Next manager

[RicoS321]

8 hours ago, OrlandoDon said:

Mccrorie a rolls Royce? But of a red tinted specs view there. I’m a big fan but I’d go for Volvo or Audi, better than an a to b Japanese car or the likes but not quite a beemer or merc. 
richardson, what did del boy drive??

That's a bit harsh. On the reliant robin. 

Willie Miller keeps calling him a Rolls Royce of a player on the radio too, seems McInnes' original description (which we all probably agreed with after his first couple of games) has stuck. He definitely brings a lot to a team and squad, but he'd probably be in the land rover defender (not the new abominations) category. Very reliable, easy to fix (he's always down injured and is invariably fine) and can run forever.

[Reekie_Red]

3 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

That's a bit harsh. On the reliant robin. 

Willie Miller keeps calling him a Rolls Royce of a player on the radio too, seems McInnes' original description (which we all probably agreed with after his first couple of games) has stuck. He definitely brings a lot to a team and squad, but he'd probably be in the land rover defender (not the new abominations) category. Very reliable, easy to fix (he's always down injured and is invariably fine) and can run forever.

So a Mazda 6 then 

[RicoS321]

Just now, Reekie_Red said:

So a Mazda 6 then 

A lovely car. Comfortable and reliable, with emphasis on an easy driving experience. Just like Ross McRorie. I think.

[Panda]

He still has three years left on his deal - think we should be holding out for more than £2m.

It's not just about the money. Duk & Miovski will spend the summer being linked with moves away. Clarkson & Pollok will go back to their parent clubs. Shinnie & McDonald are not yet signed up. Who knows if Robson (providing he gets the job) wants to keep Scales or if Celtic are even willing to do a deal.

Only IF (and it is still an IF) we get the guaranteed group stage football then we can confidently write some big cheques. If we don't we'll have early European qualifiers with a depleted & unsettled squad trying to avoid injuries, and having splashed most of our cash last summer.

We could really do without losing McCrorie too unless it's for big money. For me £3m minimum, never mind the add ons - Bristol are getting nowhere near the top flight any time soon, and McCrorie isn't a regular in the Scotland squad.

[Kowalski]

Might need a new manager soon. On current form Robson could be out within the month. 

[Elgindon]

Not quite in the 'Robson out' camp yet.Its early enough in the season to judge if he looks like hes going to learn from mistakes,(whilst sounding out potential replacements).

[manc_don]

2 hours ago, Kowalski said:

Might need a new manager soon. On current form Robson could be out within the month. 

International break will save him I really hope he finds a way to turn this around, it’s not looking great at the mo. 

[BigAl]

We knew we were appointing a manager with no top team management experience but we did it nonetheless as he had the experienced head of Agnew alongside him. Everything seems to be focused upon Robson himself as the main man. I wonder what Agnew is doing in the background

[Jute]

52 minutes ago, BigAl said:

We knew we were appointing a manager with no top team management experience but we did it nonetheless as he had the experienced head of Agnew alongside him. Everything seems to be focused upon Robson himself as the main man. I wonder what Agnew is doing in the background

Not much on today’s evidence.
 

Have said for a while that concerns about Robson have been growing and today now has me convinced we will again be looking for a new manager before the seasons done. Really hope I am wrong but his post match statement was squarely in McGhee territory. 

[Panda]

35 minutes ago, Jute said:

Really hope I am wrong but his post match statement was squarely in McGhee territory. 

This one?

"That's not how we want to play. That was the frustrating part. We are building a new team. We've got all these players that have just come in the door. They've hardly introduced themselves to each other.

"We will be fine. We've got real speed, we've got a good group, we've got some really good players and once we get going, we'll be fine. I'm really relaxed about that."

I'd say a lot of what he says there makes sense. That doesn't make him immune from criticism, but we've had good performances that deserved more (Celtic, arguably Hacken) and we've had poor performances where we've dropped points in them all, when maybe last season a good defensive performance or an on-form striker bailed us out.

Next four games after the international break will tell us a lot.

Hearts away 

Frankfurt away

Ross County home

Ross County away (cup)

Frankfurt is a free hit (unless it's an absolute pumping), but I'd be looking for a semi-final spot and a home win in the league. I'd also like to think, especially since Hearts have lost to Dundee and Motherwell, that we can improve on the two abject performances at Tynecastle last season.

