Ajja

Don't think Miller will be part of the long term plan at Pittodrie under McGhee. We have to give Paton a run up front, his effort and composure puts Miller, Mackie and Maguire to shame.

If we can start shipping first team players out of the picture who can't be arsed and go with Paton, Pawlett, Crawford etc then I think we will at least see a team that gives a shit.

Jerel starts. Brown on the bench for them. According to RG on BBC

Are the club in control of this though ? I thought we were competing well with Hearts and UTD (when did they last finish above us?) or have we given up on this season before a ball is kicked in the SPL ?

I agree its a lovely idea but we simply aren't in a position to make it work at present. The burden of our debt and the operating costs of the club are such that we cannot afford to increase our wages bill to accommodate such players and we are not able to commit long term to contracts for fear of a drop in revenue if there is no success on the park. Its bit of a downward spiral at present. The idea of speculate to accumulate or invest to get a return are all well and good but when you are a business operating at break-even point and carrying the debt we are you just can't take those risks. Add to that we are operating in a market place where our competitors have more money to spend and you have players and agents dictating the length of contracts with the constant hope they can secure a move to where the streets are paved with gold. Now, we also have to compete with huge swathes being taken out of our revenue from a reduction in TV money and the risk of lower ST sales and gate receipts due to the recession. Aberdeen FC are in the business of working with the best we have and when any players or managers show any sign of promise we will not hold onto them, its that simple. To believe anything else is just romantic pipe dreams.

Don't take it personally, I only hit the quote button as you were last to post. I did paraphrase the word 'dancing' as it seemed to allude to the subject I was exploring in my comments. That doesn't necessarily mean you need conclude that you are individually guilty of everything I then say subsequently. However, if it makes you feel better then I can see no evidence of you "persisting to claim to know how it should be done"? My point is a general one and there are endless posts dedicated to criticising the club and its management for the way it negotiates transfers and contracts. In my opinion, we should be more objective in our judgements as we don't know what is going on behind the scenes (well except Jager of course). I take your point that speculation that maybe McGhee is doing the right thing by holding off and not jumping in without thinking could be just as "pish" as the speculation that he is wasting time and opening himself up to being mugged again. I would say however, that by using the term 'we' in my criticism I was kind of in agreement with your point already as that tends to suggest I included myself in the accused population. It is, as you say all speculation. The key difference probably being that I'm right.

We don't have any idea what stage discussions are at though. We don't know if wages have been discussed and their demands exceeded our budget and there are ongoing negotiations to get them down. We don't know if the any of these guys have been offered deals and are going off to think them through. We don't know if they spent 4 days at Pittodrie and thought better of it. We don't know what has been said or what offers have or have not been made. A deal might be 24 hours away, it might be 10 days away, it might not exist. What we do know is that we know fuck all. We sit in our houses or at our work places and make assumptions driven by our feelings of frustration and in some cases desperation.You can speculate about how incompetent Miller is in doing a quick deal, or how much 'dancing' McGhee is doing but at the end of the day we still know shit. Yet persist in claiming to know how it should be done.

If you are drawing parallels with the business world then you also need to understand the way that employers will view demands for pay increases on the basis of equity with other employers. If you have 2 or 3 staff who are being paid top dollar (relatively) because you were forced to pay that to attract them then you can be damn sure that every other employee who has any sense that they are worth just as much will be looking for parity. Then when you have brought them into line the top guys then think they should be getting more because the staff below them are now in lne with them. As a manager you have to keep a motivated and engaged staff without blowing your staff budgets. Sometimes that means saying no to the escalation of salaries that can come from these situations. Unfortunately for Hart, he was the one who was told no. Whether he was as good as Miller et al or not is not as important as the fact that he was not being attracted to the club and was already accepting a reduced wage. Its always harder to climb the salary ladder than it is to enter it at a higher point.

Could be that McGhee is waiting until closer to the end of the transfer window. The wage costs on these guys will likely reduce as the door slams shut and they are potentially without significant employment. Although we are feeling the panic of a thin squad I still think that dropping your drawers to any potential recruits is never a commercially shrewd move.

Them leaving will have no bearing on deals. They will have agreed a fixed period for trials, we can't keep them at Pittodrie forever.

France scraped a win in the Faroes again. Croatia beat Belarus 3-1 away so that puts them ahead of us in the 2nd place ranking. England pulled back to 2-2.

A jolly good fisting doesn't count as armed forces. Especially when there is no forcing involved

Possibly dodgy Barnet too ?

Get onto Ricketts twitter pages and you will get the gen on his movements today.

I'm with the unpopular position on this. What is so special about them ? So they put themselves at risk in their career, join the queue. Don't give me this defending liberty horseshit either, its a career choice. The armed forces themselves are selling it that way in their advertisements for recruits. There is some sort of collective guilt being manufactured in this country about the loss of life being experienced by our soldiers in the far east. While I agree its tragic that lives are being lost, we are involved in a conflict and that is an unfortunate bi-product of such an event. It seems that the British public want to see measures taken in parts of the world that are volatile but are not willing to accept any loss on our part. So to balance up the guilt that we feel for this we have to over-compensate by treating the vehicles of for this action as some sort of special group. Its a knee-jerk, guilt ridden decision being made to appease public opinion and its myopic and inconsistent. Still, if it boosts the crowd on a Saturday then yee-ha. Get them in

Was just reading about that: http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/Hearts-chief-Vlad-sees-bank.5541712.jp Although the bank itself is not directly linked to Romanovs support of Hearts it aint gonna help him to improve their predicament They certainly won't be appearing on the high street of Edinburgh any time soon. Been open for a year with 7 staff and zero customers

http://europeanfootballweekends.blogspot.com/2009/07/red-ultras-aberdeen-football-club.html Your favourite villians, those scamps you just love to hate...

Also if you look closely at the top right of the Evening News mizer posted....

Just been having the same problem. Whats it about ? To limit posting ? I tried to post about 60 secs after my last in a different forum and it still came up....how long are you supposed to wait ?

Not a bad idea, put me in mind of abetter idea though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7XNb3Q9Ek The ride of the Valkyries...awesome scene

I feel uncomfortable with his name too. I think he is one of Robin Hoods band of merry men

Was he not a loan player with them ? Celtic signed him from Cardiff did they not. Again, I'd be surprised if Celtic want to assist any of the top six to strengthen.

Or they could pass a mic round the crowd

That video you posted sums up why The Northern Lights is a great idea in theory but dreadful in practice. Its a shit song to try and sing. The chosen key is usually wrong, the note formation doesn't work with a football crowd as its too complex and so everyone just ends up racing through it chanting the words. It always sounds terrible when its sung.

I'm pretty sure that will win it but its just so un-inspiring to hear some old rambling pish. Maybe if they got AC/DC and Kasabian to record an up-to-date version we could all be happy. An ass-kicking, ball beating version that will strike fear into the hearts of any visiting team...that and Angus the Bull of course. If the Orcadians vote then AC/DC will take it. Those cunts are mad for AC/DC, mad I tells ya.