Dons vs county

[manc_don]

Second game in a row and no match thread!?! Come on.

 

Good to see McInnes going with a relatively young squad. Wright, lennox and mckenna getting starts. Robson as captain,  presumably for the last time.

[manc_don]

Currently one down, penalty conceded and Graham scored it.

[tom_widdows]

Make that 2 down

[Leftside]

this is just unprofessional.

In my view County don't have a single player who would get in our team, but are 2 0 up at half time and well on top. Unprofessional.

[manc_don]

What is is with us and post split fixtures!?!

[manc_don]

3-0....

[scotfree]

What a load of shite.

[Leftside]

just awful.

[scotfree]

Teams just given up. 

[manc_don]

Guess this one of the many examples of why we just couldn't have won the league this season.

[Jute]

Last 2 games have been a disgrace. Team just going through the motions. Only thing you could say is at least we know now that none of the fringe players other than McKenna are good enough and need to be cleared out. Also why we are still persisting with Taylor is beyond me. He cannot even get the basics right. Oh well only 5 weeks until the first preseason game.

[Edinburghdon]

What is is with us and post split fixtures!?!

 

I presume the fact we've had fuck all to play for in the split during the time McInnes has been here skews the record slightly... Saying that it's still no excuse and nowhere near good enough.

[manc_don]

I presume the fact we've had fuck all to play for in the split during the time McInnes has been here skews the record slightly... Saying that it's still no excuse and nowhere near good enough.

 

4/20 is not good enough

[RicoS321]

It's an obvious sign that we don't have the depth of squad to cope with such a long season, which was obvious last season and the season before. The players looked dead on their feet and devoid of ideas. The players that came in had been given so little game time that they couldn't get up to speed quick enough (thought Smith was okay when he came on). We had such a poor window last summer, which set us up for this end of season, it was inevitable. The fact that we didn't get one long term acquisition in January means that we'll need to go for about 6 additions in order to get 4 that are good enough (think that'd be a reasonable return). Not sure that's likely.

[tom_widdows]

So summing up this season

 

2014-2015

75 Points

57 Goals Scored

33 Goals conceded

 

2015-2016

71 points 

62 Goals scored 

48 Goals conceded 

 

The League record with Ward in the squad

 

21 Games

43 points

34 goals scored (1.61 per game)

20 Goals Conceded (0.95 per game)

 

Without Ward

17 Games

28 points

28 Goals scored (1.64 per game)

28 Goals conceded (1.64 per game)

 

[rocket_scientist]

Interesting stats. Makes you wonder how anyone could NOT recognise Ward's quality?

[manc_don]

Interesting stats. Makes you wonder how anyone could NOT recognise Ward's quality?

 

Confirms what people should have known. He had his flaws but that was where our season derailed. The quality of our play definitely deteriorated after he left and those stats back this up.

[rocket_scientist]

Confirms what people should have known. He had his flaws but that was where our season derailed. The quality of our play definitely deteriorated after he left and those stats back this up.

 

What flaws were these then?

[manc_don]

What flaws were these then?

 

He still parried the ball on occasion but it was a vast improvement from when he started. I was and am a big fan of his, genuinely annoyed Liverpool fucked it up for us. Had he been with us for the season, who knows?

[rocket_scientist]

He still parried the ball on occasion but it was a vast improvement from when he started. I was and am a big fan of his, genuinely annoyed Liverpool fucked it up for us. Had he been with us for the season, who knows?

 

I don't even understand the supposed fault you speak of, let alone that he improved vastly at it during his time with us. I never saw this when I was watching him. I can't dispute what you say because my football knowledge isn't deep enough to have seen this far less debate it.

 

When I meet people who have better skills than I do, my instinct almost always attracts to them. Some resent superior talents, being so fucked up and insular that all they see is the mirror, the reflection of their own inadequacies.

 

 

[rocket_scientist]

Also, a well run club doesn't create a set of circumstances that makes it possible for another club to "fuck it up for us".

 

We did well to negotiate a loan with Liverpool but it was only papering over the cracks of years of neglect, a scouting system and a specialist GK coach who were stealing wages, and a chairman who was happy to run down our balance sheet for reasons so obvious.

[RicoS321]

Also, a well run club doesn't create a set of circumstances that makes it possible for another club to "fuck it up for us".

 

We did well to negotiate a loan with Liverpool but it was only papering over the cracks of years of neglect, a scouting system and a specialist GK coach who were stealing wages

 

That was a huge fuck up like. One I hope we've learned from. I was really concerned when we got Ward in on loan, because we'd had at least 6 months knowing that both Brown and Langfield were not good enough for number one. Unlike in prior years, we'd sorted ourselves out in every other area. Goalkeeper was the one position we had left to fill with a good starter, every other position had a first choice that was good enough to win the majority of games. Yet, we hadn't managed to scout one good goalie available for purchase that would be good enough and we were resorting to what seemed to be a risky, unscouted, loan (I'm going by the other loans we've made, where it's very much hit or miss, luck-based). That it wasn't made clear that it was imperative that Ward remained for the entire season suggests a blase attitude to the situation whereby Brown was actually seen as adequate if Ward turned out to be pish.

 

I can accept the lack of alternatives in January, our coaching and scouting team weren't expecting to have to move quickly on a signing. We're in the same situation this season, as last, now. We've had 6 months to scout a new goalkeeper and we should have multiple options on the table. It's priority number one and should be wrapped up in days. We have a good backup in Rogers it seems, so that position should be sorted quickly. The problem is that we're now deficient in several other areas of the pitch as we let things slide in the last year. We're effectively 1-2 windows behind where we should be. We shouldn't have needed to waste our scouting resource on looking for a 'keeper in this window and the longer it takes the less time devoted to looking at other positions. McInnes needs to move quickly and decisively on 3 more signings, leaving us the remainder of the window to assess at least 2 others. To have only one signing from this season (Shinnie, and he was pre-contract, which makes it worse) making it into next season is an absolute failure and it shouldn't be underestimated how much that - and especially the keeper situation - will negatively affect us next season.

[Goldie03]

It wasn't all about the fucking goalie. Our defence was pretty pish too remember especially when McInnes decided to switch it about every week!!

[manc_don]

It wasn't all about the fucking goalie. Our defence was pretty pish too remember especially when McInnes decided to switch it about every week!!

 

Very true.  Don't get me wrong, DM is definitely not immune from criticism and he has to take the blame for a poor number of transfer windows and questionable tactics / substitutions. As Rico says, I really hope we get our main targets early, especially with the Euro campaign starting stupidly early.

[RicoS321]

It wasn't all about the fucking goalie. Our defence was pretty pish too remember especially when McInnes decided to switch it about every week!!

 

Aye, you're right, it was a big part though, Ward's confidence made it much easier on his back line. Brown was correctly identified as not being good enough and all I was suggesting was that was known for 6 months before the season began and should have been addressed. For us to lose Ward on the back of an administrative error, as it seems to be, was galling. The problem we have now is that not only do we have a good 'keeper to source and pay for, we also have to get at least one centre half, a midfielder, a wide player and another striker just to compete at the same level as we have been over the last couple of seasons. That's five players in one window. We're relying on a good strike rate on our signings, which hasn't been apparent in the last season, with only 2-3 out of 8 being good enough to be a first team starter.