Derek McInnes

[tom_widdows]

Its starting to remind me of the 1996/97 Season

 

Granted the team wasnt top of the league (this was the time when the OF were starting to spend seriously stupid money) but having seemingly exorcised the ghosts of the 1994/95 playoff season by finishing 3rd and lifting the league cup, the team fronted by a strike-force of Billy Dodds & Dean Windass with an ageing Duncan Shearer still able to give teams hell for the last 15mins the team seemed to be in a great position.

Results included a 4-0 hammering of hearts, a 7-3 humping of Morton in the cup, coming back from 2-0 down at Ibrox etc.

Then came the a 3-0 defeat at home to Sevco in a live Scotsport TV game during which Nicky walker went on one of his many walkabouts allowing Laudrup to score from pretty much the halfway line. That was the heaviest home defeat by Sevco for fuck knows how long and something seemed to shift.

The team won the next 2 games including a 2-1 win at tynecastle but after that they team picked up just 16 points from a possible 60. Aitken somehow survived into the next season but a 5-0 humping at Tannadice finally saw to that.

 

 

[thestooge]

Admittedly, I've been reduced to highlights since the Hamilton game as I've been in China with work, but it's amazing how a dip in form brings out the fishwives and the armchair psychologists.

 

I've been having a look across the various forums and social networks and some of the stuff coming from fans is utterly bizarre fantasy. If even a fraction of it was true, the gossip collumns of the national press would be filled with the most dysfunctional team in football history.

 

We started this season in record breaking fashion.  That no doubt raised expectations dramatically, reinforced by, by SPL standards, a strong squad and a capable young manager, but the challenge of sustaining the level of performance over the course of a season was and is our biggest hurdle.

 

I think we benefited in the opening months from our European games. We were fitter and sharper as a result of six decent tests against good sides all capable of top six SPL finishes. Those six games gave us a bit of a head start but we've now hit a lull at a point where other sides have started to get a bit of momentum.

 

I'm disappointed that we've not bounced back following the St J result.  The early season fight backs after going a goal down at Motherwell and to Celtic had made me hopeful we had real mental toughness.  I hoped we'd galvanise and get a gritty win vs County and/or Well.  But the fact we haven't doesn't lead me to think Logan is poison, that Robson is barely speaking to the manager, that Jack is a weak captain or that Taylor's wife is being gangbanged in the boot room.

 

I do think some of McInnes' naivety has been exposed but I think it's equally important to remember he's still a young manager and one with little experience of title challenges, especially against those with vastly superior resources.

 

I really hope we can get a fighting performance at the weekend. A big defeat would really end any title race before Christmas but if we take anything out of the game, we'll shift the pressure back onto them and we'll hear even more about their alledged dressing room unrest, divided loyalties, training ground bullying and directors daughters getting impregnated, as tends to be the fall out of dips in form.

[rocket_scientist]

Big call. Anyone else speculating on the reasons for repeatedly abject displays is a fishwife or an armchair psychologist whereas you know it all, despite you not seeing how pathetic it's been.

 

It's cowardly to throw generalist insults at fellow fans which may or may not have included posters on this very forum without having the balls to confront specifics. 

 

It's arrogant to pretend that you know best and then say nothing.

 

It's foolish to fail to consider all possibilities, including worst case.

 

It's sloppy thinking to suggest that fans speculations are being presented as fact but perhaps it serves your holier-than-thou underlying narcissistic delusion of superiority.

[thestooge]

 

All the best fanny balls.

[manc_don]

 

All the best fanny balls.

 

 

I actually thought Stooge had some valid points, Rocket.  It's all pie in the sky thinking at the mo, rightly or wrongly, it'll come out in the wash one way or another.  Regardless, we need a fighting performance on Saturday.  This is far bigger than the previous games against the Dhims or Diet hunnery given the current circumstances.

[rocket_scientist]

Whether or not his points were valid or not, manc, his tone and the construction of his words gravely offend my instinct. Most can't appreciate the simple truth that the words we use reveal aspects of personality. Pomposity kills me and coupled with self righteousness, disgusts my soul.

 

At least he doesn't force signs of the zodiac down our throats as great pearls of wisdom like his father, there being some rich irony in him knowing best because he studied the "truths" to be found in the celestial. Their blindness, indifference and disinterest in humanity and how the mind works is highly disturbing.

[thestooge]

 

 

[rocket_scientist]

On the train to Edinburgh just now, I've just read a fantastic line that reminds me of our fundamental difference.

 

Page 35 of The Bluest Eye, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature by the way, which I didn't know before I got the book.

 

"... , so a hated piece of furniture produces a fretful malaise that asserts itself throughout the house and limits the delight of things not related to it".

[ayrshire_don74]

assume the piece of furniture was a Shays Lounge.........

[rocket_scientist]

An even more relevant and pertinent line on page 46: -

 

"She looks up at him and sees the vacuum where curiosity ought to lodge. The total absence of human recognition - the glazed separateness".

 

Isn't karma, morphic resonance and the coincidences of will and observations wonderful?

