Next manager

[RicoS321]

I have to admit, my first thought when he went off midweek was that was his last game, and perhaps not just for us. A bit like Hartley, we got a good six months, but I think he's been chasing shadows and making mistakes since the turn of the year; more interested in winding people up than beating them. Still able to do it of course, see the Huns game, but not consistently. He looked lost against St Johnstone and we were far better when he went off. I'm concerned that the fans will start to turn against him if he's not up for it under the new manager (like when he downed tools under deila) and he unsettles the rest of the team. I don't like the idea of Goodwin having to get an assistant thrown in by decree on signing, but if they gel then it'll be a good thing. I don't know enough to know whether Brown is a good or bad influence behind the scenes, but he doesn't strike me as the type that would put the team ahead of his own ambitions (that's not a criticism) and allow Goodwin space to assert himself. Ultimately, I don't really know, but I think I'd be happier with him gone.

[Jute]

Beat me to it.

Not my first choice but should do a decent job get us back to 4th or 5th at least. Just hope he adapts his style of football as St Mirren and Alloa under him were not the easiest on the eye. Be interesting to know if he is accepting our current recruitment model or if that is going in the bin. 

[Goldie03]

1 minute ago, Jute said:

Beat me to it.

Not my first choice but should do a decent job get us back to 4th or 5th at least. Just hope he adapts his style of football as St Mirren and Alloa under him were not the easiest on the eye. Be interesting to know if he is accepting our current recruitment model or if that is going in the bin. 

Yours is neater than mine!

I think that might be in the sea - thought the statement said all the right things 

[redordead]

Plays possessions football.  No. 

Record of winning things.  Also no.

record of developing youth. None of note.

easy to get.    Apparently so.

for everybody that jumped on the glass appointment. Are we really happy with this process. 

let's be honest, the norweigan was a red herring. Never going to happen but made Dave look as though he had ambition.

hope to be proven wrong but I see defensive football and mediocrity for the foreseeable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Panda]

46 minutes ago, redordead said:

 

record of developing youth. None of note.

Jamie McGrath, Conor McCarthy, Ethan Erhahon, Cammy MacPherson and Jake Doyle-Hayes and most recent sighing Alex Greive are all young players who have been brought in and developed under Goodwin. Jay Henderson has come through their youth system and into the first team.

Would suggest St Mirren's youth system not being as productive as Aberdeen's is more down to investment from the club rather than anything to do with Goodwin.

[Slim]

Would be interesting to know if St Mirren would need to pay up Brown’s contract and we essentially get Goodwin for free, or if he’s got a managerial release clause written into his contract.

I think we’re still on the hook to pay his full player salary next season too so wouldn’t be too bad if he left to be their manager.

[scotfree]

1 hour ago, redordead said:

Plays possessions football.  No. 

Record of winning things.  Also no.

record of developing youth. None of note.

easy to get.    Apparently so.

for everybody that jumped on the glass appointment. Are we really happy with this process. 

let's be honest, the norweigan was a red herring. Never going to happen but made Dave look as though he had ambition.

hope to be proven wrong but I see defensive football and mediocrity for the foreseeable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, redordead said:

Plays possessions football.  No. 

Record of winning things.  Also no.

record of developing youth. None of note.

easy to get.    Apparently so.

for everybody that jumped on the glass appointment. Are we really happy with this process. 

let's be honest, the norweigan was a red herring. Never going to happen but made Dave look as though he had ambition.

hope to be proven wrong but I see defensive football and mediocrity for the foreseeable.

