wokinginashearerwonderland

A lot has been made of this result and as much as we dislike England, it was still a friendly.  We are horrendous at playing friendly fixtures and always have been and there was just not the same intensity in our play on Tuesday night as there would have been if there was actually something on the line to play for.  If that had been a competitive game we would have been kicking players up in the air.   

In contrast, if you look at England's results, they are fantastic in friendlies and seem to thrive on getting results in meaningless games.  They always have done.  Part of the reason for that is maybe because of the competition for places in their team meaning that the players need to put on a performance to show the manager they are worthy of a place.

The hype about Bellingham is ridiculous.  We have seen it all before with the likes of Dele Ali, Ross Barkley and Jaydon Sancho.  Let's see how good he is in four or five years.  To be fair, we made Marcus Rashford look like Lionel Messi the other night. 

1 hour ago, Panda said:

But again, what was the reason for signing players late?

Did they miss out on first targets?

Did it take time to negotiate with clubs, players, agents?

Did Robson perhaps want to delay in players (maybe he was waiting on Scales and Pollock, and only when they couldn't happen could we move for Jensen and Gartenmann)?

Valid enough points and I'm sure some of those may be the case but you still know in May roughly how many players you are going to need to bring in and have a good idea when the first game of this season was going to be.  Failing to prepare and preparing to fail springs to mind, whatever the reasons.

15 minutes ago, Panda said:

Unless you've been shadowing the recruitment team for three months, then no-one can answer this as we have absolutely no idea if they messed up on transfers, didn't do their due diligence on players, and if everything else that goes into making a transfer happen was "amateurish" or not.

I was on about the timing of signing players, giving the manager no chance of getting a team on the park for two of our biggest games of the season and handicaping us for the early part of the league season.  I don't need to have been shadowing the recruitment team to know that we were very last minute in signing three of the players in the first eleven last week. Pretty unfair for questions to be getting asked of Robson this early when he gets players landed on him so late on.

17 minutes ago, Panda said:

Then as soon as Teklic didn't happen, suddenly the recruitment team were getting criticised.

Who mentioned anything about the boy Teklic?

I feel a little bit sorry for Robson, to seemingly be under pressure so few games into the season is a tough one and I blame much of it on the recruitment that he has had to contend with.  He was right in what he said after the Hibs game in that the players have only just been introduced to each other and you have to wonder why that has been allowed to happen. 

We knew back in May that we would be facing the challenge of Thursday/Sunday football for the first half of this season and have had three months to get players in the door.  The way the recruitment process has been handled looks, from the outside, pretty amateurish.  We were lucky enough to get one of the most winnable looking Europa playoff ties in recent years for what were possibly our biggest two games of this season and we made a total arse of it because of poor preparation.  Players should have been in the door much earlier and up to speed weeks ago.  To have McGarry and Jensen virtually just off the plane and pitched into the first eleven last week was a bit of a joke and to a lesser extent the same can be said for McGrath.  How is Robson expected to drill a team with so little time available to him with these new players?  Some of these players might turn out to be great signings but half the season will be gone before we even find out and we could be out of three competitions by then, we are already out of one. 

On top of that Robson has had to deal with losing a key midfielder shortly before the Euro tie with no like for like replacement and now we will have to wait until January if we want to sign one.  As for making a loan signing at about 10pm on deadline day, that smacks of total desperation.  So much emphasis back in April/May was put on the desire to qualify for the Europa League yet we give ourselves a mountain to climb with how we prepared ourselves for the qualification process and in the league we are chasing our tail after just 4 games. 

1 hour ago, RicoS321 said:

He has done that when chasing games this season, with Duncan shifting awkwardly into left back.  

Yes but now we have a recognised left back in McGarry so surely should not be a problem.

1 hour ago, RicoS321 said:

The main reason we don't do that is because you need two very fit guys in midfield to pull it off, and we don't have that. 

What are you on about, Rico?  Are you saying Shinnie and Clarkson could not play as the two central midfield players or are you on about the wide players?

10 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

We're wedded to the 3-5-2, or variation of it, because we need to play Duk and Miovski.

Don't see why we cannot just change it to a 4-4-2 and get rid of the square pegs in round holes.  Get Devlin into right back where he belongs and see if Rubezic is more suited to playing in a two alongside either Jensen, McKenzie or MacDonald.

Bring Johnny Hayes into the team on one of the wings and either try Morris on the other wing as he is clearly not a full back or wing back and if not, try someone else on the other wing, maybe Duncan.

Had to laugh reading that Celtic's latest transfer target is Paulo Bernardo  Hope their next moves will be for Nigela Pepperi and Nikita Maynardo. 

Luis Rubiales - dodgy sleaze or political correctness gone mad?  Surely there are worse things happening in the world?

