DantheDon

I agree a few wins are needed and I think (hope) they will come, but I do think we are going to struggle when it comes to challenging in the league while juggling European Football.

It’s a bit of a double edged sword. Nobody can argue that Thelin has not been backed as this is the most expensive squad we have ever assembled, but getting a team and culture established within a short time period is challenging in itself. Although Jimmy is definitely under a lot of scrutiny, I think as long as we are not threatening to get relegated by Xmas he will get the time. We have spent too much to just abandon this project and the players we have signed are to fit Thelins system. I also don’t think the fans expectations will be too high, realistically I think it’s going to be hard to compete with Hearts and Hibs this season while we have European football and they don’t (I think we could still pip Rangers though). So as long as we can achieve a top six finish and maybe sneak a euro qualifying place with progress on field that would do most.

I do think this is somewhat true, but is it not a bit of a catch 22 situation now.

Thing is having a youth setup costs us a good amount of money. Not sure the exact figures but I thought it was something like 2-3million a year. So the fact none of the players are breaking into the team and anyone half decent is leaving as soon as there is interest from down south is going to make our whole strategy of youth development untenable in the long term. I see it’s being reported Man City are looking at Cooper Masson one of our 16 year olds that I haven’t even heard of. If he goes it’s unlikely we will receive enough to cover the overall cost of the youth development for the year he comes through.

Club statement makes it clear that he was pushing for a move. Don’t know what he has been promised at Aston Villa but will be interesting to see if he ever gets a sniff of first team action there.

BBC reporting we have a potential interest in Lyndon Dykes.

Pape Gueye…

Like I said I wasn’t at the game. What worries me is we’ve had a whole half of football being the better team before the red but we haven’t got anything to show for it. It’s not too dissimilar to last season, we’ve never looked terrible under Thelin, we just don’t seem to be able to grind out results.

Wasn’t at the game, but seems like we had our good stages and again failed to capitalise. You can only read so much into the red affecting the game, I was expecting us to get a reasonably comfortable result today. Not winning games like this is extremely worrying.

I know nothing is confirmed but if true he doesn’t want to be here its just getting to point where it’s impossible to bring young players through at all. We might aswell bin our youth setup as anyone who looks like breaking through just gets poached for peanuts. None of them seem to want to be here, which is bizarre when you look at guys like Lennon Miller, who just got his 5m transfer to Udinese. I mean realistically what’s going to happen with Fletcher Boyd at Aston Villa, he gets the odd run out in the FA cup fourth round?

Very disappointing news. I get the whole it is just a job spiel, good money and all that but I do think there is a bit more to it when you’re a public figure. A lot of us wishing him the best when he went to Girona looking for their results to see how he was doing. Even recently with his comments about possibly returning, although most understood that was unlikely in the coming years hinted that there was a mutual respect and affection. To then just disregard that and sign for them is a bit hard to swallow. I don’t know what other options he had but his statement (while it may just be playing to the crowd) certainly doesn’t suggest any reluctance. I honestly don’t know if he will do well for them or not. Can’t see Martin turning things around and he’s already lost the fans so it’s a bit of a mess he goes into. Hope it continues to be a disaster…

Not too many names to fear. I reckon aside from teams at the top of pot 1 we give any of these sides a game.

It’s frustrating as while I don’t think FCSB are a bad team they looked like a team struggling for confidence and we weren’t able to capitalise. I hope that it’s just the amount of turnover in the squad and little time to get familiar that is leading to our impotence up front and mistakes at the back. We have three games at Pittodrie coming up in the next few weeks with the international break sandwiched in between. Falkirk Livingston, Motherwell all games of which we should be looking to win. Hopefully we can look to get up and running and build some momentum.

Whatever way you look at it Jensen has cost us this tie over two legs. Two goals directly attributable to his mistakes.

Seems like Brugge have dropped off a bit would be nice to see them stick a couple more past them. But I guess I’m just being greedy now…

I really hope the Miovski link is just a journalist throwing something out there on a slow news day. I think Miovski would be reluctant to tarnish his reputation by going there anyway as I'm sure he would have options other than Rangers and he knows full well the rivalry. Fingers crossed anyway.

Are any of these young guys actually getting anywhere down south? I’m sure the Academies are great down there but it seems like the chance of actually progressing into the first team is little to none?

Might make the squad but sounds like it’s going to be too early for him to have much impact by Thelins comments. From BBC: "We've been monitoring Marko for a while and are very pleased to have secured his signature," "He has a fantastic pedigree and despite his young age has played at high level in different leagues across Europe. "We will have to be realistic in our expectations with Marko as it will take him a bit of time to get up to match sharpness and integrate into our way of working. "His pre-season has been a little frustrating due to the uncertainty surrounding his future, but he's shown great patience and now he's finally arrived we're delighted to get down to the hard work with him to get him up to speed. "We believe he will be an excellent addition to our squad. He has an imposing physical presence; good technical ability and he will provide versatility and competition for places ahead of a busy season. "We believe we can unlock some of the undoubted raw materials that he has to make him a potent threat for Aberdeen."

I think it would have been interesting to see how he did with Knoester alongside him. But we have too many center backs now so someone’s got to move on, good luck to him.

I don’t think that was too unexpected. We weren’t quite ready for that match in terms of match sharpness or up front. We definitely need to get a number 9 signed ASAP. Think that was clearly illustrated when we sent Boyd up front. Hearts are what I would expect under McInnes. I think they will do well enough this season but I don’t see them splitting the old firm. I think we have signed some decent players. Milanovic looks handy, and I think there could be a player in the French lad once he settles in. Yengi was pretty unconvincing and I don’t think he’s a number 9.

I think you are correct it could be the 16th or 17th and kick off hasn’t been confirmed.

League cup last 16 tie against Morton on the 16th of August down there.

I do worry a little that Thelin is the man who still has a bit to prove in terms of getting his system working, and doing the job on a regular basis. Scottish Cup win papered over the fact that in the final 27 games of last season we managed to amass just over 20 points. Hibs seem to have turned a corner from last seasons start and although I’m not expecting them to be consistently as good as they were towards the end of last season I think they could still have a better season than us. Hearts are likely going to do pretty well in the league this season. McInnes will manage to get them grinding out results and with no European football to contend with I expect them to get a jump on us and possibly Hibs if they qualify. My worry for next Monday night is that McInnes won’t overcomplicate things whereas I expect Thelin to stick to his system. Seeing as we don’t seem to have mastered it yet it could be a difficult game for us and a bit too early.

Looking at this list I would assume Jensen and Rubezic would be offloaded. I believe Tobers is can also play in midfield so perhaps we have plans for him there, or maybe it’s just because he’s injured again.

Do we really want to sell him? I would be trying to get him to sign a new deal. Youngish player on an upward trajectory. If he doesn’t want to sign fair enough he’s got his price. Just don’t understand why so many have such a low opinion of him after he had a fairly decent season.