BigRed

Blaming Miller is lazy and not fully justified.  He has made significant changes to the youth set up that we are now seeing the fruits of and hopefully will continue to.  He recognised that as a club we need to adopt the hibs model of a team capable of producing sell-able young stars.

 

For me it says it all that when I heard the score today I wasn't surprised and didn't muster more than a hurumph.  It wasn't till I came onto here and mad that I even thought about MM position.  His position, obviously, is untenable.  We have gone backwards, even compared to the shambles at the beginning of the season.  His signing policy has been atrocious.  His choice of captain abysmal.  He motivational ability non existent.  His utterings to the press manic.  His team selection questionable at best.  We cannot afford to go into the summer, never mind next season with MM.  Equally we cannot afford to sack him.  So Mark show some self awareness, dignity and respect for the club and fans and walk.

Good post. You're getting a double applaud for that once an hour has gone past and providing I'm not unconcious in a Lagavulin type frenzy.

Even in the deepest darkest dreichest days of Pele and Ebbe, it's hard to think of a point where our club reached as low a point as this.

McGhee has either been the unluckiest manager we've ever had, or he's been a man who has never, ever been up to the job from the minute he joined....because with a couple of exceptions this season has been the most chaotic, shapeless, hopeless, gutless and clueless I've ever seen from an Aberdeen side.

It's almost impossible to image that...no matter the players here next season....McGhee is somehow going to find the inspiration and ability to bring us back even close to the level we were at a year or so ago (which wasn't even all that great anyway).

The season hasn't even finished yet and already McGhee looks like a man floundering in the transfer market....slowly watching each of his '100 targets' slip away as he gives another wail of woe to the papers.

He's now had to suffer the humiliation of substituting the captain HE appointed as he was being booed and ridiculed every time he touched the ball.

Yeap, we have well documented financial problems...but anybody who doesn't think that McGhee should have gotten better out of the players at his disposal is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Regardless of circumstances, he's failed...and spectacularly at that.

I despair that in 3 months time he's going to lead us into more of the same humiliation and take us very quickly into a relegation battle that we won't escape from.

He is a f*cking clown, and we need rid off him before he's allowed to bring in more dead wood that will drag us down with him.

Get him to f*ck.

Starting to have a bit of a groundhog day look about things, with publicised targets rejecting Aberdeen outright or being linked with clubs liked Hearts, Hibs or the Arabs.

That's Foran gone, and the other 2 ICT lads either unaffordable or prefering to stay at ICT than sign for us.

Other targets such as O'Brien, Mehmet and Dorman are all now linked with Hearts, so we've absolutely no chance there if Hearts seriously want them.

I fear there's a long, hard summer ahead followed by some desperate and underwhelming signings at the end of July...

I would be willing to accept some sort of mitigation for McGhee....this mythical 'transitional season'.....if there was some sign of improvement, that there was some sign that McGhee was working on a plan, that the players were responding, that there was hope for the future.

But there simply isn't. McGhee's tenure has been an almost unmitigated disaster from day one.

It's not good enough to say....'ah, but he's had no funds to work with'.....it may be true, but there are many, many managers in the same position as McGhee, and they have to get on with it....it's their job to motivate and the get the best out of the players there, no matter their level.

Has McGhee come close to achieving that ? No, he hasn't.

And finally, the old....'it's not his team' excuse. Probably the most bizarre thing I've read. How many new managers when they come into a club instantly clear out the whole squad and bring in 22 brand, spanking new players ?

None. Their job is to work with the players they have and get more out of them than the previous manager.

McGhee has proved that he's completely unable to do that......there are bizarre statements out there on more fascistically run Dons forums that somehow this season is acceptable as it's 'transitional'.

As if in the summer McGhee is going to magic up a whole squad of better players and turn them into contenders.

These foold don't seem to realise that next season we're going to have 80% of the same squad there, with the other 20% made up of rejects, kids and trialists.....all led by the same manager who have proven himself incapable of doing the job from day one.

Look at it this way....if you were Miller and Milne, and you were discussing funds available for players (if any) in the summer......would you have second thoughts about trusting these funds to McGhee ?

I damn well would.

I'd be amazed if they got more than 60% renewals if McGhee stays.

Of course, season tickets should be cheaper in the 1st division.

Every cloud and all that....

I think it's now obvious that this is no longer a 'team'....it's merely a collection of individuals in red shirts who are floundering and all paddling in different directions.

The collective soul of the club was lost the second the Raith Rovers guy scored against us at Pittodrie and we now no longer have any idea at all how to perform even the basics of the game.

