Next Manager

[BigAl]

Just now, HaarDon said:

A manager of the mighty Alloa and St Mirren?

Do you have confidence in him taking us to the Europe?

Uninspiring 

Simply the best of a bad bunch in Scotland at present

Would be more than a tad disappointed if it was Goodwin

Compensation would obviously be required and he has just signed a new three year deal.

Not sure what sort of money St Mirren would be paying him though.

[RedStarTorphins]

11 minutes ago, BigAl said:

Sky Bet have shortened the odds on Darren Fletcher to 4/1 

All that means is someone has punted £50 or £100 on it. 
It’s like herding cats on these managerial lists. 

[BigAl]

Darren Fletcher just appointed Technical Director @ Man Utd so strike him off the list

[HaarDon]

22 minutes ago, BigAl said:

Darren Fletcher just appointed Technical Director @ Man Utd so strike him off the list

Shit.

 

I just lost £100

 

[Slim]

How about Billy Reid?

Did a good job for many years working with young players at Hamilton and has been working as assistant at a fairly high level for the past couple of years, currently at Brighton (where ex-Don Kyle Macaulay is currently head of recruitment).

[RedStarTorphins]

1 hour ago, BigAl said:

The only factor in Stephen Glass's favour is the Atlanta connection and as such as other have alluded to if he gets it, it tells us all we really need to know about our Chairman.

I cling to the hope that Dave is going to pull a rabbit out of the hat here

Atlanta C 

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, HaarDon said:

A manager of the mighty Alloa and St Mirren?

Do you have confidence in him taking us to the Europe?

Uninspiring 

Does the team managed have any bearing on the ability of the manager? They have to start somewhere. Goodwin is already more experienced and lower risk than glass, Maloney, Fletcher etc. Is a successful manager at a lower club better than a failure at a bigger club, like Lambert? I'd say so. If we are going for an experienced manager, then he's someone that will have failed elsewhere or else he's out of our budget. The question is whether or not managing at a bigger club teaches you things that a smaller club wouldn't (that isn't general knowledge, like some of the sport science things), and are those things even applicable to the dons, more than say getting by on a tight budget that you'd learn at a smaller club? 

Also, when we talk about inspiring the fans with the next appointment, does that have any bearing on how good the manager is? Fletcher would inspire the fans, but he could be absolute horse shit as a manager. As far as I can see, the two have absolutely no link. Inspire often doesn't mean inspire either, it can usually be substituted for unusual/different/unexpected, which are not the same thing. I expect many of us were more excited by the signing of Zola/Gleeson/Forrester/Maynard than Ferguson, but it had zero correlation to ability.

I'd say that Goodwin is as good as any other name I've heard so far, because I think he's good at managing football teams (I thought so when he was with Alloa too). I have zero idea about any of the other names suggested, apart from proven pish like Lambert.

[RicoS321]

55 minutes ago, Slim said:

How about Billy Reid?

Did a good job for many years working with young players at Hamilton and has been working as assistant at a fairly high level for the past couple of years, currently at Brighton (where ex-Don Kyle Macaulay is currently head of recruitment).

I'm finding it really difficult not to suggest going for Derek McInnes when I see some of these names being suggested. 

It's actually a really difficult process, I'm glad I'm not having to do it! I don't think it was the wrong decision to bin McInnes, but there a lot of managers out there who aren't an improvement. Not sure I've seen a name yet that I think would comfortably improve us in a sustained way. Perhaps the timing of this Europa change next year will work in our favour here.

[thestooge]

I don't think folk realise quite how far off the peak of where McInnes took us we are now.

At the end of the 2016/17 season, we were averaging 2 points and 1.95 goals a game.  We were a really good side, with a good squad, playing in a system that suited us, in a league where many of the top clubs were absent and we were debt free.  In 2020/21 though,  we're generating 1.5 points a game (down 25% on 16/17), we're only scoring 1 goal a game on average, we've no discernible style, the squad is riddled with older players on big salaries, it's poorly balanced, our debts are creeping up and the impact of Covid still hasn't been fully felt.