 

[RicoS321]

47 minutes ago, Panda said:

but we've had good performances that deserved more (Celtic, arguably Hacken)

Who in the world is arguing that we deserved more from Hacken? 

[Panda]

47 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Who in the world is arguing that we deserved more from Hacken? 

I'd say at the very least a draw and extra-time would have been fair.

[OrlandoDon]

5 hours ago, Panda said:

I'd say at the very least a draw and extra-time would have been fair.

And not unfair to say we could/should have won the first leg.

[RicoS321]

8 hours ago, Panda said:

I'd say at the very least a draw and extra-time would have been fair.

They completely tore us apart, we were a mess. If we'd scored any of our chances, they'd simply have walked up, politely asked the defence if they could move aside, and then belted in another couple. The chances we created were a really shite smokescreen for atrocious organisation and zero game plan. We didn't deserve anything from the game at all. Remember our first couple of home games under Goodwin when we beat St Mirren and someone else (Livi maybe?)? Where everyone came away saying "fucking hell, we could have been four down before they went down to ten and we eventually tanked them?". That exact approach is what Robson chose against Hacken. 

[Panda]

10 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

They completely tore us apart, we were a mess. If we'd scored any of our chances, they'd simply have walked up, politely asked the defence if they could move aside, and then belted in another couple. 

Just like they did in the first leg aye?

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

I feel a little bit sorry for Robson, to seemingly be under pressure so few games into the season is a tough one and I blame much of it on the recruitment that he has had to contend with.  He was right in what he said after the Hibs game in that the players have only just been introduced to each other and you have to wonder why that has been allowed to happen. 

We knew back in May that we would be facing the challenge of Thursday/Sunday football for the first half of this season and have had three months to get players in the door.  The way the recruitment process has been handled looks, from the outside, pretty amateurish.  We were lucky enough to get one of the most winnable looking Europa playoff ties in recent years for what were possibly our biggest two games of this season and we made a total arse of it because of poor preparation.  Players should have been in the door much earlier and up to speed weeks ago.  To have McGarry and Jensen virtually just off the plane and pitched into the first eleven last week was a bit of a joke and to a lesser extent the same can be said for McGrath.  How is Robson expected to drill a team with so little time available to him with these new players?  Some of these players might turn out to be great signings but half the season will be gone before we even find out and we could be out of three competitions by then, we are already out of one. 

On top of that Robson has had to deal with losing a key midfielder shortly before the Euro tie with no like for like replacement and now we will have to wait until January if we want to sign one.  As for making a loan signing at about 10pm on deadline day, that smacks of total desperation.  So much emphasis back in April/May was put on the desire to qualify for the Europa League yet we give ourselves a mountain to climb with how we prepared ourselves for the qualification process and in the league we are chasing our tail after just 4 games. 

[Panda]

22 minutes ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

The way the recruitment process has been handled looks, from the outside, pretty amateurish.

Unless you've been shadowing the recruitment team for three months, then no-one can answer this as we have absolutely no idea if they messed up on transfers, didn't do their due diligence on players, and if everything else that goes into making a transfer happen was "amateurish" or not.

At the beginning of summer we were praising the club for getting MacDonald, Devlin, Clarkson, Shinnie and (I think) Sokler all signed up before pre-season started, while clubs such as Hearts hadn't signed a single player.

Then as soon as Teklic didn't happen, suddenly the recruitment team were getting criticised.

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

15 minutes ago, Panda said:

Unless you've been shadowing the recruitment team for three months, then no-one can answer this as we have absolutely no idea if they messed up on transfers, didn't do their due diligence on players, and if everything else that goes into making a transfer happen was "amateurish" or not.

I was on about the timing of signing players, giving the manager no chance of getting a team on the park for two of our biggest games of the season and handicaping us for the early part of the league season.  I don't need to have been shadowing the recruitment team to know that we were very last minute in signing three of the players in the first eleven last week. Pretty unfair for questions to be getting asked of Robson this early when he gets players landed on him so late on.

17 minutes ago, Panda said:

Then as soon as Teklic didn't happen, suddenly the recruitment team were getting criticised.

Who mentioned anything about the boy Teklic?

