Ajja

Here’s a dump of the post; I can't really speak to what he did/didn't do at St Mirren other than what I've seen from the outside looking in (ie: Mooney barely getting a look in but still getting picked up by Arsenal, Taylor getting bounced about the lower leagues etc) but his time at Motherwell has a bit of nuance on that score. The long and the short of it is, he absolutely played players from the Academy. He's not wrong in saying that. It's factually correct. The likes of Chris Cadden, David Turnbull, Allan Campbell, Jake Hastie (eventually after two loans), and James Scott all got regular games under Robinson (and some made us a lot of money - Cadden excepted who snaked off to MLS when we would have been due a development fee). However Cadden was given his debut by McCall, Campbell and Hastie got their debuts from McGhee. There's a school of thought from pretty much anyone who was watching the Development League that David Turnbull could have been in our first team 6 months before he actually started getting games (except Robinson insisted he had to learn to do the "free stuff" better). So, yes, players from the Academy got games under Robinson (moreso than his time at St Mirren I'd say) but a lot of these were players who were broadly speaking already around the first team. I've said it before but there is absolutely zero chance that we'd have seen Lennon Miller in our first team at 16 (or subsequently captaining the side) had Robinson been our manager at that point. I mean, he deserves credit for the breakout season we got from David Turnbull but also...David Turnbull was a generational player for us. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. We had players like Stuart McKinstry (who moved to Leeds) and Reece McAlear (who moved to Norwich) that never kicked a ball for our first team in competitive games but only started to appear on the fringes of our team when it became clear that Premier League clubs were interested and we were making a 'too little, too late' attempt to show that there was a pathway under Robinson. There's also a laundry list of Academy players that he simply binned off. Barry Maguire actually played more games for Graham Alexander than he did for Robinson. He signed Deimantas Petravičius and had him in the Scottish Cup final squad ahead of someone like Ross Maclean, he released/sold Jack McMillan in his first full season as manager, he released Alfie Agyeman. We "sold" Dom Thomas to Killie for a sell-on basically because Thomas didn't think he'd get an opportunity. Then you've got someone like David Ferguson whose career was pretty much ended by the chasing he got from Jordan Jones at Fir Park against Killie. There are a litany of players from our Academy who maybe got 1 or 2 appearances under Robinson but were simply disappeared at the end of their contracts. I'm not sure what that actually means for Aberdeen, if anything. Ultimately some of those Academy players may not actually have been good enough and he was right to release them but if "Developing Youth" is actually a KPI that he's going to be judged on then I'll be interested to see how he actually aligns this because based on the fact that it's *Aberdeen* (and he's already spoken about the resources he has available now) I'm not sure that his approach of filling a squad with cheap dross that unintentionally ends up blocking the pathway for Youth is actually going to fly and on the flip of that he's the sort of manager who would (IMO) always favour an established Pro ahead of giving an Academy player a run. I dunno, I guess there are maybe parallels between McInnes stumbling onto McKenna after we'd leathered them in a Cup game and how Robinson approached "bringing youngsters through".

There was a pretty interesting post on P&B by a Motherwell fan about Robinson approach to youth. Worth a read in terms of what he did at them with quite a few emerging youngsters there at the time. Not necessarily a firm guide to what he will do with us but interesting insight nonetheless. I’ll dig out a link

It’s in our favour that there are a couple of sides below us. Chances of both chasing us down are less. St Mirren look to have less fight in them and Killie have def found some spirit at home but not sure they’ll go on any kind of run. Suspect if we can pick up a result in Paisley we’ll probably be ok. Reckon we’ll start to build some solidity at Pittodrie too so Hibs might have little to play for in the last game before split. Have to target that. As others have said, Ibrox is probably a write off. Best we can hope for is that SR gets a spirit instilled in them that we don’t lose, back 5 and midfield 3 will be tough to break down and if they are throwing themselves at a win late on maybe we sneak in behind. It’s not impossible, don’t concede early and they might get jittery.

