Scott McKenna

Probably time he got his own thread.

Anyway

http://www.afc.co.uk/news/10250.php#.WeisiFtSyUk

Signed on until summer 2021

But McInnes never gives youth a chance etc 

Great to see another youngster sign on for the long term and hopefully he can keep this form up for a few more games yet and, when the inevitable dip comes, the majority of the fans can take that for what it is and not get on his back.

Excellent news! Now get arnie signed on am extension please. He has so much to teach the lad. Great to see him take his chance. Long may it continue!

Retard reporting we have turned down 2 bids in the region of £3million from both QPR and Notts Forest for McKenna.

Value halved in a year in which he has established himself as Scotland's first choice centre back? They can gtf…..Only 11 days remaining in the English transfer window, interesting to see if they come back with improved bids with Hull City also reported to be monitoring the situation. FWIW I do think if they match the £6million Villa offered then we should take it, put £5 million towards the new stadium and hand DM £1million to source a decent replacement and possibly one other player of his choice.

Can you honestly say he's been very good for the last year? Not sure if he's anywhere near his original value.

Can you honestly say he's been very good for the last year? Not sure if he's anywhere near his original value.

I'm not qualified to comment on this season but if you did a graph with quality of performances over time, there is no doubt that McKenna was more effective in his first few months than he's been in his last few. He's been regressing, going backwards rather than improving which would be highly unusual for a young footballer gaining in experience but for the consistency in his manager's track record.

Logan, McGinn, May, Stewart, GMS, Reynolds all went backwards, some of them from very high initial standards. Kenny McLean also regressed and was allowed to deliver no better than average for many months until he signed a pre-contract with Norwich, where he delivered great standards last season, free from McInnes. Ryan Christie was tremendous in his early days and also regressed alarmingly. The change in him when he went back to Celtic was amazing and his goal in the Final denied us a trophy, not that we had a shot on goal the whole match, the most one-sided 1-0 in history. The huge promise shown by Wright, Campbell, Anderson, Ross etc. hasn't come through either and the best footballer at Pittodrie this century, Maddison, his obvious talent was so invisible to (or resented by) McInnes he didn't even get played latterly.

Greg Stewart's 16 games for Kilmarnock in between his spells at AFC was perhaps the clearest example that our manager doesn't just fail to get the best from otherwise good footballers, he makes them perform worse. McKenna is just another in the very long production line but our board see fit to pay McInnes a lot of money for his incompetence.

Sell McKenna, sign shaughnessy, move Considine to left central defender, and look for a long term replacement for the aging Andy. McKenna has been average for the last year, at fault for a few goals too. I say we cash in while we can, but nothing less than the 6 mill we declined before. Then again, if Tierney is worth 25 mill why not 10 for Scott?

I'm not qualified to comment on this season but if you did a graph with quality of performances over time, there is no doubt that McKenna was more effective in his first few months than he's been in his last few. He's been regressing, going backwards rather than improving which would be highly unusual for a young footballer gaining in experience but for the consistency in his manager's track record.

 

Logan, McGinn, May, Stewart, GMS, Reynolds all went backwards, some of them from very high initial standards. Kenny McLean also regressed and was allowed to deliver no better than average for many months until he signed a pre-contract with Norwich, where he delivered great standards last season, free from McInnes. Ryan Christie was tremendous in his early days and also regressed alarmingly. The change in him when he went back to Celtic was amazing and his goal in the Final denied us a trophy, not that we had a shot on goal the whole match, the most one-sided 1-0 in history. The huge promise shown by Wright, Campbell, Anderson, Ross etc. hasn't come through either and the best footballer at Pittodrie this century, Maddison, his obvious talent was so invisible to (or resented by) McInnes he didn't even get played latterly.

 

Greg Stewart's 16 games for Kilmarnock in between his spells at AFC was perhaps the clearest example that our manager doesn't just fail to get the best from otherwise good footballers, he makes them perform worse. McKenna is just another in the very long production line but our board see fit to pay McInnes a lot of money for his incompetence.