[manc_don]

assume the piece of furniture was a Shays Lounge.........

 

[tlg1903]

On the subject of CM I've seen a wee bit of jackson Irvine this season. Really impressed by him, he's a very lively box to box midfielder. IMO he would walk into our first team, we could probably get him for a Maclean type amount in January despite him only signing for them in the summer.

[tlg1903]

And right on cue he scores against caley

[rocket_scientist]

And right on cue he scores against caley

 

He scored in the 41st minute.

 

When was kick off?

[tlg1903]

7.05 quite randomly

[manc_don]

7.05 quite randomly

 

That is a random kick off. On TV?

[Tyrant]

I was reading all the wild conspiracy theories on this site and thinking "Where the hell is this all coming from?!" Then I read thestooge's post and saw that it wasn't just me! Great post by the way. I don't generally read other forums but I'm guessing some of you do? Don't buy into their shitey rumours and attention seeking prick posters.

 

I certainly don't buy into the "Something must have happened" thing. What qualifies us to decide that? We're on a poor bit of form and admittedly I can't really see where it's going to end but I couldn't really see where it was going to start either. Hopefully we come out of it sooner rather than later and put together a good run again. Deek's tactics don't always make sense to me but he's the football manager, nae me. The players' job is to carry out his instructions to the best of their ability. If they do that then Deek must take responsibility for poor results. If the players don't do it then they can gtf to fuck. I don't think McInnes has "lost" the dressing room. Fatigue coupled with one or two players having dips in form is, in my opinion, the reason for our winless run and nothing more.

[Reidzer 1314]

I think anyone who has sat in the stands and watched a Dons game since the Hibs game can clearly tell that something is not right somewhere along the line.

 

Sure any gossip it purely that, gossip. Parts of it could be true but most likely it is all just hearsay. I do think the players have lost a bit of faith in McInnes but most likely as others have said is it down to his strange tactical and substitutions in the past few weeks. Bringing a right back on to play left wing on Saturday was a corker, even with the fact that we had Parker on the bench.

[BobbyBiscuit]

 

 

I certainly don't buy into the "Something must have happened" thing. What qualifies us to decide that?

 

The fact that most of us have watched the game and our club nearly all our days?  This nonsense that because you've not been involved in the game at a pro level means your opinion doesn't count is exactly that - nonsense. There are plenty of pros - current and ex - who talk a hell of a lot of shite about the game.

 

And fatigue? If that's the case then the fitness/conditioning staff at the club are clearly not doing their job properly.

 

McInnes has made baffling selections all through his time here. His use of substitutions (or lack of, as it used to be) have been similarly frustrating. Why would the players now have an issue with it when it had taken them to the top of the table this season?

[Tyrant]

The fact that most of us have watched the game and our club nearly all our days?  This nonsense that because you've not been involved in the game at a pro level means your opinion doesn't count is exactly that - nonsense. There are plenty of pros - current and ex - who talk a hell of a lot of shite about the game.

 

And fatigue? If that's the case then the fitness/conditioning staff at the club are clearly not doing their job properly.

 

McInnes has made baffling selections all through his time here. His use of substitutions (or lack of, as it used to be) have been similarly frustrating. Why would the players now have an issue with it when it had taken them to the top of the table this season?

 

After our initial run of wins we'd played almost double the competitive minutes of the likes of Hearts. That has to make a difference Surely?

 

And I'm not sure who's saying that our opinions don't count because we're not pros. I was half-heartedly trying to rationalise Deek's decisions. Only he can explain his thought process behind these tactical choices.

[manc_don]

Finally we have a winner! The rest of it you can just delete except this sentence as this is your answer.

 

 

Your prize for giving the correct answer is a ticket to the Celtic game. Unfortunately it's in the Celtic end but don't worry Man Don will be there to keep you company and get you involved in the huddle as he's an expert at it.

 

Just seen this, cheeky bugger  

[ayrshire_don74]

Fatigue? Dont buy it , these boys are professional athletes. It could be used as an excuse for Hibs, but there is no explanation for the St Johnstone game other than the players have chucked it. By my calculations we had played 16 competitive games at that stage Saints 13  , so for me the fatigue argument doesnt hold.

[rocket_scientist]

And the speculations continue and will continue to continue until the truth will out...

 

Fact: We were playing fantastic football and went top of the league.

 

Opinion: The win against Hearts was as good a performance as I've seen for many years.

 

Fact: We've been playing shite since the debacle at Easter Road. Well, during and since actually.

 

Opinion: Nobody seems to really knows why.

 

Fact: It's the manager's job to fix it.

 

Opinion: I don't know if even he knows why it's been so appalling....

 

Fact: ...which would make him incompetent at his job.

 

 

[Tyrant]

Are you suggesting we sack McInnes, Rocket?

[rocket_scientist]

Are you suggesting we sack McInnes, Rocket?

 

No I am not.

 

I'm pointing out that nobody really knows the reason for this slump and that it is useful to remember the distinction between facts and opinions in situations like these.