[Panda]

54 minutes ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

I was on about the timing of signing players,

So was I.

54 minutes ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

 

giving the manager no chance of getting a team on the park for two of our biggest games of the season and handicaping us for the early part of the league season.  I don't need to have been shadowing the recruitment team to know that we were very last minute in signing three of the players in the first eleven last week. Pretty unfair for questions to be getting asked of Robson this early when he gets players landed on him so late on.

But again, what was the reason for signing players late?

Did they miss out on first targets?

Did it take time to negotiate with clubs, players, agents?

Did Robson perhaps want to delay in players (maybe he was waiting on Scales and Pollock, and only when they couldn't happen could we move for Jensen and Gartenmann)?

If you're going to criticise them for not doing a good job, then you need to know why they couldn't do it. And none of us do.

54 minutes ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

Who mentioned anything about the boy Teklic?

I wasn't meaning you, but many Dons fans have been criticising the club for either not getting the deal done or for "throwing all the eggs in one basket".

Burrows was hitting back at fans criticising him and the club about it on Twitter.

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

1 hour ago, Panda said:

But again, what was the reason for signing players late?

Did they miss out on first targets?

Did it take time to negotiate with clubs, players, agents?

Did Robson perhaps want to delay in players (maybe he was waiting on Scales and Pollock, and only when they couldn't happen could we move for Jensen and Gartenmann)?

Valid enough points and I'm sure some of those may be the case but you still know in May roughly how many players you are going to need to bring in and have a good idea when the first game of this season was going to be.  Failing to prepare and preparing to fail springs to mind, whatever the reasons.

 

  

[Slim]

The change in recruitment team over the summer probably didn’t help. It would be interesting to know how that all works. Are our signings the previous guy’s targets or targets the new guy has brought from West Ham? Or is it more of a team effort with a bunch of scouts chipping in with suggestions for whoever is in the hot seat to investigate?

Might explain why there seemed to be a couple of weeks gap between the initial batch of signings and McGrath/McGarry/Gueye/Etc.

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, Slim said:

The change in recruitment team over the summer probably didn’t help. It would be interesting to know how that all works. Are our signings the previous guy’s targets or targets the new guy has brought from West Ham? Or is it more of a team effort with a bunch of scouts chipping in with suggestions for whoever is in the hot seat to investigate?

Might explain why there seemed to be a couple of weeks gap between the initial batch of signings and McGrath/McGarry/Gueye/Etc.

We didn't change recruitment team, just one guy. I'd assume that processes don't get thrown out the window from one to the next. 

I think the club have to take collective responsibility for the failed window. Players will be shite, and others not, that's fine. We shouldn't be missing out positions that are integral to our system though and none of the players we signed could pretend to be a Ramadani replacement. That said, we knew that at least two weeks ago and Robson has done nothing to mitigate the problem. He's got time, now, to work this out in training and deliver a new system that suits the signings or converts one of the existing squad into something different. It really has very little to do with players being just in the door or any of the other excuses. In fact, that just shows a complete misunderstanding of the issue. I'm assuming Robson isn't going with that line in private, and I'm very much hoping that there's someone in a position of authority that can call that out for the bollocks it is.

[Panda]

On 03/09/2023 at 21:12, Panda said:

 

Next four games after the international break will tell us a lot.

Hearts away 

Frankfurt away

Ross County home

Ross County away (cup)

Frankfurt is a free hit (unless it's an absolute pumping), but I'd be looking for a semi-final spot and a home win in the league. I'd also like to think, especially since Hearts have lost to Dundee and Motherwell, that we can improve on the two abject performances at Tynecastle last season.

 

Of those four, Hearts was abject, but since then we've fairly come on like and today was just smashing.

Best Helsinki, surely beat St Johnstone, and that's a very good run indeed.

Maybe that Hearts performance, and the subsequent criticism, was what we needed to give us a kick up the arse.

[BigAl]

Mmmm the clock is ticking on Robson.

Worst win percentage of any permanent Aberdeen manager.

Let's put that into context. Worse even than McGhee

Nae idea of who we might get, but the club should be already planning for what looks like an inevitable parting of the ways.

What's Robbie Neilson up to these days 

[RicoS321]

Steven McLean would come cheap.