  Dont agree with your perma-rage against McInnes,though I thought the end of last season would have been a good point for both parties to part company amicably.Saying that,now that he's chosen to stay,I am quite curious to see how these signings work.....for now

    Where i do agree,is that our style of football could be having an adverse affect on some players confidence,or enthusiasm.If the eye watering football weve endured at times is off putting for us,then it must be the same to have to play that way youd think.I dont want to win a game,and probably the players, by stopping another team from winning. I'm sure players respond more to playing 'edgier' football. I wish he'd evolve a bit more as a manager,test his caution now and again.Not healthy to have such a fixed vision of how to play football.Pity,as he attracts a good standard of player,in a sound environment

It's not a "perma-rage" at all. I'm not even slightly raging. I don't care. My fuck-giving tank is empty.

All I said was that McKenna has gone backwards like so many others have done under McInnes.

Please argue with the point I made without making assumptions which are just plain wrong.

I know it's hard to accept or admit that the cause we've been investing in is rotten to the core.

Tell me about it! I've been doing it longer than most. But never again.

If Celtic value Tierney at £25 Million then £10 million for McKenna isn't actually that bad a price.

If it was me however I would seriously consider around £7 Million for him.

I've yet to see any evidence of the £6M offer, and I don't believe it occurred. There only seemed to be confirmed bids of around £3.5M last year and I could see that being matched this season.

I also dont believe McKenna has regressed at all. He had numerous poor games and a temporary dip in form as you'd expect from a youngster, but I think his overall game has improved and I think that'll begin to become more obvious this season as he gets more and more confident. I think we'll start see him imposing himself a lot more and taking the ball forward a lot more too.

He's not worth more than £3-4M in my mind, but I think that a good 6 months could see him stretch that a good bit.

One crucial aspect in player performance and development is environment. Unless you work with high level athletes and coaches, this won't necessarily be understood or appreciated but Tierney is an interesting example. Andy Robertson is his direct competitor for Left Back for Scotland so a comparison between the two can illustrate the point;

There is no doubt that KT was a brilliant teenager and an exciting prospect, arguably more so than AR at the same age. But where KT stayed at Celtic, AR took a circuitous route to the European Champions where he established himself last season as a regular and a key man. As of right now, I would pick AR for the national team all day every day over KT.

It's not just my opinion that KT has plateaued or perhaps even regressed in the last 12-18 months. The Celtic regulars tell me this too. But consider the motivation levels he'll be experiencing; playing for a team who wins everything and who faced zero realistic challenge for the past three years, where's the incentive to improve?

AR on the other hand benefited from working under one of the best coaches in the world and with a squad of superb footballers day in, day out. With Tierney moving to Arsenal, this is his opportunity to prove if he's as good as his early promise and whereas he is facing the stiffest of tests - the quality of opponent in the EFL being the best in the world - it will be the quality of the environment around him that will be the biggest influence in whether he makes it or not.

I can't see Emery developing KT into a better footballer than AR but it's going to be interesting to see it unfold. McKenna on the other hand won't get a move to an EPL club because any scout worth his onions watching him for two consecutive games will see that he's not good enough, handicapped by poor decision-making and being prone to big errors as he is, something that his manager and the AFC environment have failed to address, assuming they even know his weaknesses, which isn't a given.

I also dont believe McKenna has regressed at all.

Is your optimism and false hopes blinding you to reality? Do you feel uncomfortable that the club you invest much time and money in won't give you a worthy return? Are you in denial about the agenda of the chairman and the quality of personnel he's employed in the "football side of the business", not that I know of any other "sides"? Haven't you noticed the dwindling interest in the NE towards AFC? Don't you see the consistency in the regression of the performances over the last 2/3 years and even if you did, what's changed to reverse this trend?