It's a horrible, horrible industry.  Used to think life at the top of the game was ridiculous in that the Real Madrids and Barcelonas of this world would fire a manager after half a dozen dodgy results, but Hibs?  They have actually let the guy spend a decent sum of cash in the summer, he has just lost his best player and they fire him three games into the league season.  Do chairman not realise that someone is always going to be at the bottom of the league, the provincial clubs can't all be in fourth place.  I would love their chairman to have to explain to Johnson's kids how their Dad has just lost his job because his team lost three games of fitba.

26 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

I was right next to Shinnie's challenge, the ball was there to be won and he won it. That Ralston collapsed in a heap (as he did all game), and the linesman bought it, was the issue. That, and the fact that we couldn't defend a freekick. His header was unlucky, the ball was above him and given that he's not known for headed goals, it was a difficult one to control. He was otherwise excellent, first to every ball, held onto the ball under pressure so many times and used the ball well too. He set the tone for any pressing that we did throughout the match.

Devlin's challenge did get looked at by the VAR people, they look at everything, they deemed it wasn't worthy of overturning. I suspect that had the ref given a penalty they may not have overturned either. It wasn't clearcut either way. Devlin was excellent against Livi (probably motm) and did well against the Tims all whilst out of position. I'd say that his performance at right centre back was as good as any McRorie gave us in that position, and that's the type of utility we are replacing. Devlin will be a good signing.

People don't want us to be streetwise at home to the Tims, they've had enough of it. I can understand that. We went toe to toe with them, lost, but not by any great degree and weren't embarrassed. Sitting in and risking a 0-1 loss would have only upset the fans. Most Dons fans are realistic about where we sit in the scheme of things, and most fans applauded the team despite their loss yesterday. The fact that Livi or St Mirren might be able to sit in against them and get a draw is neither here nor there. 99% of the time they will also lose. If, collectively, one team gets a result once, that's not evidence of success in any approach. The reality is that it's difficult, and so we went with the option of playing to our strengths, which is refreshing at least.

You're right that Shinnie won the ball but he barged into Ralston before he won the ball, that's why it was a foul.  I don't agree about his header either, it was as simple a header as you are likely to get.  Otherwise excellent is a bullshit phrase if you are the captain and have cost your team two goals.

Same with Devlin, may sound harsh but he gave away a goal on a plate so he did not do his job well whether he was out of position is irrelevant.  

Streetwise is exactly the phrase I would use about yesterday in both of the above cases.  We handed them the two goals that they won by. 

19 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

Interesting game, we played well and we're unlucky. Shinnie was probably motm today, and whilst I get the suggestion of moving him left, that'd mean some very good signings to replace that energy and ball winning. Polvara was good again today and is exactly the type of squad player we'll need. Morris did really well, so it'll give us lots of options when MacDonald is back and Rubezic is moved right one. McKenzie had another solid performance too. Devlin just had a brain fart, the type of mistake that you can't legislate for, nor read too much into. He wasn't under any notable pressure. The Tims were very divey today, with Ralston a joke. Not convinced it was remotely a foul for their first, with the ball there to be won, but would like to see it back. When Duk got going he was good, then faded quickly and should have been off sooner. Would probably have taken Morris off for the last ten too. I liked the change to a 4-4-2, it was a bit different. Thought Duncan handled the game well also.

I'm not sure we were unlucky to be honest Rico and would take issue with your point about Shinnie being motm.  His stupid challenge led to the first goal and he missed a glaring header to make it 1-1, that to me is not motm stuff.  

Devlin will have to up his game as well because he's not playing for Livi anymore.  At the end of the day, he is a defender and handed the first goal on a plate then was very lucky not to have given away a penalty in the second half for his clumsy challenge on one of the jappy guys.  Amazed it did not get looked at by the VAR people.

Yes, we had a couple of chances but Celtic missed a great opportunity straight from the kick off after one of the goals.  We also got off the hook when Kyogo missed a sitter.

Got to be more streetwise in these big games and start being horrible to play against.  People seem almost accepting of the defeat yesterday because it was an exciting game, which is missing the point.  That is exactly what Celtic want it to be, an end to end bonnie fitba contest.  The teams that do well against the Old Firm this season won't play like we played yesterday because they know they will get wiped off the park.  A horrible 0-0 would have helped the confidence much more than playing well and still getting soundly beaten.   

Massive chance missed there by Shinnie. Should be 1-1

Just now, Panda said:

I'll take a guess it became a thing when fans realised their club need to make money to be able to compete for trophies.

The "I don't care how much money we make I want us to be successful" comment doesn't really work, unless you can point out a team that has been successful recently without spending anything.

With respect, what a ridiculous comment.

You're basically ridiculing people for wanting their team to earn money so they can be successful.

You do realise it's possible to do both? 

Exactly this, especially that last sentence.

