just intriguing. Skovdahl was intriguing, not inspiring. Besuijen, Ramirez were intriguing, not inspiring, but neither so far better than obvious good, solid signings like Shinnie or McLean. The moment we move into inspiring manager choices is the moment our club is bought by a Saudi billionaire and ruined beyond imagination.

Because it's fucking stupid. The value added by having a manager taking a 95% pay cut is zero. There'd have to be something very wrong with the guy if he were to accept it, like some serious pending Prince Andrew shit. Or, for example, Mason Greenwood - that's the equivalent in player terms. If our chairman has his head in the clouds with nonsense like that then he's not doing his job, and that is harmful.

Just back, that was interesting. Disagree with you all on Montgomery, that was his best game for us tonight, which obviously is saying nothing. He was, however, miles better than McKenzie unfortunately. Perhaps difficult to see how bad McKenzie was on the telly, but he was literally out of position the entire half. He had no idea where he was supposed to stand, with Middleton just wandering away from him regularly, which didn't happen in the second half. It reminded me of Hernandez' debut, he had to be removed before he gave away a goal. Hopefully it's just that he wasn't fit, because to be worse than Montgomery is fairly special. The injuries did us a favour tonight, the midfield just weren't at it in the first half. It was strange, Barron's movement was excellent but it was almost like Ferguson and Brown were confused by it. They didn't seem to know where to run without getting in his way. The number of times our fullbacks had the ball with nobody to pass to was embarrassing. Brown moving to centre half was an improvement, but Brown going off was even better as he just wasn't up for it at all. Ferguson then came on to a game and we improved. A few folk round me were disappointed with Jet coming on, but it wasn't physically possible to bring on a worse player than Kennedy, so it was an automatic improvement. Ramirez, who had a terrible game, unlucky not to win it. I'm not sure what to make of it. That first half was the worst I've seen us in a long time, a genuine concern. If we can be that bad, relegation isn't out of the question. We desperately need Considine back to get Bates onto his correct foot as he's an easy target. I'd give Hayes the left back position for the rest of the season and forget the other two, it's too risky. Besuijen did enough to start at the weekend. Perhaps we can ask politely for Niall McGinn back to replace Kennedy.

This is the worst team I've seen play at pittodrie this season. This is relegation material. Really, really bad. McKenzie been horrendous. But everyone terrible.

It is not the equivalent. Not even in the same stratosphere. Ferguson would have to take a 80% pay cut. We matched Nicholas' wages as that's what we did back then because players weren't paid 63 mortgages a week. If Cormack has spent one minute considering these guys, he's not fit to be chairman.

You can't just say "if you don't ask", that's just stupid. A total cop out. I don't have that much time for Cormack, but it's completely unfair on him and the club to put someone like solskjaer in the hat and say "if you don't ask". We aim to have a wage bill no higher than 60% of turnover. OGS on his own would be above that. So no, it's not "you don't ask", it's simply a ridiculous suggestion that we shouldn't even be discussing. Knutsen is a different matter, he'd be at the high end of our budget. But we have to also accept that the club will know about him if we do and they'll likely have made an approach if there's any chance of getting him. We all know what type of person Cormack is, he'd love someone like that. It's just that there's a little more to it than simply asking a guy, there has to be a reciprocal desire to be anywhere near the spfl and that likely rules out a large number of foreign managers. We're making it out like the club are picking from a small pool of managers, rather than there being a small pool of managers who we can realistically appoint. Very few people are against foreign managers, we just don't aimlessly choose "foreign" as an attribute that counts for more than ability. It's similar to the folk saying that it needed to be someone "young and hungry" when we appointed Glass as if age has any bearing on managerial ability (it doesn't). The reason I don't put forward any foreign managers is because I simply don't know any, other than the obvious ones already mentioned. I can objectively measure someone like Jim Goodwin because I've watched his entire career and seen his improvement. I think that on our budget he'd be a big improvement on Glass. I think he's intelligent and determined. I don't need to be inspired by him, because I'm not likely to be inspired by any manager we can afford to appoint. If we appoint a foreign manager, I'd likely just be ignorant of them rather than inspired. I'd probably get the five minutes of excitement that you get with a new car or sofa, but I'd be brought back down to earth upon drawing with Livingston or some shite. But I'm fine with that. I'm also cognisant that the manager is only a part of the puzzle. We have to employ a manager that's in line with our playing budget. A hugely expensive manager with Ojo for company isn't going to fire us into third. We simply wouldn't get good value from our expensive manager. OGS would be like winning the lottery and spending it all on a Van Gogh for yer caravan.

Yes it fucking is. It's absolutely batshit fucking mental. It's devoid of any critical thinking. It's just shouting names at the moon. It couldn't be more ridiculous. It certainly isn't a fucking gamble, it's putting your stadium on number 37 at roulette. Therein lies the problem. You're now saying that you don't want the old crap etc, which is entirely valid. However, when you're placing them alongside the astronomically stupid suggestion of a manager on 20 times the salary of your previous one then quite clearly these options are going to look terrible. If we were being entirely honest then we'd probably admit that even the Knutsen lad will be looking beyond us at the moment. We might be able to offer him a strong salary, but probably not the associated funds to repeat his success, and that's ignoring the fact that he'll likely have set his sights higher than the spfl.

There's no need to suspect I'm right about being out of our budget. He was on ~£7.5M per year at Man Utd (more than 20 times Glass). Our entire turnover was ~£11M. A basic Google search fae Charlie twatface would have confirmed that unless he's willing to take a 95% pay cut (as he's likely still on gardening leave) then he's not relevant to anything ever. "Showing ambition" doesn't involve bankruptcy despite what the Huns might suggest. The fact that he once managed a small team is the equivalent of suggesting Davie Cormack might take a job in accounts at the evening express because he once had a paper round. And I know you were just humouring the initial suggestion.

Really good article in the guardian today that goes beyond the shouty accusations. Left wing loony mag

I've never been convinced of the "commands respect" thing. The evidence doesn't really bear it out, with some of the best players in the world being horseshit managers. John Collins being a prime example of someone extremely similar to Lambert. It's really something that has to be maintained too, it'll wear off pretty quickly when you're in and around the place daily and everyone can see that you're an uninspiring dullard, which is the vibe I've always got from Lambert (I could be completely wrong of course, it's just the way he comes across on telly). I certainly don't think he's unlikeable, he seems nice enough. Without question, he'd be an old firm panderer, far more than McInnes ever was - and probably even McGhee. He will literally see Scottish fitba through the lens of the scum, which is why I wouldn't want him. I'd definitely have haardon's foreigner suggestions over him.