Dons - County - Friday - BT SPORT

[scotfree]

The game is on bein sport 6 tonight.

Back in the groove tonight, 1 or 2 zero victory.

Cheers for the heads-up, mate. Don't think I want to watch it now. 

[Madbadteacher]

Anyone think the lack of Jack tonight was a factor?

 

Or this weeks press?

 

Or is Deek just shite?

 

Or are our players just too scared to succeed

[manc_don]

There is some truth in rockets rant in the other thread so I'll stick to this game only. Derek is a fantastic manager but last night's team was bizarre and unbalanced. It summed it up when ward was taking a gk and the whole team were on the left hand side of the pitch. It was the wrong team. We needed play our best available team to build confidence. Logan and Rooney should have started. I remember the last blip we had and that was again down to poor selection and substitutions.  He needs to get back to basics. I doubt the press had much to do with it, it was confidence and luck. As I said earlier, we could have got something there. Flood and Goodwillie were awful. Reynolds not ready and consi back to his bombscare self. Terrible, terrible defending. Globe Reds 5-aside team could have done better.

[BobbyBiscuit]

I think McInnes overthinks his selections too often.  This default position of playing Goodwillie away from home no matter what is frankly baffling. In the last 24 matches he's started, he's scored in one of them. By any standards that is an appalling record for a forward.

 

Rooney, generally speaking, should not be on the bench. When he is on the park, he certainly shouldn't be bumped out to the left to accommodate a non-goalscorer through the middle. In a season in a half, Rooney has scored more goals than some recent Aberdeen sides have scored in a whole season between them.

 

For the majority of his AFC career, Kenny McLean has been deployed far too deep. He was sitting on top of Flood and Shinnie last night, he has to be played further forward - surely it was him playing in that position which attracted us to him in the first place?

 

We have the best left back in the league and yet we don't play him at left back - he plays centre mid and a centre half plays at left back which immediately limits our attacking options from the wide areas. Consi does well, but he won't make forward runs as much as Shinnie would.

 

We have to get a settled back line and certainly have to have a settled centre half pairing.  For me it would be Reynolds and Quinn. Both had shockers last night right enough, but Taylor... the amount of times we lose the ball because that dumpling thinks he can play football is not good enough for the level we want to be at.  The same thing can be levelled at Flood - he's great at breaking the play up but he can't pass the ball the length of himself.

 

McGinn is our best player. Why not play him in a central position with Rooney ahead of him? No team in Scotland wants McGinn running at them and centre halves will not cope with him. The season he played through the middle he was just incredible, why we would not want to have that in our team?

 

Last night was screaming out for Robson at half time. Someone to take a grip of the situation.  Our midfield made County look like a great team and Jackson Irvine will never look a better player than he did last night and that's because we let them play. Robson would have at least kicked a few of them and gone down with a fight - the lack of which in the rest of the team is pretty worrying. 

 

Time for McInnes to earn his cash.

[Goldie03]

I think McInnes overthinks his selections too often.  This default position of playing Goodwillie away from home no matter what is frankly baffling. In the last 24 matches he's started, he's scored in one of them. By any standards that is an appalling record for a forward.

 

Rooney, generally speaking, should not be on the bench. When he is on the park, he certainly shouldn't be bumped out to the left to accommodate a non-goalscorer through the middle. In a season in a half, Rooney has scored more goals than some recent Aberdeen sides have scored in a whole season between them.

 

For the majority of his AFC career, Kenny McLean has been deployed far too deep. He was sitting on top of Flood and Shinnie last night, he has to be played further forward - surely it was him playing in that position which attracted us to him in the first place?

 

We have the best left back in the league and yet we don't play him at left back - he plays centre mid and a centre half plays at left back which immediately limits our attacking options from the wide areas. Consi does well, but he won't make forward runs as much as Shinnie would.