You think if the Norwegian lad had said yes, we wouldn't have employed him? That guy looks like he's going to go to the very top of management. He'll know that, he's not stupid, and he simply doesn't need Aberdeen as a stepping stone, but given we wouldn't have had to go insanely outwith our wage structure was definitely worth asking. Whatever you think of Cormack, he's clearly got ambition - far more than you or I, I expect, given his business success. His ambitions for Aberdeen have been fairly clearly written out, he's very much put his cards on the table with the club's strategy. There seems to be too many Dons fans equating ambition with Dave Cormack spending all his money. I want us to be a club that can run itself on its own income, with Dave Cormack (or another) providing the balancing funding between seasons where we perform poorly or there is unexpected events like covid, plus getting the investment for large scale capital infrastructure. Is that unreasonable? Should we really be employing a manager that we can't fund from the football playing side (ticket/corporate sales etc)? Why should Cormack's ambition be to be AFC's sugar daddy? I don't think the chairman spending his own money is ambitious at all, I think it's the very opposite. Anyone can spend mummy and daddy's money and have a good chance of success, but it's not ambition. Goodwin will be about the middle of our budget, maybe higher, but I don't imagine there are a huge number of managers significantly better willing to come to Aberdeen for <£500k per year. 

Goodwin is perfectly capable of adapting his style of play if required I'm sure. There's a good reason for not playing possession football at St Mirren. He also cost us £250K, so clearly wasn't that easy to get. If he's happy with the club's strategy, then it's a good appointment.

[baggy89]

Pleased with this. Was the obvious choice when we punted McInnes. Be disappointed if Brown goes but playing wise he’s not irreplaceable. As someone else said get McCrorie into midfield. 

[BigAl]

Ok not my first choice but he's here and got my full backing.

Have started a new thread as its no longer about who the new manager is and all about Jim Goodwin.

[RicoS321]

33 minutes ago, BigAl said:

Have started a new thread as its no longer about who the new manager is and all about Jim Goodwin.

Exactly, we can keep this one for September.

[Kowalski]

41 minutes ago, BigAl said:

Ok not my first choice but he's here and got my full backing.

Have started a new thread as its no longer about who the new manager is and all about Jim Goodwin.

Give this thread a few weeks

[Panda]

On Scott Brown - I'm not sure he will go to St Mirren.

I think he'll have a petted lip for a while because his mate got sacked, and will probably sound St Mirren out, but I think most people would be advising him not to quit playing & take on what is still a relatively big job at St Mirren so soon.

Hopefully Goodwin gets the arm around him and convinces him the Dons are going to the very top and he should stick around for the journey.

[LA-Don]

3 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

You think if the Norwegian lad had said yes, we wouldn't have employed him? That guy looks like he's going to go to the very top of management. He'll know that, he's not stupid, and he simply doesn't need Aberdeen as a stepping stone, but given we wouldn't have had to go insanely outwith our wage structure was definitely worth asking. Whatever you think of Cormack, he's clearly got ambition - far more than you or I, I expect, given his business success. His ambitions for Aberdeen have been fairly clearly written out, he's very much put his cards on the table with the club's strategy. There seems to be too many Dons fans equating ambition with Dave Cormack spending all his money. I want us to be a club that can run itself on its own income, with Dave Cormack (or another) providing the balancing funding between seasons where we perform poorly or there is unexpected events like covid, plus getting the investment for large scale capital infrastructure. Is that unreasonable? Should we really be employing a manager that we can't fund from the football playing side (ticket/corporate sales etc)? Why should Cormack's ambition be to be AFC's sugar daddy? I don't think the chairman spending his own money is ambitious at all, I think it's the very opposite. Anyone can spend mummy and daddy's money and have a good chance of success, but it's not ambition. Goodwin will be about the middle of our budget, maybe higher, but I don't imagine there are a huge number of managers significantly better willing to come to Aberdeen for <£500k per year. 

Goodwin is perfectly capable of adapting his style of play if required I'm sure. There's a good reason for not playing possession football at St Mirren. He also cost us £250K, so clearly wasn't that easy to get. If he's happy with the club's strategy, then it's a good appointment.

