redordead

The international break made no difference the last time because the players were allowed to go on holiday living it up in Europe for a week instead of working on correcting the teams clear issues this season. Del is running a holiday camp where players treat football like a 9-5.

Stale and ugly today. Need a leader on the field to kick backsides and Joe isn't that man. Season could have been in real jeopardy today and they should have gone out to send a message.

Whilst McGinn scored a good goal in that game I think the set up of the team afforded him a lot of space to play in. Truth is that with all that possession, he failed to deliver good balls every time he sailed past his man. I thought that wright and Gallagher in the middle gave us real energy and movement allowing the wide men to play. I also think that we won't see this midfield again and that's a real shame. Genuinely the best I've seen us in a long time playing proper football albeit against weak opposition. #endhoofball

Are mcginn and hedges automatic choices? Seems so but I’m not sure that they have proven themselves ahead of Mclennan and Wright this season and I’d like to see the latter two given a fair crack. If I had a pound for every ball mcginn has put over the top of the box this season already, I’d be watching Thursday for free.

I’m sitting today debating whether to sort work in a way that will let me attend on Thursday. I want to go but there’s a massive part of me telling me that this game is tight and we won’t have a go at them. It’s got 1-0 via penalty written all over it. Any thoughts ? Does anyone think that DMC will play a team similar to first leg vs ROPs or has that ship sailed with ojo and Bryson now in the squad. I know, I’m a bad fan, but I’m also busy as hell and don’t want to work around a game that I suspect could frustrate me for the next week.

Once this season we’ve played well. The only time we haven’t played Derek’s favoured 4/2/3/1 . Too many holding players, no threat. Play ojo or fergie and get that extra attacker back for the love of god. He’ll blame the attackers at the end if we don’t turn this around. Not himself for setting us up not to lose again.

Spot on, exactly what I expected from DMC, we had plenty of firepower as shown in first leg, but he went a bit more cautious just to make it exciting. I’d love to see us play with 4 attacking midfielders this year ( like last week )but I can’t see him dropping Ferguson or Ojo. To be honest I’m not that excited about Bryson playing in front of those 2. Think it’d be pretty flat. I’d prefer one sitting with four of mcginn, gallagher,hedges, Wright, McLennan and Bryson in front of them. I’m nit sure we’ll be brave enough. P.s will Wilson get a chance to play striker this year?

I don't disagree with a lot of the above. However wright for me is the player with real guile in our squad and last weeks system really suited him. If we play with 4 attacking midfielders it'd be crazy to lose him. Sadly I think that once Ojo is clear to play, we'll go back to 4-2-3-1 and serve up last sessions fayre. Yes he loses the ball, but he also creates and has vision. The best players lose the ball. Messi doesn't score every time he dribbles. Wright should be given games to grow.

I think we'll set up 4-1-4-1 like last week. No changes at the start as we could have scored 6. If we don't score by half time I think main will come in. One thing for sure is that we'll find out if free flowing football is here for the season or if Del resorts to type if it's tight.

Thanks guys, I’ll head for the Foundry.

I'm in aberdeen on Thursday. Best pub to catch the game?

McGeouch really doesn't excite me. I'm thinking that fergie and Bryson will play Defensive centre. Surely we have enough options to play behind the striker if DMC would make up his mind. Wright could play there, as could ean ever slowing McGinn, or Gallagher or God forbid we play Wilson off the striker where he can make runs. What we need is a back up defensive CM. I thought that when bigrimana was released, that he was ideal and had given us a hard time in the past. Don't know why he never pushed on last season. Face didn't fit possibly.

What is our system is a great question. Last season I'm not even sure that the players knew. So far it looks like much of the same with new personnel. I'm hoping that wright finally gets a run as he is for me the most creative player we have. I've also thought that Gallagher looks good from what I've seen. For me the big issue is, do we bench Sam and try to play on the ground and create more with Wilson , wright, Gallagher and McLennan? All very mobile.Or do we hope that Sam will start winning long balls and rely on him to score all our goals again. A tactic that seen some of the worst football that I can remember last season. No slight to Sam as he hit the newel for a period. Derek also clearly rates Main, I don't see where he fits in unless we go 2 up front. Does anybody else have an idea of how we will line up? You'd expect Thursday to be an indicator.

Better performance than expected today. Our real problem was all too obvious today. no composure or guile in the midfield. I lost count of the balls we lumped forward leaving cosgrove 2 on 1 at best. I heard Derek say on BBC today that the strikers hadn't set the grass alight this season. Ronaldo would struggle when you fire the ball up the pitch 40 yds with two or 3 men marking you.

I thought wright was excellent today. Really hoping he gets his chance this season.

Excellent highlights indeed

I thought Hayes was awful and has been for some time

Brutal, time to clear out the players making time to retirement from our squad

Loved this

From this I have drawn the conclusion that the SPL are watching their own asses and don't give a flying feck about the game in general or the fans. I agree with resigning, shafting them and we'll get fans back with competitive leagues and BBC coverage letting ALL Scottish kids watch their teams play and build fan bases again.

Sad news indeed

Defending has improved. Distribution is woeful !

I'd have taken 2-1 at kick off. But 2-0 up against 10 men and chucking mawene on still infuriated me. Instead of pressing for more we sat back and just got away with a win. P.s Brown & Reynolds were awesome today.

Snelders Robertson, Anderson, kombouare, mcnaughton Van der ven, Bisconti, jess, bett Gilhaus, shearer

Amazing what goes on when the golf's aff.