Reekie_Red

I just think football "State Side" will never become as big a game as it should be for a nation with that kind of population. I can fully understand your excitement at the way the game is heading over in the US and Canada. I have the same sort of experience down-under where I regularly watch cracking games from Australia. New Zealand is shit at football (finally, he says, a sport that NZ is shit at!!) but the Aussie game has come on leaps and bounds. The Australian game has only really been around in international terms for a couple of decades, and with a population of 21million, they're only now starting to show their worth. But the US game has been around for a lot longer than that. With a population in-excess of 302million (!!) surely they should be producing a dozen teams that can be world champions!!! Instead, the US seems to be stuck in their ways of playing games that no other nation plays (baseball, gridiron and basketball, for example). If they ploughed as much effort into the world's top sport as they do their own sports, they might actually be a force to be reckoned with ... and not the 29th place that they currently occupy (might've changed by the time you read this cos those rankings change more often that I have hot dinners). Don't get me wrong, I think the US MLS league is great. It's got a lot of innovative ideas that the rest of the world could well do with adopting, such as wage-capping, winning-draws, etc. But for a league that is supposedly almost perfect in its structure and organisation, it still produces poorer quality teams than a corrupt, biased and financially crippled league like the SPL.

Aye, but he's captain Manure for how long? It's nae like he's brand-new to the sport! He's been around for a long long time as a player. He more than most people would've had to get the measure of players pretty quickly to suss out how to play against them. He proved at Manure that he had this capability in abundance. Now I'm pretty sure he'll take this trait into his managerial career. Good luck to him and Russ. I will wait with anticipation for the day the Sunderland fans are made to eat their hats. Right now, they can go and eat their own shite for all I care. They've taken our captain and most valuable player for a pittance, and they dinnae even like him!

One-off matches, mate! A semi-okay Aberdeen side held a very poor Hertha Berlin for about 176 minutes. Doesn't mean we would've been able to hold our own in the Bundesliga!

Aye. But he'd still be better than Clanger ... even though he's 6ft under! If nothing else, he'd be fantastic entertainment value. I'd just get him to recite the "Four Candles / Fork Handles" sketch and that'd be me entertained for an hour and a half. Much better than watching Clanger for an hour and a half (stag night, or not).

I really hope Anderson plays brilliantly for them, but hands in a transfer request because he hates the place ... and goes to Newcastle or someone else who would actually appreciate him!

Does the name Keith Birkenshaw spring to mind?

Damn straight! I'd easily give up pogo-jumping with 60,000 Gremio fans to enjoy the one-man-and-his-dog effort that is Køge and Farum

Haha! What a joke! Boom boom! Rather have Ronnie Barker. Surely he'd be a better goalie than Clanger.

Sorry Drewsome min. But the debt was clocked up long long before "Pele" Paterson (more like Pogo Paterson fae Grange Hill!) arrived at Pittodrie. As huge a fan as I was of Ebbe, he spent big-time! He was the best-paid Aberdeen manager ever when he signed for us. Even after taking his pay-cuts, he was still on more than Aitken or either of the Millers were on. But it was Roy Aitken and Alex Miller's big-spending that crippled us. Whilst Aitken did crazy things like spend close to £5million on transfers to bring in the likes of Kiriakov, Tzvetanov, Bernard and Gillies, Miller went one better and placed those losers on massive wages. The pair of them tried to match the Old Firm's spending using a club whose income was less than a tenth of what either of the Old Firm took in on rainy days.

Knowing the Dons' history of signing goofs, we'll probably end up going for the wrong person and will end up signing Ronnie O'Sullivan or Richard O'Brien

He clearly sat down with his wife and said: "should I? It's probably the last chance I'll ever get to test myself in the world's top league. And look at the pay!! I love Aberdeen dearly ... but LOOK AT THE PAY!! This could set us up for life!!! And think, if we don't like it, we can always come back!" I can't blame him for wanting to move to the biggest league in the world! I'm not going to hold a grudge against him. I'm just in a shit because AFC have looked a gift-horse in the mouth yet again and have sold our most valuable player for peanuts. Oh yeah, and the fact that the Sunderland fans have already started slating Anderson REALLY REALLY irks me. I hope Newcastle snap him up in six months time and he shows his goalscoring prowess once again to hit the goal in the Tyneside derby that relegates Sunderland. Ungrateful fuckers

Deal

I reckon he would've loved his football and the lifestyle at Newcastle, as the city's pretty good fun and the fans are fanatical (not to mention grateful). But Sunderland is a hellhole! No other way to put it. Everything about that place sucks!!!

