McInnes must go

[tup1]

22 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

It would be madness to get rid of the manager.

Most will admit that we are unlikely to ever see another non old firm winner of the league.  Therefore realistically we are playing for third place each season unless something changes massively in how the prize money and tv money are split in this country.  Football has never been the same since 1995 when the Bosman ruling came in.  Money now determines how successful you can be.  That happened 19 seasons before McInnes was appointed and in those 19 seasons we managed 2 third place finishes.    

On the flip side, there is really very little between the team in third in our league and the team at the bottom and it is not unrealistic to say at the start of the season that any of the 10 non old firm clubs could finish in any order whatsoever.  Our club is only ever one bad season away from another relegation fight as we have seen in recent years from the two Edinburgh clubs.  Changing the manager is unlikely to make us any better but could make things 10 times worse than they are at the moment.  He will turn the form around if he gets the backing from the board and fans.

You've summed up the pointlessness of Scottish football reasonably well there.

The best we can ever hope for is 3rd and we should be careful wishing for that in case we get relegated. That does indeed sum it up. 

Since 'Rangers' have come 'back', our manager has fallen quite disgracefully into line, well behind them. For that alone he deserves the sack.

[HaarDon]

I dunno Rico, I reckon it was still worth the risk.

£750k is a cheap striker these days.

 

What do we have now?

it pains me to say it but the rangers have gone from zero to very successful. Won the league and had some amazing results in Europe.

They took risks but had the fan base to back it up of course.

I think we could get better crowds with some investment from Atlanta or McCormack and the board when fans come back.

Surely some sort of long term plans should be discussed between these parties.

We need a red revolution I tell ya 

 

 

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, HaarDon said:

I dunno Rico, I reckon it was still worth the risk.

£750k is a cheap striker these days.

 

What do we have now?

it pains me to say it but the rangers have gone from zero to very successful. Won the league and had some amazing results in Europe.

They took risks but had the fan base to back it up of course.

I think we could get better crowds with some investment from Atlanta or McCormack and the board when fans come back.

Surely some sort of long term plans should be discussed between these parties.

We need a red revolution I tell ya 

A £750k striker wouldn't have got us 18 points. Not even close. We'd have just had second place and a £750k striker. That wouldn't have been a bad thing necessarily, but it wouldn't have been part of some revolution, or strategy, it would have just been on a whim. Not a great way to run a football club.

The Huns have spent £30M. Why is that something that's relevant to the way Aberdeen invest? 

The dons have a long term strategy. It involves getting into the Europa League and finishing third. Then challenging the scum beyond that. According to the club. I'm guessing covid has put spending towards that on hold.

[HaarDon]

6 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

A £750k striker wouldn't have got us 18 points. Not even close. We'd have just had second place and a £750k striker. That wouldn't have been a bad thing necessarily, but it wouldn't have been part of some revolution, or strategy, it would have just been on a whim. Not a great way to run a football club.

 

The dons have a long term strategy. It involves getting into the Europa League and finishing third. Then challenging the scum beyond that. According to the club. I'm guessing covid has put spending towards that on hold.

Maybe not but we would still have a decent striker going into Europe which could have made a difference as you said yourself.

That's a way to run a club.

Instead we sit hoping we get that 3rd spot in the league while hanging onto dross.

Scotland hadn't beaten England at Twickenham for nearly 40 years. That's outrageous stats akin to our abysmal records at Ibrox and Celtic park.

Scotland rugby can only play Scottish players.

We have a plethora of world leagues to look at and try to persuade young talent to come to AFC.

Do we even try ?

[LA-Don]

We’ve spunked a fair amount of money on shit transfers in recent years. Would that have been better spent on upgrading our scouting? In recent years we have signed caley players, Hibs targets, and ex dons amongst others. We just don’t seem to be very open minded. I think we can do better, and as mentioned, there’s a ton of leagues to look at if we are willing. Money is certainly different now, gone are the days of signing Dutch internationalists, but there’s still plenty of affordable talent out there. Case and point, and he’s not been our worst player in recent games, but is bringing back Ash Taylor the best we can do?

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, HaarDon said:

Maybe not but we would still have a decent striker going into Europe which could have made a difference as you said yourself.

That's a way to run a club.