The management have obviously lost the dressing room (long been lost I believe) and McGhee is no longer capable of instilling the belief and tactical know-how that we need.

If he had any decency at all, he would resign immediately. Unfortunately he doesn't, and he won't.

Even then, it would probably be too late.

I fear that all we can do now is pray that the 3 clubs below us can't pick up enough points over the next 5 games, because we've lost the capability to determine games for ourselves.

I thought the spectre of relegation, and the utterly devastating effect it would have on the club, was gone....but no, a series of remarkably foolish and short-sighted decisions by the board has brought it back knocking on the door.

All we can do now is sit back up hope that Falkirk, Killie or St Mirren don't get enough points.

It's not just McGhee that does that though. Gus McPherson, John Hughes, and Jim Jefferies are all notorious for that. I'd even go as far to say John Hughes is even worse than McGhee.

That's only because Hughes is the thickest khunt I think I've ever heard on TV.

The shite-o-meter reaches overdrive when McGhee talks though.

Just one game closer to the end of this abysmal shambles of a season.

Every cloud an' aw that....

I think aberdeen should drop player of the season this year in acknowledgment to what a disgrace of a season It has been and that none of them deserve any awards.

The most sensible suggestion I've read in ages.

I can't even consider one of these utter f*ckwits getting a trophy for the dovers they've put in this season.

OK, maybe Fyvie or Paton, who at least have youth as an excuse and have taken on far more  responsibility than should have been expected.

I couldn't stand one of the other c0cks standing there with a cheesy grin and a trophy. I'd like to ram it right up the fückers ärsehole, sideways.

Since the main requirement of anybody to play for Aberdeen these days is to be cheap, I'd imagine Grassi is a shoe-in for a new contract.

Couldn't agree more.

 

Most managers in the SPL talk shite and I don't there's one that particularly stands out from the rest.

That's true, but very few managers contradict themselves as much as Mcghee.

The funniest thing is that he doesn't seem to realise he's doing it.....one day he'll say something 'relegation is impossible', and then the next day he'll look the reporter in the eye and say 'we can be relegated you know'.

Personally, I think he's making enough balls up with his lack of man-management skills, daft team selections and tactical ärse-ups.....I'd prefer that he said absolutely f*ck all to be honest.

He should be apologising for the second goal, where he neglected to mark the only Killie player within a 40 yard radius of our goal.

Easy slip up to make I suppose, considering the guy was 6 feet 3 and wearing a blue and white striped shirt....how are you supposed to spot him ?

I liked him.

Having opposition fans on here made feel it was like the 1980's again, and we weren't utter horses dovers.

Sigh..... 

We don't only have that number. That's the number who have bought tickets from the club directly, not those who have only gone through supporters clubs, friends etc.

Not sure why you keep bringing the diet huns up. They're a fucking hellish football club with a right wing support who'd rather be at Ibrox than Tynecastle. If they had 300 million fans and we only had 800 it wouldn't bother me a bit. I wouldn't support that shower of scum if you paid me.

Could it be because he's one of them ? 

Only a Jambo would think that we had crowds anywhere near 12-14 K.

Cheers Vlad, maybe you'd be better away annoying the dumbasses on AFC Chat...

Good article, and well balanced in pointing out the fact that some Dons fans would never, ever accept Calderwood together with the fact that The Slug himself was touting himself around at certain points.

For me the most salient point is the mention of 'implausible' statements from McGhee about getting the 'right players in'....something I completely agree with.

It's pie in the sky to think we're going to get in anything but dross and kids.

I can't be the only one pining for the days when we signed Seve, Nicholson, Miller, Smith etc.

Not that we'll be there, but we'd romp the first division.

I seriously doubt that.

There's no difference at all between the bottom half of the SPL and the top half of the 1st division.

If we were to be relegated I reckon we'd struggle to get into the top 4 of the 1st division.

Saying that, we won't get relegated this season simply because there's not enough games left....although I reckon we'll only take maybe 5 points in the games left and finish up around 9th or 10th.

Thank God we had a decent January. Without that we most certainly would get relegated.

Mulgrew is a left-midfielder, but he suffers from the curse of being left-footed and 'flexible'.

Hence both The Slug and McGhee constantly trying to fit a square peg in a round hole by playing him in defence....where he usually swings between uncomfortable and useless.

Give him a constant run in left-midfield and he'd look like a player again...unfortunately too late for that now and I fully expect Mulgrew to be lining up against us next season for Hearts/Hibs/United, if he doesn't got the Championship.

