Sand dan Glokta

So it looks like Summer before this is open. Anyone have any idea if this is looking likely? There seems to be a bit more action on it again than there has been in recent months. Weather and the Carillion collapse will obviously limit work.

In fairness, he hasn’t really said much more than what he did several months/a year ago. He’s always said he would like to move back down south at the right time. It’s all about the timing. Previously when he said it, we were doing as well as we could behind the treble winning Tims side; when his stock was high. Now, with his back to the wall the past few weeks, this sounds condescending – it would be interesting to see if this has been regurgitated or whether it’s a new quote. Hopefully in the coming season, we do not have the same carry on with waiting to see if he will accept another offer. It didn’t help us or him and if it is going to become the norm, he’ll hopefully go sooner rather than later. The positive recently, is that he has been talking about ‘building a new team’ and this being a ‘re-start’. Hopefully next season we kick on with a better platform and realistically ‘have a go’ at the title. My biggest fear is not the ‘return to the dark ages’ due to the manager. I don’t think that would happen, but I do think we’d go for a flavour of the month again rather than something different. The infrastructure legacy within the club is more worrying to me. McInnes for all his faults, changed a lot behind the scenes. To have another manager who doesn’t solely focus on the first team and takes an interest in the entire club is relatively rare. Ideally we would have what a few of the smaller clubs like Motherwell and St Johnstone had for a while; where a new face comes in and carry’s on in an upward curve, due to the clubs running themselves off the pitch behind the scenes. Knowing us, we’d have the wildfire clearances behind the scenes again.

The international game up here killed the pitch. It had 4/5 days’ worth of continuous use and never recovered – home & away used it for training then the game itself. It will be interesting to see if we have anymore up here due to the condition of the pitch. I know they said no more rugby due this happening a few years ago. I don’t also think we get a huge amount, if anything really for hosting the game. We’ve also apparently bought 5 more sun lamps to help with growing the grass seed on the pitch, but if we keep getting cold snaps like we have I have no idea how much they will help.

Hardly f*cked. Lewis Logan Devlin McKenna Shinnie GMS NB NB McGinn Rooney May That's light years ahead of where we were in the previous summer for building a better team. I don't think Rangers are that much better than us currently and arguably they'll be worse off next season once all the loanees leave and they can't afford to taken them back in.

I’m trying to be as level headed as I can, but 0pts out of 18 and 1 goal scored is very hard to get over. Rivals are rivals for a reason; plus the manner in which we’ve played in all those games is hard to get over. At the start of this season we would probably all of taken 2nd place after Xmas, despite the team rarely playing well. We had lost 3 of our first team players and a major re-build was needed. But now, with the benefit of hindsight, the season has been a bit of a shambles. His head has been turned too many times this season and it has affected both his team and his planning. There is no way you carry on at the same level at your job while poking around a new opportunity. I would imagine a lot of the loans have come out of his short sightedness to see out the season in case he left, and through necessity of time – it doesn’t surprise me that Devlin was bought for next season once all of the links away from the club disappeared. The lack of actual players for the first team is also a glaring problem. He very rarely signs someone to come straight into the first team; he loves to have a ‘squad’ and that isn’t going to improve us toward the 'next step'. Then there is the glaring issue of not beating those around us. We’re in danger of not finishing in a European place (which would hit his budget for next season) and as has been mentioned, I doubt he’ll ever be sacked – although WBA may look to him if they go down and there’s also rumours he may replace Pardew if he’s binned. I would imagine missing Europe would massively hit the club in the pocket both on and off the park and it would be interesting to see how the relationship with Milne might change if that was the case. Something has to give with McInnes and its solely dependent on how long he sees himself at the club now. This season hasn’t shown him to be capable of changing his ways, so he has to do what he does ‘well’ even better – last year we went on that great run over Xmas into new year with only one enforced player change coming through a suspension. Even from his 2nd season onwards he has messed around with the team too much, until he got his balance and kept it – need we be reminded of not starting Rooney, only for him to still make 20 goals per season over 3 years. If he does this, then we have a punchers chance in the cup and in finishing 2nd. However, I personally feel that he’ll always try to be ‘more clever’ than the opposition manager and this will always be his downfall in big games – for some reason this has been majorly amplified in the big games this season. Perhaps the players in previous years could ‘play’ the way he wants over a shorter period of time, or the teams around us figured out hitting us early was how to beat us. It could also be vanity in thinking he needs to impress those looking at him as a potential candidate. The Scottish cup final last year almost worked because he played the way we normally do - with speed, intensity and counter attacking when we needed to. But he then threw it away when he took off McGinn for AoC at 75 mins to ‘Control the game’ and that effectively removed the outlet ball with pace. Wright needed to come on to keep the tempo up, but he wanted to keep it tight to ‘see out’ the game – another one of his obsessions and failures this year in big games; making us compact and tight, which always fails to work. Personally I don’t want him sacked, as it would cost a fortune and he does have it in him to produce a good team if he keeps the faith. I also don’t trust the board to take in anyone better, let alone at the crunch time of the season - Clarke wants to go back down South and he’s the only real candidate in my eyes. When McInnes leaves I hope it’s with a decent platform for the next manager to take on – like what McInnes inherited from Brown. Rebuild after rebuild every season is something I don’t want to see again, that is heading back to the dark times and is more detrimental than who's in charge.

Well I mentioned it earlier, but the Black & Gold/any event with McInnes is going to be fun now! - I suppose if anyone actually turns up... “So Derek, Ron from Summerhill asks, what exactly are your tactics when playing the old firm; seeing as the standoff, man for man tactics deployed for the past 2 years have worked so amazingly well?” “Ray from BoD asks, do you think 18pts lost and 1 goal scored is acceptable against any 2 teams, let alone your biggest rivals, and do you actually watch the same game we do?!”