Thank fuck for that!

Some papers are saying our debt is £13m. Che Willie just said our debt is around £9m. I was under the belief that it was around £7m. What's it to be?

Aye, I do ... and yes I did. But when he was with Barca, he didn't really get a chance did he? I mean, twenty-odd appearances in the two years he played there. And that was despite the fact that he scored a dozen goals in those twenty-odd appearances. I just get the feeling that, regardless of what he does, Russell's nae gonna get a chance with Sunderland. And I know he's nae exactly the sort of player who's happy to sit on the bench and just collect a wagepacket whilst his talent gets wasted in the reserves.

One thing's for sure, he's not going to be too happy sitting on the bench for too long. If the same Russell Anderson goes down to Sunderland that left here, he's gonna be pushing the first-choice defenders all the way. And if he doesn't get a chance, he'll leave! There's no way a player of Russell's caliber will be happy sitting on the bench. Then again, I said that about Henrik Larsson. Now look at him at Barca. Mind you, Barca or Sunderland. Nae exactly twinnies, are they?!

Good luck Russell. You're always welcome back if things dinnae work out there!!! Or even if things DO work out, but you "do a Heikkinen" and get homesick. FAO Sunderland fans, thieving gits!! You got a £4m player for £1m. You'd better be grateful!!!!!!!!

What is our debt? How come it's £7m one day and £13m the next?

Didn't we get £1.6m for Jess from Coventry?

I reckon we're well enough equipped to play 3-5-2, but our boys don't have the ability to play 3-5-2 comfortably. Still reckon we'll be playing a 4-3-1-2, with Smith in a free role in the middle just behind the strikers, as JC suggested. Keeper Hart/Considine - McNamara - Diamond - Byrne DeVisscher - Nicholson - Seve Smith Lovell/Miller - Mackie

I think Nicholson and Hart are perhaps still a wee bit immature to carry the captain's armband. Severin and McNamara have their feet firmly on the ground, and my bet is between one of these two guys. Our worst captain in recent memory was Darren Young. He was a spoilt little brat, and he couldnae lead a dog on a leash, nevermind the Aberdeen first-team. I'd like someone like Hart or Nicholson, don't get me wrong. But my money is on McNamara or Seve.

http://www.ftmforum.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=8882 Couldnae believe what I was reading on this ftmforum. The Sunderland fans have already written Big Russell off! Fuck, if you don't want him, we'll GLADLY take him back. One guy in particular complained that, if Russell was as good as Keane says, why didn't one of the big Premiership guys snap him up before his 28th birthday. Erm, cos we never let him go, that's why!!! This signing urks me immensely: (1) he's left us in our most crucial season in over a decade (2) we only got £1m for a player that even some Sunderland fans admit is valued at closer to £4m!!! (3) our star player who we love so dearly is getting dog's abuse from his new club before he's even gone to the press-photocall This transfer makes me sick. The only good thing to come out of it is the fact that Russell donated his sign-on fee to the Aberdeen youth system. Legend!!!!

The SkySports website is quoting Russell as saying he wants to stay at Aberdeen and is open to talks about a contract extension ... even if it means signing for Aberdeen for the rest of his career! Good words, and the words I'm sure we all want to hear in what could well be the season that turns Aberdeen once and for all into a power-house in Scotland.

Well. We're paying off a massive overdraft at the moment, and all we seem to be doing is servicing the debt. If we wiped out the debt by, for example, doing quite well in Europe, imagine what we could do. We'd be taking in the same sort of cash (perhaps more once the glory-hunters start to return to Pittodrie) and the money we would normally put towards servicing the debt could now be used for our own means!! Kind of puts this season's UEFA Cup into real perspective for us, doesn't it?! This could break our financial stranglehold. Nae putting any pressure on our boys, like!