No it isn't, that'd be a ridiculously stupid way to run a club. The point about signing a striker was that we knew our exact path to the Europa League, and who we'd play, and we also knew we were about to offer £400k for a striker. It was a known risk. You wouldn't pay £750k for a striker that wouldn't win you the league and you had no idea whether you'd be playing apollon or Milan in Europe the following season, that's an entirely different approach, and a fairly stupid one. You either go the whole way and get four or five players or you save your money and look for incremental improvement toward a specified set of goals. I'd have thought that after the Hernandez signing, there wouldn't be a dons fan left that wouldn't think that spunking an astronomical amount on a single player without changing the rest of your playing budget in line with that was entirely moronic. Seems there is.

1 hour ago, HaarDon said:

Instead we sit hoping we get that 3rd spot in the league while hanging onto dross.

Scotland hadn't beaten England at Twickenham for nearly 40 years. That's outrageous stats akin to our abysmal records at Ibrox and Celtic park.

Scotland rugby can only play Scottish players.

We have a plethora of world leagues to look at and try to persuade young talent to come to AFC.

Do we even try ?

Fuck knows. You've gone off on a tangent. That's the problem with these grand statements. When you scratch below the surface, there's no substance. You've suggested that we have no strategy and that we don't even try, or whatever, but when pushed you come up with flimsy examples and flit from one point to the next. 

The club have been fairly clear what their strategy is. I'm not convinced McInnes will fulfill that strategy and I think they'll go elsewhere when the cost to do so makes business sense, which it doesn't right now.

[HaarDon]

Exactly L.A.

I'd like to know how the recruitment team look for new players.

If one of us were employed to solely look into leagues for say 3 months and make a ton of calls to managers and agents etc, I swear we could come up with a few decent signings.

Even telesales marketers get some results.

 

Hernandez was a defender. I was talking about a striker/midfielder who would win us games hopefully.

You want to buy a £750k striker for ONE game in the hope he wins it for us?

That's ridiculous and a wrecklessly stupid gamble by your thoughts too.

 What I was talking about was taking a gamble on one or two players who would win us games and put pressure on a hugely vulnerable Celtic whose only real threat was US.

We then take these decent players into a guaranteed Europa qualification round.

Any Don's fan who didnt want that isn't looking to win anything.

These arent grand statements. It's wanting your team to challenge for things and play better football for the fans.

Wonder where we might have been now if the club had shown some nuts.

We are just going round in circles here anyway and clearly have different views on how to appease the fans.

 

Over and out.

 

[HaarDon]

Rico explain to me the strategy of buying hernandez yet rarely playing him whilst wasting all that money.

Explain to me buying back ex players who had gone sour when they left us.

Explain to me why we buy or get strikers on loan who simply cant score.

Explain to me why the players have very little passion or drive to win every game.

Explain to me why every season we have lots of injuries at crucial times when it seems no other team has.

Explain to me why our scouting team are shite and continuously (other than Cosgrove which was a total fluke) employ dross who arent up to the job.

 

Are all these flimsy examples?

[RedStarTorphins]

4 hours ago, HaarDon said:

Maybe not but we would still have a decent striker going into Europe which could have made a difference as you said yourself.

That's a way to run a club.

Instead we sit hoping we get that 3rd spot in the league while hanging onto dross.

Scotland hadn't beaten England at Twickenham for nearly 40 years. That's outrageous stats akin to our abysmal records at Ibrox and Celtic park.

Scotland rugby can only play Scottish players.

We have a plethora of world leagues to look at and try to persuade young talent to come to AFC.

Do we even try ?

“Scotland rugby” is full of English, New Zealand, Australian & South African born players.

We can even pick players that have lived here for a mere 3 years even if they have zero Scottish blood in their ancestry. 

[HaarDon]

1 hour ago, RedStarTorphins said:

“Scotland rugby” is full of English, New Zealand, Australian & South African born players.

We can even pick players that have lived here for a mere 3 years even if they have zero Scottish blood in their ancestry. 

These players need to have some relative connection to Scotland though or have lived in Scotland for 3 years as you say which is ridiculous!

There arent thousands of 'Scottish' rugby players to choose from.

Right now we have over 200 football leagues to choose from.

That was just one example of similar awful stats that have gone on for decades with a team who has a decent chance of getting wins against it's rival teams yet hasn't.

I think oor Derek has a few guises infiltrating these forums defending the club's atrocious record of abject failure.

 

 

Edited February 21, 2021 by HaarDon

[RicoS321]

8 hours ago, HaarDon said:

Exactly L.A.

