wokinginashearerwonderland

One game between 6th March and 1st April. 

Slightly odd thing to say maybe but apart from his goals he gives very little to the team.  Doesn't hold the ball up particularly well, no great pace, not really a physical presence yet without his goals we would be in real trouble.  I tend to think if you are playing up front on your own you need to put yourself about a bit, like thon thug (the budget Bergkamp) that plays for Motherwell.

I’d take a punt on Alan Forrest at Livi. He’s on a free in the summer and looked decent whenever I’ve seen them play this season. Certainly an upgrade on McLennan.

23 hours ago, SeeBass said:

I always remember how it felt like Paul Bernard took an absolute eternity to get rid of Paul Bernard score his goal.

Sorted that one for you SeaBass 

Seen a couple of Southampton games recently and Stuart Armstrong has hit a real purple patch, looking like a proper player.  Hope he gets a chance for the national team.

Loving the positive vibe Panda min and sincerely hope we can be challenging for Europe. I’ll whisper this but part of me is wondering whether we should actually be preying for a St Mirren win tonight. If Dundee win we are two points closer to a relegation play off. Strange old season this one. 

Disappointed to hear about this.  We have lost a lot of experience in the last few months with Logan, McGinn and now Brown leaving.  Other than Hayes, Lewis and Considine, we are struggling for proper senior players.  In theory, Barron should have been playing alongside Brown to learn his trade instead of just replacing him.  We also have very few players in the squad and the backroom team who have actually won anything and just having Brown there to try to instil that winning mentality/habit would have been useful.

59 minutes ago, Jute said:

Assuming McCrorie in midfield with Ferguson and Barron. Ojo and Hayes as full backs.

Two striking things about that line up.

One, it’s back to the old triangular pegs, hexagonal holes with Hayes and Ojo at full back when we have MacKenzie and Ramsay on the bench. Peculiar.

Two, seems like only a few months back we had about a million central midfield players, now we are having to play a young inexperienced loon in there at Ibrox.

Horrible feeling about this one. First time in a while I have looked at our team sheet and realised why we are so far down the league. Hoping for a backs to the wall 0-0.

Not arguing there BigAl but the penalty we got last night was embarrassing. Ferguson should be cringing watching that back. Blatant dive. Don’t want to be seeing our players doing that stuff no matter how badly we need a goal. 

Looking like a really intriguing relegation battle down there. I suspect Norwich have too much to do but from Woy’s Watford right up to Newcastle in 14th it could be any two from those. Amazing how teams that have been rotten all season suddenly start winning just as the fat lady is limbering up.

Leeds goal difference is shocking. 

Every club has a bad spell from time to time.  It's life as a fitba fan.  We have just come off a spell where we qualified for Europe seven years in a row.  Do you think Rangers fans enjoyed the third division or Man City fans liked having to be in a play off with Gillingham?  If you want to see your team win 8-0 every week and cannot accept defeats just buy a Bayern Munich shirt and stop watching the Dons.

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.

14 minutes ago, Jute said:

Not advocating that he should go just pointing out he is seriously not happy in the interview. He definitely gives the impression that he does not know how to sort the team as what he is trying is not working. 

Nah, I know Jute.  I was just taking the piss.  His interview seems a bit knee jerk considering if they were to win their games in hand he would be a point off the Champions League placings.  Thought he had a bit more fight in him than that.

Aye, definitely time to go.  Imagine being 8th in the league, three points off 5th 

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

Here goes then, all the best Jim.

About time we had a good win

I knew Data Dave would keep it hush hush while the details were being sorted out 

2 hours ago, Panda said:

I don't think pointing out Lennon's failures and weaknesses is "pedantic" but each to their own.

I said it was pedantic dismissing Lennon's trophy wins were simply because he had a big budget at Celtic.  You might as well argue that Fergie won 13 league titles at Man Utd because he had a big budget.  

30 minutes ago, Slim said:

Idealist? Probably you’re right, I still daydream about knocking in the winner for us in the Champions League final. That’s probably what I was doing when I didn’t see these hundreds of goal attempts you saw us have in the last 12 months.

We'd be third in the league if you base it on goal attempts Slim

https://spfl.co.uk/stats-centre

19 minutes ago, Slim said:

Playing style is another. 