When you wrote "numerous poor games and a temporary dip in form as you'd expect from a youngster", that doesn't sound like a footballer who has NOT regressed. In fact, temporary dips in form is not what we would expect, ever, from a hungry talented footballer learning his craft where greater experience is exponentially more beneficial in his first few weeks and months. There is no question that from his debut at Fir Park to the screamer he scored at Pittodrie from 85 yards, McKenna was infinitely better than he's been last season. Somethings going awry, whether you care to admit it or not.

Is your optimism and false hopes blinding you to reality? Do you feel uncomfortable that the club you invest much time and money in won't give you a worthy return? Are you in denial about the agenda of the chairman and the quality of personnel he's employed in the "football side of the business", not that I know of any other "sides"? Haven't you noticed the dwindling interest in the NE towards AFC? Don't you see the consistency in the regression of the performances over the last 2/3 years and even if you did, what's changed to reverse this trend?

There is rarely optimism and false hope in any of my posts if you were to look at them. I think I'm quite a realist. Me suggesting that McKenna hasn't regressed is hardly an example of blind faith, if there is regression, it's very marginal. In terms of the team, again I'm a realist. I stated at the very beginning of the last two seasons that I thought our recruitment was poor and that we had a poor team that would struggle to win anything or finish in the top two and that's exactly what happened. I'd say that it was my realism in how poor a team (squad, really) we'd assembled that meant my expectations were low. I think that our recruitment has been terrible in the last few years and mentioned it in nearly every single post. I'd say it's the primary cause of our poor form, our very ugly performances and thus a reduction interest in AFC. We went from a team that scored a record number of goals in a season, playing some really really good football on the way - under McInnes - to one that deliberately stifled games to see out results in an absolute desire for points on the board over performance (which actually worked when we pipped the hun for second, but showed its obvious flaws in the cup). I've mentioned a hundred times my thoughts on AFC's plans.

When you wrote "numerous poor games and a temporary dip in form as you'd expect from a youngster", that doesn't sound like a footballer who has NOT regressed. In fact, temporary dips in form is not what we would expect, ever, from a hungry talented footballer learning his craft where greater experience is exponentially more beneficial in his first few weeks and months. There is no question that from his debut at Fir Park to the screamer he scored at Pittodrie from 85 yards, McKenna was infinitely better than he's been last season. Somethings going awry, whether you care to admit it or not.

McKenna was not infiinitely better in my opinion, it's just that most people were uncritical of the mistakes that a young loon was regularly making. He carried quite a few of those into his second season but finished the season strongly and looks fitter and stronger still this season. I don't think that your example of Andy Robertson is particularly relevant to McKenna as I don't believe McKenna has ever been close to that category of player and nor is likely to get there with his skillset. I don't believe McKenna will (or would have with some other manager) make it to the level of Ryan Fraser, but even he experienced a good couple of years where he struggled to make any impact (indeed, his performances even dipped in his last month or so with the dons as defenders worked out how to double up on him and make things difficult). Maddison flew onto the scene as a youngster before ending up at the dons on loan. It happens to almost every young footballer as they try to re-invent themselves and really work out what it is they need to do to get to the next level. Russell Anderson a very notable example for the dons. I have not suggested that McInnes is the man to turn McKenna into the next Alex McLeish but he's got a player that's playing regularly for Scotland and a player that plays with absolute confidence in his own ability with a fantastic temperament. I'm happy to criticise McInnes - and regularly do - with regard to his handling of youth players, but I see very very little to criticise in the case of McKenna. 

I didn't say that Robertson was comparable to McKenna, obviously, as they're poles apart in quality and don't even perform in the same roles. There was a post comparing Tierney and McKenna's value. I didn't even go into that comparison/argument but I took the Tierney example to compare with Robertson to highlight the value of environment in a players development and performances.

We disagree that McKenna has regressed, or perhaps we don't when you say he might have "very marginally" and that's fine but would you admit that many footballers at AFC have performed worse and gone backwards under McInnes, even if we don't/might agree that McKenna is one of them?

The bottom line is that McKenna is the biggest asset at the club. That much we can all agree on. Given his age and natural attributes, he's the only AFC footballer that can be sold for any decent return.