Haven’t heard a single person say we should spend tons of money. People have asked to look outside of the usual fishbowl and that’s it. Appears we really didn’t but we’ll never know. Much like last time with glass, looks like cormack had his mind made up and knew who he wanted.

goodwin is the manager, let’s all get behind him. Wish him nothing but success.

unfair to criticize his playing/coaching style, you can only piss with the cock you are given. Give him a chance with new and better players, let’s see what he can do. 

Today will be robson’s team with goodwin watching, learning, and giving input. Unfair to expect him to take over today when he doesn’t really know the players and hasn’t run a training session.

hope brown stays until at least the end of the season. Interesting that outside of the window I’m assuming he’s have to retire as a player if he did move??would like to see mccrorie back in midfield regardless, but what’s the extent of his injury?

[LA-Don]

Scrap that, no brown and mccrorie plays today? Hopefully in midfield!

[Chris Frae Killie]

On 18/02/2022 at 21:03, RicoS321 said:

I'd love to see any evidence for this (genuinely, I'm not criticising). There are a hell of a lot of good footballers who made poor managers and a hell of a lot of shite players that made good managers. To the extent that I'd say there is zero link whatsoever. Absolutely none.

Neither of us has the data obviously, so it's just speculation. I'd say that success has far more to do with personality (of the manager) and management competence rather than footballing ability. Footballing ability is something that you gain at a far younger age than management skills, I just can't see how it's relevant. A will to win is great, but if you don't have the ability to pass that on to others it can probably be quite frustrating. Lambert strikes me as the type who doesn't have the charisma or intelligence to get a point across that people would listen to. John Collins proved that wanking around showing off yer six pack telling folk that you were the fittest player at Monaco is no substitute for actual management abilities - you just wouldn't take the nasally dickhead seriously.

I agree with LA Don that prior experience of winning things would be preferable, but I don't see it as essential. As an average player, Goodwin captained St Mirren to cup success, which is fairly impressive (and was regularly championed on various Dons forums as a "winner" that we should look to sign). He was managed by Danny Lennon that day, who is one of numerous examples of managers who have won something that are not that good at managing football teams. Alan Stubbs, Peter Houston, Tommy Wright too. There's a little luck involved in cup wins in Scotland, with no chance of league success.

The offence taken! I do think you have missed my point though. I'm not saying that a good player makes a good manager. What I am saying is that a player who has the experience of being part of a big club, is used to the pressures involved, whereas Goodwin has only ever played and managed at clubs where they were not expected to win every week. There is a difference. Obviously like everything in life, there are exceptions to the rule. Jose Mourinho being the classic.

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, Chris Frae Killie said:

The offence taken! I do think you have missed my point though. I'm not saying that a good player makes a good manager. What I am saying is that a player who has the experience of being part of a big club, is used to the pressures involved, whereas Goodwin has only ever played and managed at clubs where they were not expected to win every week. There is a difference. Obviously like everything in life, there are exceptions to the rule. Jose Mourinho being the classic.

But it's not a rule, and nor is mourinho an exception (he's unusual because he didn't play football at all). Being part of a big club generally equates to being a good player though doesn't it? Again, I'm not seeing any evidence between being a good manager and having experience at a big club. There are plenty examples of managerial failure where the player had experience of being at a big club, and plenty where the manager hasn't been at a big club and succeeded. Again, it's really a managerial skill or personality trait. Experience will help in a limited way of course, but players feel pressure at all levels of football. Given that there's no definition of "big club", it'd be difficult to measure, but I doubt that there's a correlation between bigger club involvement and managerial success.

However, if it helps, Goodwin played for Celtic and came through their youth team, so we're sorted.

[ayrshire_don74]

Anyone catch the red tv interview again came across very well , mentioned fitness and athleticism a lot , which was refreshing

[Elgindon]

Yes good interview.Think he was putting athleticism/fitness as a pre-requisite alongside rather than priority over other attributes.