McInnes had to go.  We've had four seasons of tangible, incremental decline and there's been absolutely no indication that he knew how to turn things around based on disastrous transfer dealings and extended periods of goallessness.  We were only getting worse, year on year, by almost every metric, since the end of the 16/17 season.

The next man is likely to get a lot of fans, particularly those disappointed to see McInnes go, looking for instant "success" but stopping the rot is the first objective we need to achieve.  To go that, the summer player acquisitions will be absolutely vital.  Talk of a Maloney or a Glass as a coach does interest me, but in terms of the nuts and bolts of club management, particularly balancing the playing budget and building the squad that the success on the park will be built on, I have serious doubts about appointing someone without considerable experience.  

On the wages McInnes and Docherty were on, it's not totally unreasonable to see why we might pursue a DoF/Head Coach model but then we'd have to put faith in Cormack making two good appointments and my faith isn't quite there yet.

I just hope we don't rush into anything.  We do have time here.  There will likely be plenty managers out of work in the next few weeks and it's probably worth waiting to see how things play out down south in particular before we make a decision, assuming one hasn't been made already.

What's Graeme Murty up to?

[RicoS321]

13 minutes ago, thestooge said:

I don't think folk realise quite how far off the peak of where McInnes took us we are now.

At the end of the 2016/17 season, we were averaging 2 points and 1.95 goals a game.  We were a really good side, with a good squad, playing in a system that suited us, in a league where many of the top clubs were absent and we were debt free.  In 2020/21 though,  we're generating 1.5 points a game (down 25% on 16/17), we're only scoring 1 goal a game on average, we've no discernible style, the squad is riddled with older players on big salaries, it's poorly balanced, our debts are creeping up and the impact of Covid still hasn't been fully felt.

McInnes had to go.  We've had four seasons of tangible, incremental decline and there's been absolutely no indication that he knew how to turn things around based on disastrous transfer dealings and extended periods of goallessness.  We were only getting worse, year on year, by almost every metric, since the end of the 16/17 season.

The next man is likely to get a lot of fans, particularly those disappointed to see McInnes go, looking for instant "success" but stopping the rot is the first objective we need to achieve.  To go that, the summer player acquisitions will be absolutely vital.  Talk of a Maloney or a Glass as a coach does interest me, but in terms of the nuts and bolts of club management, particularly balancing the playing budget and building the squad that the success on the park will be built on, I have serious doubts about appointing someone without considerable experience.  

On the wages McInnes and Docherty were on, it's not totally unreasonable to see why we might pursue a DoF/Head Coach model but then we'd have to put faith in Cormack making two good appointments and my faith isn't quite there yet.

I just hope we don't rush into anything.  We do have time here.  There will likely be plenty managers out of work in the next few weeks and it's probably worth waiting to see how things play out down south in particular before we make a decision, assuming one hasn't been made already.

What's Graeme Murty up to?

Yes, it's clear to see the gap between now and 2017, which also makes it easy to see how small changes in personnel can have a big impact at our level (nobody's suggesting McInnes should still be here). It's not like McInnes gave up, or tried to play worse, it was purely down to poor signings (and an inability to change things in a game), which is a problem we've seen our managers and hearts and Hibs managers have at various points over the years. McInnes actually got a good points return on some pish signings (usually by playing turgid fitba). I'm massively concerned about our ability to recruit players as a club, and I don't think a new manager will solve that. A temporary uptick as the new guy brings in folk he knows from recent employment perhaps. 

I'd like to think that Cormack only has to make one good appointment and he'd heavily lean on that director of football to appoint a manager. I'd prefer to see that approach, I don't think we've got the football knowledge in house - or at Atlanta - to make a decent appointment. 

[BigAl]

Steven Pressley

WTF

[manc_don]

1 hour ago, BigAl said:

Steven Pressley

WTF

Fuck. That.

[tup1]

Foster telling Aberdeen fans they should be careful what they wish for on Sportsound just now.

This was also the rhetoric last night with McCall and Levein.

