LC - Dons vs Spartans

[OrlandoDon]

4 hours ago, Panda said:

No Duk on the menu this weekend according to Thelin, too early for him.

Don’t mind if we never see duk play again for us. At the same time, he’s come back , apologized, and pretty much silence since which suggests he’s keeping a low profile and working. The fact that he came back in arguably the best shape we’ve seen him in is a plus, even though I’m sure he was training in order to impress elsewhere.

id certainly prefer to see duk off the bench than Ambrose who has done nothing to suggest he can contribute at our level. Give duk a few regular minutes so that we can get some pounds for him later in the season.

[tom_widdows]

Apparently no VAR today

Wonder if it will catch on?

[Jute]

 

[Panda]

Interesting that Clarkson and Gueye both start. I presume that means McGrath on the right and Gueye on the left, with Clarkson in the middle.

@OrlandoDon got his wish with a Palaversa start. 

[OrlandoDon]

Hmm. Thought this may happen, but not  a fan. Little bit of a square peg round hole, don’t see gueye as a wide player, more of a free roaming type.

[redordead]

Just back from the stenny game today. Utter mince!

Was hoping to catch the game but the streaming gods aren't playing ball.

Knowing Spartans. I don't think they'll trouble us but they will be stubborn and physical. 

Ify take 2-0 now

[Elgindon]

^^Try here http://www.fawanews.com/

[Elgindon]

Going well,been good in posession.McGrath the standout so far for me.Palaversa and Nilsen in good form

[Panda]

Sokler nearly missed that! 

But now he needs just one more to be level top goal scorer in the competition.

[manc_don]

1 hour ago, Panda said:

Sokler nearly missed that! 

But now he needs just one more to be level top goal scorer in the competition.

Was thinking, is it not actually an OG? Seems to be going away from goal until it hits the keeper ?

 

still, as a professional performance as we could possible want, 4-0 and its onto the semi. Couldn’t ask for much more

[RicoS321]

Well, that was as expected, completely dominant and another win!

MacKenzie probably MOTM, his link up with McGrath is top notch. Back two solid again and we generally strolled it. 

A few things worth noting though. Nisbet wasn't amazing, and missed an absolute sitter, but he was better than Sokler who was poor again. Gueye out wide didn't really work. Keskinen was poor when he came on, terrible decision making, constantly running into trouble and not quick enough to get away from his man. However, he was playing on the opposite side, switching with McGrath, which hopefully is an experiment we don't repeat as it managed to bring out the worst in McGrath, Keskinen, Devlin and MacKenzie - quite a feat. Weirdly, we also inverted Shinnie and Palaversa (who was good today, moving the ball well) too, with both playing on their wrong foot. 

Obviously, it was a comfortable win in first gear, so it's difficult to read too much into it. There were plenty of positives, as well as a few questions that we'll hopefully answer in the coming fixtures. 

[RicoS321]

7 minutes ago, manc_don said:

Was thinking, is it not actually an OG? Seems to be going away from goal until it hits the keeper

Very much looked that way from where I was sitting behind the goals. I think he basically missed.

[dons8321]

1 hour ago, RicoS321 said:

Very much looked that way from where I was sitting behind the goals. I think he basically missed.

You were sitting behind the goals?  Well kudos to you, even in my youngest days in the early '60s there was no way I could be behind both goals at the same time.

Edited September 21 by dons8321

[RicoS321]

6 minutes ago, dons8321 said:

You were sitting behind the goals?  Split personality?

I had to think about that for a second. I swapped ends at halftime.

[dons8321]

7 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

I had to think about that for a second. I swapped ends at halftime.

Haha, when I first started going to Pittodrie in the early '60s you actually could do that because, apart from what is now called the Main Stand, the ground was completely wide open, so if you were standing, say, in the beach end and the ref. gave a penalty at the Merkland Road End all us young kids (and we'd have been a large proportion of the "crowd") would make a beeline to the other end to either try to put off the penalty taker (because, obviously, 20 spotty teenagers (not me obviously, as my skin was crystal clear) would have worried a professional fitba player) or hopefully watch the ball nestle in the net. 

[redordead]

4 hours ago, Elgindon said:

^^Try here http://www.fawanews.com/

Thanks but I'd given up in the huff by then.

[Panda]

Interesting that when MacDonald came on he replaced Molloy at LCB, while Milne was at RB in place of Devlin.

Thought the Gueye wide right experiment was okay. You could see the plan was for him to meet the ball at the edge of the six-yard box. It's nice that we're unpredictable.

Anyway, let's stay humble.

[Panda]

2 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

A few things worth noting though. Nisbet wasn't amazing, and missed an absolute sitter, but he was better than Sokler who was poor again.

Thing with Sokler is he's a useful number 10 the way he can link the play, but he's behind Clarkson, Gueye and even McGrath to play there.

He's not at the level we need to play as a striker. You wouldn't really consider him a winger. Maybe an inverted one but then you'd expect him to be able to finish, which he can't.

I think he might be a perennial "decent player but where do we play him?" until we eventually send him on loan to Slovenia.

[OrlandoDon]

Think we put today in perspective. While a strong performance, they’re a league 2 side. I did like our press though, we never let them settle, it was relentless.

think we have a player in palaversa. Curious to who are our best two in center mid. 

Clarkson is class and gueye isn’t a winger. Nice problem to have but we’ll have depth off the bench and maybe 6-7 are guaranteed to start. Competition for places keeps standards high and effort strong.

Thought JT managed the game well with good subs. Interesting to see that we never saw Ambrose. Wonder if we see him again.

[Jute]

As comfortable a win as I have seen at Pittodrie in a while. In control from the start and there was clearly a 4 division gap between the teams. As others have said Palaversa again looked good today but as Orlando said the that should be caveated with the standard of opposition. 
 

Only complaint was not sticking on the 4-0 I said prematch.

[OxfordDon]

Watching the remaining QF, on this evidence Falkirk are going to be the toughest draw out of the three.

Edited September 22 by OxfordDon

[OxfordDon]

Celtic. 

[Panda]

Should be the Saturday game as Celtic have a Champions League game on the Tuesday.

So 12:15pm or 5:30pm, take your pick. 

[BigAl]

27 minutes ago, Panda said:

Should be the Saturday game as Celtic have a Champions League game on the Tuesday.

So 12:15pm or 5:30pm, take your pick. 

Think we can all guess which one it will be from those options 

[DantheDon]

It would have been nice to see Celtic and Rangers drawn together. But I’m not overly fussed, likely we would have met Celtic eventually anyway. If we win this tie I would feel confident going into the final against Rangers.