Ambitious clubs don't try and sell their best assets. Rather, they build teams around their best talents and strive for actually winning things but as we know, our chairman is on a different path. Whatever money the chairman does cash him in for, it's not going to be £5m+ because he's not that good and whatever the reason - management, environment, player himself - he's not improved from his first six months.

I thought McKenna started last season fairly poorly, but thought he was excellent by the end, he is probably not being helped by having the consistency of a regular decent partner at the back and also we were shite last season for the most part and recruited badly last summer which didn't help him either.

We have a good player and he is certainly our biggest asset at he moment, but selling him would be a massive loss for the team and not confident our manager would find anyone of the quality of McKenna to replace him with, that said I don't think he is good enough for the EPL, possibly bottom end EPL/top end Championship would be about his level, but paired beside another decent defender and who knows.

I thought Kenny McLean would bomb at Norwich, but has happily proved me wrong, maybe Scotty can do the same and wouldn't put it past him as he has a great attitude and I enjoy seeing him in the Aberdeen shirt

We disagree that McKenna has regressed, or perhaps we don't when you say he might have "very marginally" and that's fine but would you admit that many footballers at AFC have performed worse and gone backwards under McInnes, even if we don't/might agree that McKenna is one of them?

I would say some, not many. Some have improved. I think Shinnie, McLean, McGinn, Hayes, Considine, Lewis, Logan, Cosgrove (so far), Rooney were all better than under McInnes than they had been previously. They all seemed to enjoy playing for him too. The biggest issue for me is his inability to turn young players like Scott Wright, McLennan and so on into regular first team successes. He tries to make things far too difficult for players breaking through rather than give them basic instructions and a few simple tasks and allow the 7-8 more senior players to cover for their deficiencies and then increasing the instructions as they gain experience.

Ambitious clubs don't try and sell their best assets. Rather, they build teams around their best talents and strive for actually winning things but as we know, our chairman is on a different path. Whatever money the chairman does cash him in for, it's not going to be £5m+ because he's not that good and whatever the reason - management, environment, player himself - he's not improved from his first six months.

Lack of ambition has to be tempered with realism though surely? If we were offered £5M+ for McKenna (I agree with you, we wont - certainly not this summer) then the only question is if we can get a good replacement for a significantly smaller sum that would allow us to develop elsewhere and put the remainder towards future development of youth through better training facilities or a shitey stadium in the middle of nowhere. I think I could buy a good centre half and a good striker that would make us a better team for £2M whilst still losing McKenna and putting the remainder toward capital investments that helped to create more McKennas. That's not unambitious, that's just good logic. I don't want the club to be beholden to a hoose builder for constant investment.

Assuming we got £5milion for McKenna.....just cannot see us paying £2million for a replacement. The main reason being that a £2million player will demand a salary commensurate with that fee and totally destroy our fairly strict salary budget. I'd suggest a player costing that amount would instruct his agent to be looking at a salary using £10k/wk as a starting figure for negotiations, more likely looking at getting between £12-15k/week as he could easily earn in the English Championship. Whilst I'm certain we probably could stretch to that sort of figure in the correct circumstances, the problem would knock on to the rest of the squad in their last year of their contracts whose agents would be demanding whacking great increases in their salaries to re-sign. And thus either the salary budget is increased substantially or we allow a load of players to move on and require yet another large recruitment next summer.

In reality I don't expect McInnes to be handed any more than £1million from any sale of McKenna. The majority of any fee received will have to go towards the new stadium and rightly so. That would allow him to buy a decent replacement......maybe Findlay from Killie? Or a young EFL1 level prospect? Both would cost somewhere between £500-750k and not break our current wage structure and leave a bit of cash over for Mcinnes to add another player (striker?) on top if he so wished

Assuming we got £5milion for McKenna.....just cannot see us paying £2million for a replacement. The main reason being that a £2million player will demand a salary commensurate with that fee and totally destroy our fairly strict salary budget.

 

Entirely agree, was just using it (£2M) as an example.