[sheepheid]

I will never understand this ‘be careful what you wish for’ nonsense.

it’s been spouted by a few idiots, including Kris Boyd and now tonight, Ricky Foster.

it’s simple...we wish for Aberdeen to be the best that they can be. Now, the best that we can be is up for debate but it certainly isn’t what we were served up during the last 4 years of McInnes’s reign. 
I don’t understand people that are happy to accept a level of mediocrity for fear of what failure might be when trying to better yourself. 
If you don’t try, you will never know...

Edited March 10, 2021 by sheepheid

[RicoS321]

I'm surprised at foster to be honest, he's got a bit more of a brain than most. I don't think even McInnes will genuinely believe he deserved much more time. There are very few businesses where a manager will be kept indefinitely if deserving of the sack, it's quite a bizarre notion really. I could understand if they were saying he should be given more time to turn it around (they'd be wrong), but to say that we should keep an underperforming member of staff because you might employ a shitter one is idiotic. 

 

[BigAl]

1 hour ago, manc_don said:

Fuck. That.

But but boyhood Aberdeen fan according to him

[DantheDon]

2 minutes ago, BigAl said:

But but boyhood Aberdeen fan according to him

Maybe it's just me but I always feel like anyone who claims to be an Aberdeen Fan then goes to Rangers has sold out. I mean you must have other options, and usually that would be staying at Aberdeen.

[Jute]

2 hours ago, BigAl said:

Steven Pressley

WTF

[BigAl]

4 minutes ago, Jute said:

Is correct 

[tom_widdows]

1 minute ago, DantheDon said:

Maybe it's just me but I always feel like anyone who claims to be an Aberdeen Fan then goes to Rangers has sold out. I mean you must have other options, and usually that would be staying at Aberdeen.

Easy for fans of any club to say that when it comes to players signing for their rivals.
Sol Campbell springs to mind when he signed for Arsenal. Death threats, called Judas etc. The cold hard fact was Spurs offered him about 75k a week, whereas Arsenal offered him 104k per week. £3.9million a year or 5.4million a year? 
Pro football career lasts about 15-20 years depending on your position and injuries but at the same time it can be ended with one bad tackle or an awkward fall in training so you go where the money is to make sure you are set for life.

Sad fact is SEVCO and the Tic can and do pay more and 4 years playing in their reserves/ sitting on the bench can set most SPL players up for the rest of their life, unless the tax man comes calling of course.

Think about what you do for a living. I can't imagine a situation in which I would declare a former colleague has sold out if they quit my office and went to work for a rival architects firm for a higher salary. 

 

[DantheDon]

I get what your saying Tom we all need money to live, but you can make a decent living at many clubs without going to the rivals of your team. I would say Football is more emotive then moving between architects, and I would definitely feel more principled in regards to it if I were in that position.

But from Fosters point of veiw went to the huns on loan so he probably didn't even make more money.

[tom_widdows]

5 minutes ago, DantheDon said:

I would definitely feel more principled in regards to it if I were in that position.

It's easy to say you will do something in an imaginary situaiton, but often very different when you actually have to experince/ face it.

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, DantheDon said:

I get what your saying Tom we all need money to live, but you can make a decent living at many clubs without going to the rivals of your team. I would say Football is more emotive then moving between architects, and I would definitely feel more principled in regards to it if I were in that position.

But from Fosters point of veiw went to the huns on loan so he probably didn't even make more money.

It was Pressley who was the boyhood dandy though. Foster has always been a hun, so it was fair enough for him to go.

[tlg1903]

9 hours ago, HaarDon said:

A manager of the mighty Alloa and St Mirren?

Do you have confidence in him taking us to the Europe?

Uninspiring 

Guess you would have found fergies appointment even more uninspiring having only been in charge of East Stirling and  St Mirren then.

 

I'm curious though, what sort of pedigree are you expecting?  There was a boy on the radio from dons supporters together wanting Eddie Howe.  Are you also that level of delusional as well or are you pragmatic enough to recognise he's highly unlikely to be interested in the Tim job let alone the Aberdeen one. 

[tlg1903]

Latest AFC here we go podcast is really good.  Speak to a guy from atalanta on what glass has been up to out there.  He sounded very switched on and spoke very highly of glass.  Also had Derek rae on to talk about the dof structure at German clubs.