Having mulled this over and looking at some of the clues; - we triggered a clause to be able to speak to him - he mentioned he knows Lutz well and we know Burrows link - Lutz assertion that we need someone who knows the Scottish game Could it be that we have been doing this dance with SR for a few months as first option and the other candidates have been courted because we didn’t want to spend whatever the ‘clause’ demands? Could explain why St Mirren have been absolute dugshit for months if his head was gone. Just a theory.

So any development on Sandro? We’ve been so public about him I would have thought he’s a shoe-in. Out of work since Oct so can’t see any gardening leave issues. it’s hard to get a grip on his history, as Panda has already pointed out. Kept Mainz in the German top flight which was seen as a success of sorts as a small club in a cut throat league. Hertha were a shit show before he arrived so his time there was chaotic. No idea what he did in Moscow or NY but they have had a lot of managers in their short history, looks like they change them every year to 18 months and they’ve never had much success. It’s all a bit unknown, could go either way.

Preaching to the converted here buddy

I’m not sure either but I’m certain it should involve a leather glove and pistols at dawn. Modern football demands statistical analysis to provide evidence of success or failure beyond goals scored. I guess it’s part of the disease that money brings, along with VAR where big investments require certainty and security around everything to justify and protect their spend. That said, we are clearly far too light middle to back and so easy to cut through. Maybe we need to start winning those duels/duals/jewels

Pretty sure the rules are that if the stadium has VAR capability and it’s on TV it has to be in place for the game. Assume Dunfermline won’t have it?

In fairness to them, they did qualify some of it around the role players have on team/defence etc. for example, Milne is there for positional awareness and clearing rather than ‘battling’. Agree, these stats are only a part of the picture (RIP Ebbe) and no surprise, just thought they were interesting…apologies, will try harder next time

Not particularly specific to last nights game but was listening to the HWG Podcast this week and they did some interesting analysis on winning duels from the Hearts game. Talked about how we have tried to build a squad of technical players when physical battles is increasingly the dominant trend in the premiership. Even Motherwell (aka Ajax circa 1973) are battling to win possession. Stats for duels won (aeriel and ground) at Tynecastle; Milne 1/9 Morrison 9/13 Nilsen 9/12 Geiger 2/12 Hearts 55 Dons 45 This is a big issue for us and our ability to control games, breed confidence and create platforms to build on for the front line.

We’ve been generally quite good at keeping things under wraps when it comes to this sort of intel in recent years. I find it curious that in this process we have been quite public about who we are courting. I don’t think it’s a good strategy and is trying to appease the irrational fan base and media who want to know everything all the time and demand it of the club. All it serves is to build up expectation and then makes us look fools when it falls through. Seems logical to conclude that if Schwartz was a guest last night and his assistant was with him and DC talked about him in his interview that he’s being offered the role.

Not gonna give detailed view as I only half watched the game. What I saw gave me a little bit more hope for Saturday than I previously had. Next two games are pretty big as I reckon a couple of wins will see us safe. Beating Falkirk at home won’t be easy but we are looking a bit more lively at Pittodrie so that games a good opportunity to claw oursleves towards safety.

Only been half watching as really can’t get up for this. Looks like Olusanya is causing a bit of chaos without any control or direction. Might create opportunities for Nisbet but would probably rather see Bilalovic getting in behind than him. Agree with Jute, Nilsen needs subbed, go 4 and stick his son, Kjartansson in to screen backline. I’d love to see Shinnie in for Geiger as he’s struggled but can’t risk Shinnie with Saturday in mind.

Will be in the Elizabethan from around 3pm trying to block out the events planned circa 19:45 onwards. Expect it’ll be doors closed from about 5pm, wall to wall red army. COYR.

I’ve reconciled myself that the only way Jambos don’t win the title now is if they have an arse collapse (it’s Hearts so that is entirely likely). We need to get points. 100% we have to beat Celtic tonight, non-negotiable. Fuck worrying about other tin pot clubs who only win silverware if it was pre1903, they cheated their creditors or it was the championship title. ….or the tennents sixes. …..or runners-up in the fucking Texaco Cup.