 

In reality I don't expect McInnes to be handed any more than £1million from any sale of McKenna. The majority of any fee received will have to go towards the new stadium and rightly so. That would allow him to buy a decent replacement......maybe Findlay from Killie? Or a young EFL1 level prospect? Both would cost somewhere between £500-750k and not break our current wage structure and leave a bit of cash over for Mcinnes to add another player (striker?) on top if he so wished

 

Rocket, TC's example above is what I would class as reasonably ambitious. Not breaking our wage structure (which is generally related to our turnover), whilst improving our team in order to get more folks through the door in order to increase our wage structure. I just don't see McKenna (as opposed to Findlay mentioned above) as being the difference between us finishing second or third, getting into the Europa league or winning a cup.

I would say some, not many. Some have improved. I think Shinnie, McLean, McGinn, Hayes, Considine, Lewis, Logan, Cosgrove (so far), Rooney were all better than under McInnes than they had been previously. They all seemed to enjoy playing for him too.

I don't see Shinnie as having improved under McInnes and I was aghast when he was moved from LB. He always had heart and dig, he was never that effective as a midfielder and wasn't a great provider as he lacked creative vision let alone execution but was reasonably successfully deployed there only to paper over the cracks of McInnes's very poor recruitment (of creative players).

McLean was infuriating UNTIL he signed a pre-contract for Norwich and it must have been self-motivation rather than anything the manager did to explain his vastly improved performances. On the contrary, he was murder and lazy for many months before his last 5.

McGinn was at his best when he scored 9 goals in 10 games, including for his country (v. Portugal I believe). I remember at St Mirren when we heard Clangers screaming from the other end of the pitch at McGinn, as he once again lost the ball and put in yet another abject shift. McGinn has only had flashes of great football over the years and they've been so rare and almost non-existent in his final months before he left and the whole time he's been back.

Hayes did what good footballers normally do, he did improve with age and experience.

Considine was misused by McInnes and it was only last season when Cons went public and said that he wasn't a LB. Considine was a great prospect in the last decade and whilst he's been a great servant, he's limited and I can't accept that the manager has improved him.

Lewis is a great keeper but McInnes spent years plodding on with Clangers so he's hardly qualified to add value to the goalkeeping function!

Logan was FAR superior in his first year. It has only been only time that he has regressed badly, under McInnes. That's as obvious an example as Greg Stewart.

Cosgrove is just a donkey who had a flash of competence in the middle of last season and as for Rooney, he was consistent in what he did, before and after McInnes.

We will never agree because you don't want to believe that he is as limited a manager as I know that he is, despite us agreeing on the following: -

The biggest issue for me is his inability to turn young players like Scott Wright, McLennan and so on into regular first team successes. He tries to make things far too difficult for players breaking through rather than give them basic instructions and a few simple tasks and allow the 7-8 more senior players to cover for their deficiencies and then increasing the instructions as they gain experience.

Being reported on Talksport and in the Sun that McKenna has handed in a transfer request this morning. I heard that rumour early on (10ish) but presumed it was just that...a rumour.

Doubtless unsettled by us turning down the QPR and Notts Forest offers and his agent will no doubt have told him to take this action. Wonder if he will be on the flight to Croatia on Wednesday?

Being reported on Talksport and in the Sun that McKenna has handed in a transfer request this morning. I heard that rumour early on (10ish) but presumed it was just that...a rumour.

 

Doubtless unsettled by us turning down the QPR and Notts Forest offers and his agent will no doubt have told him to take this action. Wonder if he will be on the flight to Croatia on Wednesday?

Fucking hope this is shite TC

Know he is going to goat some point, but would rather it wasn't yet FFS

He’s under contract, we don’t have to accept his agent’s request.

Maybe just looking for a better contract for now?

Nah he's wanting out. Talk now of an EPL club showing interest. Villa back in maybe? I did find it strange he would try to force a move to QPR or Forest at this point but if it is a Premiership club then it makes sense.

EDIT...BBC website now going with the transfer request ana