We've managed to turn Aberdeen potentially earning €5-8m into a negative. 

You're totally misunderstanding my point.  There is no debate that a club needs to make money, that has always been the case.  My point is that all of that used to be a concern for the boardroom, not the stands.  I cannot remember in the past, anyone saying to me that a great European run will bring in loads of cash, it was only ever all about what was happening on the pitch.  It's now like everyone's turned into the club accountant, getting the buzz about making £5M from playing a few games abroad or similarly about how much we can flog the star player for.  It just seems strange to me why fans are suddenly so interested in this kind of thing when it was never a consideration in the past. You don't get an open topped bus down Union Street for earning a few million in Europe.

13 hours ago, SeeBass said:

I honestly couldn't care less how much we might earn from this.  Money has ruined football which is probably why I've lost a lot of love for the game.  We're not in it to make big bucks we're in it to do as well as we can on the pitch.

Couldn't agree more with you on this SeeBass.  I don't know when fans started this fascination about how much their team could make from doing well in certain competitions, how much they could sell their star player for or how much their club's net transfer spend was compared to their rivals.

Does anyone know how much money the club made from winning the cup winners cup?  Of course they don't, no one cared.  We are now in an era where fans seem to be more obsessed with whether their club can make an extra few million by getting through an extra round in Europe than whether they can actually lift a domestic trophy. I get the impression people have forgotten why they started to watch fitba in the first place. 

22 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

We're now basically the scum, fighting to ensure nobody else can get the unearned riches. Imagine how much better it'd be if all that money was pooled and added to the prize fund? We'd have a proper league.

    Absolutely this Rico.

10 hours ago, Panda said:

I'd never even heard of Brighton before opening this thread. 

A man in denial surely. Someone told me you go down there every Friday night

26 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

I don't think fergie would have deemed Brighton a glamour tie either though. 

No, you are probably right there Rico, pot 3 is definitely missing a real big gun.  Brighton I guess would be similar to drawing Ipswich in the 80s maybe, does not have the glamour of a trip to Anfield but it would still be an exciting tie.  The Burnley tie a few years ago was a great occasion.  

14 hours ago, manc_don said:

Definitely feels like the conference league is the way to go. Not that there aren't some potentially hellish trips there, there are many more better ones though.

Nah, surely not?

I'd far rather take a Europa League group with Roma, PSV and Brighton than the Conference League with Ferencvaros, Zorya and Tel Aviv.  Got to be the glamour ties all the way unless you are a club with a genuine chance at winning the competition.

1 hour ago, OrlandoDon said:

It’s a business plan to make us a more financially sound club. Ideally it takes us to the point where we don’t need to sell. This, along with developing and selling youth, is the only way for our club to survive.

I know what you are saying and yes, everyone needs to sell the odd player to balance the books.  There is a time and a place though and now is neither.  The Europa qualifier could be worth a fortune to us, much more than the Ramadani transfer fee.  It's a false economy and short term chasing of the coin.

This is an example of why I did not want the club to start plundering the foreign market in a big way.

Really don’t see what has been achieved in this instance. Yes, we may have made a few quid (assuming he goes obviously) but that is very short termist. We’ve spent time and money scouting this guy, spent time bedding him into the side just to flog him a few weeks before what is potentially our most important game of the season in the Europa qualifier.

Cormack is only seeing the pound signs with recruiting all of these foreigners in my opinion. In the long term the team only gets worse by selling your best players.

I don’t share the view that it’s a lack of loyalty SeeBass. By accepting the offer, the club is saying we want to sell you, the player is just going to who is prepared to pay for him. The club could easily just say no, he is under contract and not for sale.

Got to be a first. Two players named Devlin making their debuts for their new clubs against their old clubs, in the same game.  Couldn't make it up.

I have a feeling we will absolutely hammer them.  Must say, this is the most optimistic about a season that I have been for a number of years.  The lack of Scots in our team still bugs me but I can see this being a good season.

Going for a 4-0 win. 50/1 if anyone is tempted 

Watched this earlier as it popped up on youtube.  Maybe some of you have see it before, if not, it's great viewing.  Could never imagine anything like this being allowed to happen nowadays.  Clough must have been a brilliant soap opera back in the day.

1 hour ago, Jute said:

Also saw pictures of the work on the new scoreboard in the South yesterday but can’t find them now. 

Rumour has it that after the 9-0 scoreline at Turra the other week, the football monitoring board felt the scoreboard needed to be made a priority so that we can keep track of the mountainous number of goals the team will be racking up during the coming weeks 

I’ll be honest. Women’s fitba is shite. I’m watching none of it 

Saudi super league starting to look serious. Mahrez and Henderson away there now. Wonder who the first top player/mercenary will be who goes there in their prime?

Mbappe?

Neymar?