I'd like to know how the recruitment team look for new players.

If one of us were employed to solely look into leagues for say 3 months and make a ton of calls to managers and agents etc, I swear we could come up with a few decent signings.

Even telesales marketers get some results.

 

Hernandez was a defender. I was talking about a striker/midfielder who would win us games hopefully.

You want to buy a £750k striker for ONE game in the hope he wins it for us?

That's ridiculous and a wrecklessly stupid gamble by your thoughts too.

 What I was talking about was taking a gamble on one or two players who would win us games and put pressure on a hugely vulnerable Celtic whose only real threat was US.

We then take these decent players into a guaranteed Europa qualification round.

Any Don's fan who didnt want that isn't looking to win anything.

These arent grand statements. It's wanting your team to challenge for things and play better football for the fans.

Wonder where we might have been now if the club had shown some nuts.

We are just going round in circles here anyway and clearly have different views on how to appease the fans.

 

Over and out.

 

If you don't understand the risk difference in taking a gamble on one game (with a one goal lead, so all you have to do is not lose) and expecting two players to make us 15 games unbeaten then I'm not sure how to explain it to you. Both would have led to Europa League qualification, thus millions in return. One is a significantly safer bet than the other. About 15 times safer.

What neither situation would have been, however, is a strategy. They'd both have been a reaction to events at the time, rather than part of a bigger plan. That's where your idea falls to pieces and mine doesn't. In order to get that fifteen game unbeaten run, we'd have been looking at a lot of luck and to be certain of success we'd have needed a left back, a midfielder, a winger, a number ten and a good striker, realistically. In my mind, that type of investment would have won us the league. "Showing nuts" as you simplistically put it would have been a £3-4M investment (at least) in one window. Otherwise, what's the point? If you only do half the investment and lose, how do you bridge the obvious shortfall the following season? You don't. You do a hearts. 

You may not like a strategy that says that each season we want to return 70+ points, but that'd be a sound policy. Once you consistently get that then you increase that to 75, then 80+ (that won't be enough even for second place this season). You identify opportunities within the season and react accordingly dependent on the financial situation at the time. I expect a chairman not to tank several million on a whim for very obvious reasons. I certainly don't want the club to be anymore in debt to guys like Milne or Cormack. Where you might have a view on "how to appease the fans", I'm giving a view on a sensible way to run a football club. If you constantly try and appease fans, rather than explain things to them like adults, you'll never have a manager for longer than six months. It's not a chairman's job to appease fans, something hopefully Cormack gets.

[RicoS321]

8 hours ago, HaarDon said:

Rico explain to me the strategy of buying hernandez yet rarely playing him whilst wasting all that money.

Explain to me buying back ex players who had gone sour when they left us.

Explain to me why we buy or get strikers on loan who simply cant score.

Explain to me why the players have very little passion or drive to win every game.

Explain to me why every season we have lots of injuries at crucial times when it seems no other team has.

Explain to me why our scouting team are shite and continuously (other than Cosgrove which was a total fluke) employ dross who arent up to the job.

 

Are all these flimsy examples?

Yes, they're entirely flimsy to the point you were making. They're definitely issues which need to be addressed, which nobody is arguing otherwise. I would add the ratio of youth development to senior players in the squad to that list too.

If I were to take issue with any of your points here it would be that I'm not sure about injuries being an issue compared to other teams, I'd have to see more data and understand the type of injury (Hedges, Watkins, the covid incidents being attributable to risk rather than training). McInnes' win ratio being the highest since Alex Smith would suggest the bit about passion or drive isn't completely accurate.

[sancho_panza]

There's a tendency when things are going badly to throw blanket criticism at everything, but the real problem with McInnes is his ability to judge a player and it's basically the main explanation for why we've regressed.

When we had Shinnie, McLean, peak McGinn/Hayes, etc. we were a legitimately good team. Any weaknesses McInnes has on the tactical side, with keeping players fit, motivating them and so on didn't stop us from having some level of success. What's happened is that despite having more resources to work with than most of the league, he's made countless bad signings and the quality of the squad has dropped. It's been an ill-conceived scattergun approach of throwing money at anyone with a reputation in Scotland rather than a considered building of the team.

