wokinginashearerwonderland

Yay

Was that taken just before he asked to be subbed out of training?

Ten million euros. They’re having a laugh, is that all? 

Worth at least treble that. 

….Somebody made an arse of that sell on clause.

I know it is partly to accommodate internationals but we really don't help ourselves in this country.  When the weather is crap we play 15 league games from December to February,  8 games in 36 days between the end of November and start of January. When it gets decent weather, we play just 9 times between March and May.  Not conducive to either pretty football nor getting supporters in through the gates. 

20 hours ago, Panda said:

What's everyone's views on the club World Cup? Gonna be watching it? Think it's going to be shite? Think there's a future in it? Hope it crashes and burns?

I don't think there's an clamour from fans to proclaim a world champion. I think PSG fans are happy enough to say they're the best in France & Europe, and proving they're better than some Brazilian team won't bother them.

The World Cup is special because everyone can qualify for it. This is just another competition Aberdeen can forget about ever being in.

And it's not the best 32 club teams in the world. It's not even the best European teams going.

Hope, just for Infantino, it's a disaster.

Bayern 6-0 up at half time. Inverurie Locos would probably put up a better show. Football fucked. 

Now that would be an intriguing prospect.

It is a highly rated Cameroon born ex French youth international who came through the Ajax ranks and was once bought by Juventus for £14M but got loaned out to the Italian third division and available to us for £800,000.  Goal record to date is 14 in 248 games. Got options to sign for clubs all over Europe apparently but his dream was always to play in the Europa League qualifying rounds.  Also went on holiday with Palaversa in 2017. 

12 hours ago, Slim said:

Skovdahl was still popular with the fans despite finishing bottom of the table.

It is because curiously, fans buy into this myth that because we appoint someone from abroad or sign a foreign player, we will be getting something better than we can get from someone we already know about back home.  Like goalies playing out from the back, centre halves who cannot head the ball away, inverted wingers, false nines, substitutions for the hell of it and Clarkson playing as a holding midfielder, it's all nonsense.

9 hours ago, Panda said:

he has improved us

And we'll be much better next season.

Surprised Thelin has not come in for more flak actually.  If my maths is correct, after the initial new manager bounce, we took 22 points from 27 games (9th November onwards).  Over that same time St Johnstone took 22 points playing 2 less games.  Barry Robson got the P45 having taken 24 points from his last 21 games.

The cup runs have papered over the cracks but we drew Queens Park (twice), Dunfermline, Elgin and Spartans.  We would have had to lose against one of those not to have reached the semis of both cups.

The team is powder puff.  The defenders can't defend, the midfield too soft and the forward line not particularly potent - a horrific combination.  All this despite replacing most of last season's players at a considerable cost (I would think maybe only three from Robson's last team will start against Celtic on Saturday).

53 minutes ago, Panda said:

Heads gone.

Sober up and try again tomorrow.

Which part do you disagree with out of interest? I reckon we could all name a dozen or more players McInnes had in his Dons teams who would comfortably walk into this current squad….and a dozen is probably a conservative estimate.

So much bitterness towards McInnes by some in our support. He deserves a lot more respect for what he did for us. We were so bad before he arrived and just as crap in the years since. We had a team full of proper men under McInnes, now we have a team full of spineless foreign shite.

Good luck to the bloke if he goes to Hearts. Best Dons manager in my lifetime by some considerable distance. 

22 hours ago, BigAl said:

Modern European club football is royally fucked.

Certain I saw somewhere that if United, Spurs & Chelsea all reach the respective finals then England would get six teams in the Champions League.

That is 30% of the league 

Total fucking madness.

Guaranteed five as things stand I believe Al based on the coefficient. Plus the winner of the Europa league gets in as well.

Looks feasible that England will have nine teams in Europe next season.

Looking at that list makes you realise what a strange season it has been. We started with a back four of MacKenzie, Devlin, Rubezic and Molloy and finishing with a four of Shinnie, Jensen, Knoester and Dorrington.  The keepers have played half a season each.  Shinnie playing a different position to where he started.  Nilsen brilliant then shite.  Clarkson shite then better.  Morris in and out.  Duk awol then a starter then sold. Devlin an international one minute then warming our bench! McGrath great then injured then away. Nisbet shite then great.  And of course there is Ambrose .

I know we got a lot of dough in for Miovski and the rest but my god, we are fairly splashing it out on dodgy punts.  If you believe the transfer market website, that's in excess of about £4M spent in the last couple of seasons.  Lucky if you would be able to sell our entire squad for £400.

We are like a littler version of Spurs when they got £85M for Bale.

On 20/04/2025 at 17:52, Panda said:

Okay well, thanks for your "deluded" insult. 

So you don't think players get a lift when the crowd is louder?

No-one is saying that will be the main factor in whether we get a positive result or not, but Celtic having the majority of the crowd, and Aberdeen's being miles from the pitch behind the goal, gives then yet another advantage, of which they'll already have many on the day.

 

It was not an insult, just a belief that what you say is not true.

I really don't believe that the players would notice any significant difference between having 26,000 fans of each team in the stadium or 31,000 Celtic fans versus 21,000 of our own.  I am not saying that it should not be a 50:50 split, just that it won't make any difference to the result. If it really made such a difference then our home record against them would be a lot better.

15 minutes ago, Panda said:

"This is like a home game for Celtic" says the commentator.