0-3.

I can’t say I want McInnes binned as I genuinely don’t think any of the targets suggested would come and we wouldn’t be any better off – better the devil you know and see if he can turn it round. Clarke, who I wanted prior to McInnes taking over years ago wouldn’t be an option. He’s at Killie due to circumstance and he has already admitted he has no intention of staying in Scottish football, he’ll be off down south ASAP. I also don’t think Lennon is much better than McInnes, if at all. McInnes unifies the backroom team whereas Lennon seems to fall out with all and sundry. Add to that the divide he himself would create in the support and all of the unity and connect the city has back with AFC falls apart. With that being said, McInnes needs to be held far more to account both within AFC and the media – although I’m happy to see the media attention being brought to his performances vs those around us. The love in with Milne is the biggest issue, as has been alluded to on here already. He has no heat at all from above, so is he really pushing us as hard as he can? The stats P10, W2, D2, L8 against the top 5 can’t be avoided. Arguably, had we even won half of these games we could well be top of the league. Think about that. The fans are grumbling, rightfully so, and how he addresses this next is massive. If we start taking points off those around us we’ll cement 2nd at least and could potentially chase Celtic down - a pipe dream, but not a million miles away from reality. Whether McInnes or the players believe they can do that, I don’t know. McInnes hasn’t really had the tough questions coming his way while he has been with us, but this is changing quickly. How he reacts to more fans getting on his back will be interesting. Will he see what the majority of us see? Or will he become the new Strachan and carry on regardless – black and gold events and such like will become more ‘spicy’ with questions from the floor! At the beginning of the season we would all probably have taken the position we are with the personnel changes we were left with; but as the season has went on we have been pretty mediocre and even worse than that, we are allowing more mediocre teams to get in ahead or around us. If you look through our team vs those around us, half the players we have in the first team would walk into the rival teams, yet we can’t beat them. Obviously Celtic are excluded from this, but the teams around us have managed to take points off them.

I have to agree with this. I looked back over the 15/16 league campaign recently and I was shocked at how close that race was for so long. I always thought the 2 games at Christmas killed us with draws, which they did to an extent; but the race was still on well into the middle of March when we lost 2-1 to Motherwell. That game put us 4pts behind with Celtic having a game in hand (they scraped a 1-0 win over Killie with a last minute goal from the thumb the day before). This game was prior to the Caley game we lost 3-1 after taking the lead, then Taylor stood on the ball and Draper dived to win a penalty – where again I had thought our challenge ended. The worst part for me out of all this, was in that game vs Motherwell, Robson came on and was sent off within minutes. It was then voted the ‘funniest moment of the year’ at the player of the year awards. That’s right, the moment the title race imploded and was effectively over was the funniest.

I reckon we’ll get another result. Unfortunately Hibs seem to be the only top 6 team we set up to go out and beat. They set up to attack us, but we come out the traps at them. Unsurprisingly we keep getting results due to this. 3-1. To carry on the high scoring. McGinn being back has stepped up our attack significantly. Once May is fit it could be taps aff’

Can’t really disagree with that. For the amount of dosh we are spending and where we are in the league they go hand in hand. It’s not much to expect a few trophy’s when in a one off cup game we could cuff anyone with our squad – mentality issues aside. We’re also not many players off of a title challenge. But that is a whole separate discussion.

At no point has anyone asked why a new manager is being touted before the Chief Exec is in? How can you lay the foundations and plan for the future if someone else takes in the guy who will get your ‘team’ there…and he’s a retired pensioner?! Only in Scotland. DD you timeline makes me gie sad. I was 12 when we went to France, I remember Euro 96, but prior to that it’s hazy. Unbelievably generations have never known us at a major tournament. Domestic success and national success should go relatively hand in hand… I cried out for Steve Clarke to get the job last time round (along with him to get the Dons job pre-McInnes). I doubt he’d take it.

Horror show from me there. *persevere What happened with Prandelli? He was ‘allegedly’ sniffing about the job. If a guy of that calibre was wanting anywhere near the job his hand should have been bitten off. Now we’re getting linked with Malky McKay or Walter Smith? Jesus. Christ. I either want someone with no allegiance to Scotland and pedigree or someone with in-depth domestic knowledge. I’d even argue giving it to someone like Gemmill as at least he’d play some of the youth players –well you’d think so at least. As for the whole domestic league and national institution, I’ve read a few things about merging them. I’m not sure of the entire structure of the German set up, but the domestic league and the national team seem to be ‘as one’. There is little wonder we’re a mess nationally when we don’t even look domestically at Players, managers or clubs outside of Celtic now really. Regan made sense as he was an outsider, but he seemed to buy into all the old nonsense fairly early doors (much like pizza face for the leagues). He’s left Scotland with a hefty pay cheque and not much else in that time. Someone bold and new needs to come in and shake things up, but really, until all these die hard old firm guys die off it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever see any real change for decades to come. You reap what you sow and we’re upturning nothing but sh*te.

If you play to his strengths and ping the ball into the 6 yard box, he'll score. The goal against county mid-week was a classic Rooney/McGinn combo. He either thinks he can or is being asked to, play way outside the box this season and he's wasted. May can play that way, but Rooney can't. He's very similar to Boyd. Get others to do the running and get him in the box. Goals will happen.

Have to agree with this. I'd heard he was already on a huge wedge after Sunderland, so if it has went up again that is nuts. There's no hiding the fact he has done well with us and made us presentable again, but the question marks are out this season. How he responds to them in the remaining clashes and next season are what is important.