 

We have to get a settled back line and certainly have to have a settled centre half pairing.  For me it would be Reynolds and Quinn. Both had shockers last night right enough, but Taylor... the amount of times we lose the ball because that dumpling thinks he can play football is not good enough for the level we want to be at.  The same thing can be levelled at Flood - he's great at breaking the play up but he can't pass the ball the length of himself.

 

McGinn is our best player. Why not play him in a central position with Rooney ahead of him? No team in Scotland wants McGinn running at them and centre halves will not cope with him. The season he played through the middle he was just incredible, why we would not want to have that in our team?

 

Last night was screaming out for Robson at half time. Someone to take a grip of the situation.  Our midfield made County look like a great team and Jackson Irvine will never look a better player than he did last night and that's because we let them play. Robson would have at least kicked a few of them and gone down with a fight - the lack of which in the rest of the team is pretty worrying. 

 

Time for McInnes to earn his cash.

 

Well said 

[rocket_scientist]

I agree. Unless there are reasons of which we are unaware, leaving Rooney on the bench as often as he has this season is nuts.

 

He looked slow against DUFC the first game of the season but nobody's going to be fully match sharp that early in August. Some have a better pre season than others. But he showed tremendous hunger in front of goal and has been highly effective in the games since, which makes leaving him out even more absurd.

[tlg1903]

The frustrating thing for me at the moment is the lack of consistency in selection, particularly in defence. There are two natural cb partnerships in Quinn and Reynolds, Taylor and Considine. Trying to play all 4 of them at once is just ridiculous especially when logan and Shinnie are clearly superior fb's.

The CM positions are too chop and change also. Jack and Maclean have looked a complimentary pairing when they have played together and for me this is our strongest option regardless of whether you think KM should play further forward or not.

 

[rocket_scientist]

In our case with so few good or very good footballers, the team should almost pick itself.

 

This is what Ferguson did week in, week out. Even Smiffy picked the winning combination week after week until... that dreadful day in May 1991 when 3200 of us all looked at each other in horror and disbelief at 14.50/14.55 hrs.

 

We never used to get many big surprises with team selections until the buffoon rolled into town with his tombola.

 

It's either ego or stubbornness in Derek's case. It's a complete shambles.

 

 

 

 

[BobbyBiscuit]

The frustrating thing for me at the moment is the lack of consistency in selection, particularly in defence. There are two natural cb partnerships in Quinn and Reynolds, Taylor and Considine. Trying to play all 4 of them at once is just ridiculous especially when logan and Shinnie are clearly superior fb's.

The CM positions are too chop and change also. Jack and Maclean have looked a complimentary pairing when they have played together and for me this is our strongest option regardless of whether you think KM should play further forward or not.

 

So who plays in front of McLean then in the current, usual setup?

[tlg1903]

Personally I would like to see Goodwillie played there but I take your point that mcginn would be effective there too.  I'd also like to see Smith given more game time

[Tyrant]

I'm not sure it's a desire or passion thing - they appeared to be trying their hearts out. Seems it's just a confidence thing illustrated by the woefulness in front of goal but they need to sort it out soon because a few more defeats in the next few matches and the league is over before Christmas.

 

 

 

Da ken min. I think Manc is on to something.. There was one point where there were two Dons players near the ball. I think Logan and McLean were the offenders. One of them stopped moving towards the ball and the other jumped over a challange from a County player and that was them off on the counter attack. A classic example of the County player wanting it more. I think there's been a lot of this over the last few games. It was the same against Caley and Hibs. Didn't see the St. Johnstone game admittedly. Our players definitely need to improve their workrate. I don't think we missed Jack. He's been pish for weeks and weeks.

 

Earlier in the game there was Willo Flood summed up in a nutshell. He hounded County and won the ball of them and we began to break away. Then he passes the ball straight to the feet of a County player. I said years ago now that Flood couldn't pass worth a fuck. Even shitey short passes. I got dog's abuse for stating this fact.