And that is exactly why us being offered anything less than a 50/50 split for the final simply hands Celtic an advantage before a ball is kicked, and they clearly don't need many more of those.

I don’t know why our fans place so much emphasis on the ticket split being such a great advantage.

If you want proof of this just look at our record. At HOME, we have played Celtic 51 times since 2000/2001 and have won 5 of those games. Coincidentally we have also played them 51 times away in that period and have won 5 of those.
If anyone really thinks a 60:40 ticket split for the final will make any difference to the result they are deluded. We might well win the final but the ticket split will make absolutely no difference to the result.

I cannot believe anyone at Brora would want the club to get into League Two.  Apart from Elgin, who might even get promoted out of that league, every away game would be an 8 hour round trip. Not only very costly but would be extremely difficult to convince anyone to sign for them with all of that travel during a season.

Basically a Rangers reserve team. Should be winning this one.

Some result from Arsenal last night. Cannot make up my mind if Arteta is extremely lucky or a tactical genius as it was the first time in a while that I have seen Arsenal play. So many players to me looked like they were playing in the wrong position. The left back must have spent more than half the game in the centre of midfield, the wingers were each on their wrong foot, Odegaard was basically playing on the right touchline for half the game, Rice playing a left sided position and the guy playing up front was a midfielder. Bizarre tactics yet incredible outcome.

18 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

I mean, that had something to do with it, but the £20+ million windfall for entry into Europe was certainly more significant. The wage bill went from being twice as big, to between 6 and 8 times as big. Although I liked the three foreigner rule, and would be happy for it to return.

That’s right but if you have to have at least half your team as Scottish, there is effectively a limit as to how much of your cash you can spend. In the same kind of way as with Newcastle, they are the richest club in the world but they ain’t allowed to just buy up anyone they want to.

46 minutes ago, DantheDon said:

You make some good points, but I disagree with this one. What would happen is that the old firm would buy up all the decent Scottish talent and sign anyone half decent on pre-contracts. They already do to some extent (see Conner Barron, Lyall Cameron etc). The only thing this would do is force teams like ourselves to blood young players whether they are ready or not actually weakening us. Add to this the real problem that most Scottish teams are having retaining there best youngsters due to clubs down south poaching them and I could only see this widening the gap between us and the old firm. 

I see the abolition of the three foreigner rule as the point at which our league started to become ridiculously uncompetitive as far as the title is concerned.  Historically the old firm always bought up the best players from the other scottish clubs and that will always happen, Dundee are never going to be able to hold onto a player that Rangers want to sign but the gap between the glasgow clubs and the rest was never un-bridgeable like it is now.  

On 02/04/2025 at 15:45, OrlandoDon said:

Means little but I’d love to see a 16 team league playing each other twice, two relegated and 3rd bottom in a playoff. It’s so stale playing the same teams x number of times a year. I don’t like the product.
30 league games allows for an autumn league cup as we have, I like the format, plus it means the league is not as congested. We play way too much with cups, Europe, internationals etc. quantity over quality at present.

also means little, but if we care about the future of Scottish football a 16 team league allows for the odd game to play some youth, not totally meaningless games.

would also like to see the old firm gtf and play elsewhere. Nobody else has the money, fan base, and global appeal that I think ridding ourselves of the ugly sisters would help our league. Would be much more open and interesting.

I might be in the minority but I like our current league of 12.  38 games for a season seems about right and I think the split works very well and have never understood the argument by people who think otherwise.  This season is maybe slightly different but usually when the league splits everyone has something to play for.  If you are say 10th at the split, you get the opportunity to play those around you rather than having to play less winnable games against those higher up the league.  Those in the top six are normally battling each other for Europe so you can get some competitive last games and theoretically the top couple should be battling for the title.

The main issue is of course that unless something massively changes, we are unlikely to have a new title winner any time soon but a bigger league would make no difference to that.  Personally, I don't think playing Motherwell and Hibs twice instead of four times and replacing that with two games each against Falkirk and Ayr United would make the league any better at all.  As for the idea of playing young players, that is totally counterproductive because that in itself creates meaningless games if no one is particularly bothered about the result other than giving a few young guys a run out.

21 hours ago, tlg1903 said:

Whilst the ugly sisters are in the mix a 16, or bigger, team league will never happen.  

Pains me to say it but we need them.  The TV deal would not happen without them and the other clubs need them to boost revenue when they host them.  Distribution of TV and prize money more fairly is the best solution to making our game more competitive.  You are starting to see it happen in England.  For years the big clubs nicked players from the smaller ones because the smaller clubs had to sell.  Nowadays the smaller EPL clubs get millions from the TV deals, the disparity between top and middle tier clubs is less therefore you are seeing clubs like Forest, Villa and Brighton shake up the natural order. 

The other option to making a more competitive league would be to have a compulsory amount of Scottish players in the starting line up.  If you stated that six players in each side had to be Scottish, you would instantly cut the gap between the top two clubs and the rest.  Of course it will never happen.

Could do a lot worse than Greg Taylor on a free to replace McKenzie at left back.

17 hours ago, Panda said:

Huge game really.

Let me correct that for you Panda

17 hours ago, Panda said:

Huge game....REALLY?

23 minutes ago, Jute said:

Makes sense. Those are the best 11 players in that squad. The whole Robertson/Tierney thing about desperately trying to get them both in the team is just stupid. With Tierney’s injury record and Robertson’s game time, just play one tonight and the other on Sunday.