The impression I get of him is that he completely lacks the capacity to judge players as they are and is always relying on third-hand rationales to make decisions (player X used to be good, player Y is about to be signed by Hibs, player Z scored against us once). It's not just about scouting - there's an abundance of information about players around now, what you need isn't extensive scouting networks of old guys in trilby hats covering the globe, it's good judgement about a player's potential. I watched just about every game Stevie May played for us, for instance, and to me he never genuinely looked up to it yet he got 60+ appearances because of who he was on paper. That tells me the problem is on McInnes judging players, not a lack of information about targets.

That's the problem and if we fixed it I don't think we'd be talking about passion or anything else. 

[HaarDon]

He throws money around at obvious risks or players who were decent but arent as good as you say or players with a history of injuries.

It's incredibly lazy recruitment.

There's risks in buying anyone so why dont we just look further afield since we arent getting much quality from Scotland or low tier English divisions.

At least not enough quality to change our success year after year.

More than 1000 clubs in 30 countries in Europe alone.

 

 

[RicoS321]

8 hours ago, sancho_panza said:

There's a tendency when things are going badly to throw blanket criticism at everything, but the real problem with McInnes is his ability to judge a player and it's basically the main explanation for why we've regressed.

When we had Shinnie, McLean, peak McGinn/Hayes, etc. we were a legitimately good team. Any weaknesses McInnes has on the tactical side, with keeping players fit, motivating them and so on didn't stop us from having some level of success. What's happened is that despite having more resources to work with than most of the league, he's made countless bad signings and the quality of the squad has dropped. It's been an ill-conceived scattergun approach of throwing money at anyone with a reputation in Scotland rather than a considered building of the team.

The impression I get of him is that he completely lacks the capacity to judge players as they are and is always relying on third-hand rationales to make decisions (player X used to be good, player Y is about to be signed by Hibs, player Z scored against us once). It's not just about scouting - there's an abundance of information about players around now, what you need isn't extensive scouting networks of old guys in trilby hats covering the globe, it's good judgement about a player's potential. I watched just about every game Stevie May played for us, for instance, and to me he never genuinely looked up to it yet he got 60+ appearances because of who he was on paper. That tells me the problem is on McInnes judging players, not a lack of information about targets.

That's the problem and if we fixed it I don't think we'd be talking about passion or anything else. 

When we throw money at players with a good reputation in Scotland, we get a good return. That is a strategy that completely works (see Hibs' solid improvement since signing Irvine and Cadden too). It's when he signs players with a reputation for being shite in Scotland that's unforgivable. Main and Wilson being the very obvious recent ones, but tansey, storie, Stewart (second time), Morris and so on (I'd include May) too. Really, really bad signings.

When you go further afield to Ojo, Gleeson etc., that becomes the club's issue, and one of scouting. I've been saying for years that recruitment should be removed from McInnes and he should only identify required positions, and players in Scotland capable of a first team role (with agreement from director of football). Worryingly, we've seen how that has panned out so far with the Hernandez signing, which was criminally bad (literally seemed like a money laundering scam), but it's still the correct strategy (badly implemented). When McInnes goes, we need to have a club that's capable of identifying targets and seeing signings through to the end.

[LA-Don]

Interesting to see Lennon resigning. Would like to think McInnes sees that he needs company.

Lennon wins 5 trophies in two years but fails this year so walks. what he’s done isn’t acceptable or good enough for Celtic.

Anything worst than 3rd for us isn’t acceptable or good enough. Don’t see us 3rd for another year. Any cup loss to a team other than the old firm isn’t good enough. Plus the amount of wins we have over the old firm isn’t good enough (and I’m realistic, I’m not asking for many!) progress and improvement is required in Europe and we aren’t doing that. While we’ve been knocked out by some better teams, it’s been a few years since we’ve beaten a better team on paper like rejika or Groningen. And quite often the manner in which we lose isn’t good enough.

with the money we throw at the team, and at the manager, we are failing. Does DM see that? Being really shit before DM came here and not being really shit now isn’t success. Being a top six team isn’t our goal. The last 3 years has been regression, results and standings prove that. Isn’t it time DM owned up and did the right thing, like Lennon?
 

 

[RedStarTorphins]

5 hours ago, LA-Don said:

Interesting to see Lennon resigning. Would like to think McInnes sees that he needs company.

Lennon wins 5 trophies in two years but fails this year so walks. what he’s done isn’t acceptable or good enough for Celtic.