  Wasnt over excited about the appt,but liking the cut of his jib so far.Bit of steel about him too

[LA-Don]

28 minutes ago, Elgindon said:

Yes good interview.Think he was putting athleticism/fitness as a pre-requisite alongside rather than priority over other attributes.

  Wasnt over excited about the appt,but liking the cut of his jib so far.Bit of steel about him too

Pretty much sums it up for me too. Bottom line, we have to win games. For a good 5 year period we did a good job of consistently beating everyone except Celtic (then Rangers.) Got to get back to that, plus play the old firm with the intention of winning and obviously take points there too. With a new manager in place and a dozen games to play, 4th is an achievable must. Not totally ruling out 3rd.

[manc_don]

 

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

Shoring up the defence has to be the priority and get back to being difficult to beat.

55 minutes ago, LA-Don said:

With a new manager in place and a dozen games to play, 4th is an achievable must. Not totally ruling out 3rd.

Got to watch the expectation level too though. Glass took over a team who were in 4th and people said we were in transition, he needed to rebuild, give him a few windows to get in his own players and so on.

Goodwin is coming in with a team in 8th, can’t buy anyone and is being expected to finish 3rd straight away? We’ve not appointed Fabio Capello, just the boy from St Mirren

[Panda]

I don't think fourth this season and third next season is too lofty an expectation.

We're currently only three points off fourth. We were, for a brief time, fourth last weekend when leading against Motherwell. The team in fourth (Hibernian) are similar to us in that they are in transition.

I'd say our biggest threat to fourth is Dundee United, so tomorrow is a big one. Lose tomorrow and it becomes difficult, but still not impossible.

I also think much of Goodwin's team building has been done for him. It's a relatively young team. It's just a case of fixing a few things rather than overhauling the squad.

In summer we might lose Ramsay, Ferguson and possibly Brown. Two of those would go for sizeable transfer fees. Ojo & McGeouch might leave. So we'd be looking at bringing in 5/6 players - that's a normal summer turnover. 

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

2 hours ago, Panda said:

I don't think fourth this season and third next season is too lofty an expectation.

Not saying that fourth should not be the target Panda but the word expectation for me is a bit strong.  We have been rubbish all season with radio Scotland on Saturday saying had we lost to Motherwell it would have been the worst points total to date since back in the Steve Paterson era.  

Heard someone say the other day that we should as a minimum, be finishing third in the league and winning the odd cup.  I mean we can all dream but if you put on the sensible hat for a second that is really the maximum a Dons manager can achieve, not the minimum expectation.  It would take something pretty spectacular for us to ever finish higher than third and that is not being defeatist, it is being realistic of where things are at in our league with the gulf in finance between us and the top two.

2 hours ago, Panda said:

(Hibernian) are similar to us in that they are in transition.

I don't buy that we are in transition at all.  Most of these players have been there since August and have played over 30 games together this season.  Whether they are good enough players is a whole different argument.

[Panda]

2 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

Not saying that fourth should not be the target Panda but the word expectation for me is a bit strong.  We have been rubbish all season with radio Scotland on Saturday saying had we lost to Motherwell it would have been the worst points total to date since back in the Steve Paterson era.  
 

Thing is, all the teams above us in the hunt for fourth have been rubbish too. If they were good, they've be more than three points away from us.

If we go up a level, we're better than all of them. Hibs, Motherwell, Dundee United, St Mirren. Livingston too if you like since they're on the same points as us. 

New manager or not, no excuses for not finishing in a European spot.

2 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

 

I don't buy that we are in transition at all.  Most of these players have been there since August and have played over 30 games together this season.  Whether they are good enough players is a whole different argument.

Well we've got a new manager, so there's a transition there.

We've got an entirely new defence and a young one at that. Two of them (the youngest two) have been absent with injuries. 

Our front line for next season will be Ramirez, Watkins & Besuijen. They haven't played together yet.

And Funso Ojo is still trying to transition into a footballer from whatever sport it was he was playing before.