If Tommy Wright hadn’t made an arse of the Killie job and wasn’t a renowned hoofball merchant then his name would probably be on the shortlist. But he did and he is so he isn’t.

If Ross had a track record of playing attractive progressive football then he’d be a good option despite his track record. But he doesn’t. He’s a dour, overly conservative coward. He has lost just about every big game he has ever managed and makes zero sense as an option considering the reasons we sacked Derek McInnes.

Jack Ross is basically Derek McInnes with the positive attributes removed and the negative attributes turned up to 11.

A good playing style is idealistic crap unless you have the luxury of De Bruyne, Messi and Salah in your team.  If we have learnt anything in the last 12 months it is that winning football is what fans want.  None of us have liked our team losing despite having hundreds of goal attempts and loads of possession. If we went to Ibrox and Parkhead and won four times in the season you wouldn't care what style of football we were playing.

12 hours ago, Slim said:

At Hibs he managed a third place finish with arguably the third highest budget

9 hours ago, Panda said:

Are Lennon's stats good though?

Winning trophies with Celtic when you have the biggest budget - most managers in the Premiership could probably do that.

Jesus, we're getting a bit pedantic now boys.  We're not having anybody that's had any kind of success out with their budget eh?

Here's one for you then........Tommy Wright. He only won the cup with St Johnstone and was in the top half of the league for the most part.  In my book that would be punching above your weight by St Johnstone's standards but the guy's not good enough for us. He has had more success than Goodwin and Ross combined but most of you would turn your nose up at the prospect.

1 hour ago, Slim said:

Jack Ross seems to have built his entire reputation on what he achieved with St Mirren in the Championship. He’s done absolutely nothing with Sunderland and Hibs to suggest he can be a successful manager. Goodwin has already done more with St Mirren than Ross did.

You’re being a bit harsh on Ross there. Finished third with Hibs, their highest for a number of years and also took them to two cup finals. This season was undoubtedly poor like.

He also made the playoff final with Sunderland and they were in decent shape when he left.

Goodwin has had a couple of seasons at St Mirren and managed a 9th and 7th so hardly pulling up trees but he seems to be highly rated so time will tell I guess.

10 hours ago, OrlandoDon said:

Or someone who may want to blood their management skills for the first time? 

I take your point about being ambitious Orlando but I hope we don't go down the route of someone who has never managed before, these guys should be making their mistakes further down the food chain before arriving at Pittodrie.  We're better than that.  If we'd even consider someone like Duncan Ferguson or Darren Fletcher then why not just give the job to Barry Robson, Russell Anderson or Scott Brown?  We've done the inexperienced manager and it's made us far worse.

18 hours ago, OrlandoDon said:

Ole is not as crazy a suggestion as it sounds.

He's a big name (literally), yes, but he was the biggest joke figure at Man Utd.  He spent a horrendous amount of money and still produced a shite team.  Yes, he's managed in the Champions League and he was mince in that too.  Even if we could afford him, what on earth is the attraction?  If he could not make a decent team with a host of international players and a budget which was practically unlimited, why on earth should we be considering him?

25 minutes ago, LA-Don said:

I for one, and this is pretty much irrelevant and totally different era and different money, would never have believed we'd sign Charlie Nicholas but we did. Why not shoot for a manager like that? I also think Knutsen could be seen along the lines of Ebbe, experienced and successful foreigner. Why not?

Ebbe was funny but remember how crap we actually were with him in charge?  We finished bottom of the league at one stage.

The issue I have with a manager from overseas is it is so difficult to judge their past successes because we have little knowledge about the leagues they operate in.  People are being suggested based on reading about someone on Wikipedia and at the same time people who have actually won things or reached finals in Scotland or are being totally dismissed. If Callum Davidson was Swedish he would probably be top of the fans wanted list.  Nothing against foreign managers but at provincial clubs in Scotland has it ever worked having one in charge over a sustained period?  It has usually been a total shambles.  

"Lambo" comes across on tele as a droll boring bugger but for what he has done in the game would surely command instant respect from the players, much more so than Glass.  He also knows how to conduct himself properly which is important, unlike some names mentioned such as Lennon and Big Dunc.  I love Dunc's attitude and it would be great to imagine him pinning Gallagher up against the dressing room wall for failure to play the offside trap properly but not sure he is really the type I want as the face of our club.