The rest of the first post is pretty much true....the constant pash that McGhee has talked since last July wore me down a long time ago, his transfer dealings would be pretty laughable if they weren't so painful, and his obvious inability to inspire this group of players and get them playing with any sort of cohesion screams 'lost the dressing room'.

It's a triumph of blind hope over reality to give McGhee any more time to make things worse...because believe me, if he cannot somehow turn things around and we don't hit the ground running in August, we WILL be bottom of the league come October......and by then it may well be too late.

I've no doubt he'll bring in a few.

However, I expect things like the '2 new players p*sh' once Pawlett and Considine are fit.

I've also no doubt unfortunately that none of the players we'll bring in will be as good as the one's going out...as unbelieveable as that seems.

Unless McGhee can show a previously unseen ability for astounding man-management and get them performing greater than the sum of their parts, we're in for more of the same come August/September.

I've simply no faith at all in McGhee to get things right, and I fear we're in for more of the Ebbe/Pele years in the wilderness.

Sorry...  

Next time I spend weeks on end doing f*ck- all right at my work, I'll turn round and say...'look, this is a transition. I need another year to 18 months, and even then I might not get it right, and I may drag the company down the drain in the process. Is that all right'

F*ck me. Comparing McGhee to Turnbull and Ferguson.

Things must be worse than we thought at Pittodrie if they're allowing fools like that access to a keyboard.

Not if his contract is allowed to die like his thus far horrific tenure.

 

We got Calderwood . . . . so there are better managers out there. That said, the board's ability to make a good decision is impaired to the point that I'd let minijc make the choice afore them.

 

It hasn't worked out, we move on.

I'm with you bro.

If it's only a one year rolling contract then we can bin him at the end of the season and bring in another manager.

The worst thing we can possibly do is allow McGhee to spend our meager transfer budget, then lead the team into further oblivion in the first couple of months of the season.

I say back McGhee. Give him a chance with his own squad. But also give him a free swing of the axe to clear out ANY players he doesn't want ... that includes players who still have contract terms to see out.

Again, a red herring.

There are hardly any manager's brought into clubs who are allowed to have their 'own squad'.

The remit is to get more out of the players there and to gradually over time improve the squad with additions.

It's cloud-cuckoo land to think that we're somehow going to have a clearout over the summer and bring in a whole team of bright, sparkly, steely, experienced players who are going to be better than what we've already got.

Anyway, I wouldn't trust McGhee with the 20p I found doon the side of the couch. His bumblings and hesitation in the transfer market before the season began cost us the chance to make any impact in Europe or to get off to a flyer in the league, and there's nothing he'd done since then to convince me he's capable of identifying the players that we need or having the skills to sign them.

This is a dangerous situation....some good posts there.

Unlike the situation with Pele, there's been no real focal point of the anger (yet)...no walk-outs, no demonstrations in Pittodrie Street......people have just drifted away and stopped going to the games.

There's been no comment from Milne and virtually none from Miller, and all we have is McGhee floundering around daily in the press making a clown of himself.

It's like all of this isn't actually happening...it's like all of this (if you believe some of the happy clappers on AFC Chat) is a natural part of a grand plan which is all going to come to fruition next season when the 'transition' is over.

You know, next season. When we get rid off Kerr, Mulgrew, Paterson, McLean, McDonald, Aluko and Langfield and replace them with.........well, who ?

In the mind of some, 'better' players. But in reality they'll be replaced by non-descript journeymen and inexperienced loan players.

And our club will face the very, very real danger of relegation for the first time in our history.

As I said, dangerous times. We're sleep-walking towards the abyss.

Bin him.

His remit was to improve this team and get it playing to its maximum. He's failed spectacularly.

No other set of supporters in the country would put up with this unacceptable dross.

The big problem for the board, is not where we end up in the league (as I doubt we'll get relegated) but its what effect this piss poor season is going to have on season ticket sales for next year.  Do they back the manager in the hope the fans will return, or do they sack him in the hope the fans will return?

Good question.

Inaction is not an option.

If we pretend this isn't happening and everything's going to be OK next season, then the bottom is going to drop out of the Aberdeen support.....season ticket sales will be around 5-6.000 and average gates won't be much higher.

Already this season this coming Saturday is going to see our only home gate which will be much over 5K.

I honestly believe that to back McGhee with cash would be criminal.....he cannot get the players to play for him and I have it on good account that the players can't stand him (giving them Sunday training and not turning up himself is one reason).

Is McGhee only on a 1 season contract ?

If he is we have to accept that the gamble didn't work, bring in a new boss and back him with reasonable funds.

Anything else is playing Russian Roulette with the very future of our club.