Anything worst than 3rd for us isn’t acceptable or good enough. Don’t see us 3rd for another year. Any cup loss to a team other than the old firm isn’t good enough. Plus the amount of wins we have over the old firm isn’t good enough (and I’m realistic, I’m not asking for many!) progress and improvement is required in Europe and we aren’t doing that. While we’ve been knocked out by some better teams, it’s been a few years since we’ve beaten a better team on paper like rejika or Groningen. And quite often the manner in which we lose isn’t good enough.

with the money we throw at the team, and at the manager, we are failing. Does DM see that? Being really shit before DM came here and not being really shit now isn’t success. Being a top six team isn’t our goal. The last 3 years has been regression, results and standings prove that. Isn’t it time DM owned up and did the right thing, like Lennon?
 

 

Lennon isn’t walking away from £1m pay off though, or is he? Not sure of his contractual situation.

If I was DM, no chance I’d walk unless I was paid up. 

[RicoS321]

2 hours ago, RedStarTorphins said:

Lennon isn’t walking away from £1m pay off though, or is he? Not sure of his contractual situation.

If I was DM, no chance I’d walk unless I was paid up. 

Exactly. McInnes will still believe he can finish third (I don't), it's not up to him to call it a day. 

One thing about Lennon going is that he was allowed to fail convincingly before facilitating his resignation. I think we need to do the same with McInnes. Sometimes you have to allow someone to fail, it's not a bad thing. Lennon has absolute ownership of their failed ten in a row bid, they'll likely have lost the league before the new manager starts. It's a good position for that person to come in, and they won't be tainted with Lennon's failures. Similarly McInnes will own our failure to get third. It's entirely out of our hands now, so we'd be as well waiting until it's mathematically so, or just waiting until summer. Takes the pressure off any new manager. Moreover, the club needs to be absolutely certain it has the succession plan in place before it even thinks about firing the manager. That'll take as long as it takes. The cost of fucking it up exceeds McInnes' pay off by some way. 

[RedStarTorphins]

14 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Exactly. McInnes will still believe he can finish third (I don't), it's not up to him to call it a day. 

One thing about Lennon going is that he was allowed to fail convincingly before facilitating his resignation. I think we need to do the same with McInnes. Sometimes you have to allow someone to fail, it's not a bad thing. Lennon has absolute ownership of their failed ten in a row bid, they'll likely have lost the league before the new manager starts. It's a good position for that person to come in, and they won't be tainted with Lennon's failures. Similarly McInnes will own our failure to get third. It's entirely out of our hands now, so we'd be as well waiting until it's mathematically so, or just waiting until summer. Takes the pressure off any new manager. Moreover, the club needs to be absolutely certain it has the succession plan in place before it even thinks about firing the manager. That'll take as long as it takes. The cost of fucking it up exceeds McInnes' pay off by some way. 

If we’re say 8 points off Hibs (quite possible) at the split, maybe cut ties then & give a new manager a chance to see what he might want? 
 

[RicoS321]

13 minutes ago, RedStarTorphins said:

If we’re say 8 points off Hibs (quite possible) at the split, maybe cut ties then & give a new manager a chance to see what he might want? 
 

It depends where Livi are I suppose and if the cup is still going ahead. If the club need a few more weeks than that to sort themselves out, then I don't suppose it matters. I'm just not that convinced that the club are in the right place, but eight point deficit would seem reasonable.

[LA-Don]

Would like to hear him explain the mcgeough sub and how that benefitted us today?? More defensive player, killed the momentum, and killed the clock. All for.......???

utter joke.

[Jute]

28 minutes ago, LA-Don said:

Would like to hear him explain the mcgeough sub and how that benefitted us today?? More defensive player, killed the momentum, and killed the clock. All for.......???

utter joke.

That was a genuine WTF moment today. Even the radio team sounded confused by it. 

[RicoS321]

Was it not done to put another defender up? McGeouch effectively sitting in as last man, and no need for McGinn as we were going long and high? I assume he thought there'd be more than two minutes stoppage, which seemed a bit light.

[Jute]

8 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

Was it not done to put another defender up? McGeouch effectively sitting in as last man, and no need for McGinn as we were going long and high? I assume he thought there'd be more than two minutes stoppage, which seemed a bit light.

At most there would have been another minute. It was a pointless substitution by that time. 

[HaarDon]

28 minutes ago, Jute said:

At most there would have been another minute. It was a pointless substitution by that time. 

I wonder how many times he's made a substitution in the last say 5 minutes when we haven't been winning the game.

It must be around 180 times.

 

Utterly pointless.