bloo_toon_red

I quite like him. Since his Motherwell days I've been waiting for his bubble to burst, waiting for the inevitable relegation scrap but it's never materialised. I've always looked at his transfer dealings with an obnoxious air of "Owain Tudur who?" and writing his team off, but you've got to give him credit, he can certainly spot a player. He's turned Inverness into a really respectable mid-table team who can hold their own. For me, he's a better option than Derek Adams. I don't think we'd be speaking about Adams if he didn't have his AFC connection.

First of all, what a truly wonderful strike from McGinn, it really was top-drawer. The thing about him is he really doesn't lack for composure, he is an intelligent player, someone we've lacked for a long, long time. Not much remains to be said about Langfield's howler. Carbon copy of first day of the season. He obviously anticipated a touch on the near post but even so, to make the same monumental cock-up twice in the same season is confidence-sapping. I am in the camp that thinks it is extremely simplistic to even begin to suggest how many points he's cost us; I read someone say it is 9 which is typical of the zoomer mentality. His team-mates and majority of right-minded fans will rally round him and rightly so, but it is becoming a growing priority for him to be replaced. Think what we'd have to agree though is the constant stream of vitriol he receives from idiots online is a constant shame on our club. When all is said and done, whatever anyone thinks of him, this is a living and breathing man with a young family, simply going about his day job. We really do have an embarrassingly large share of utter brain donors in our support.

I've just had a look over there. By Christ it doesn't get any better does it? I think I lost 10 IQ points just browsing the forum.

Central defender in on loan or short-term deal is a must now I'd say. Anyone worth a look?

The way I see it is that almost all SPL clubs lose a large proportion of their best players every summer. Football and the finances of it have changed so much in this country over the past ten or so years that "progress" in the conventional sense can't be measured in the way it was before. In this past summer, only ourselves and Hibs could be said to have brought in players that made the squad better than the year previous (some may argue ICT also). Back in the day, a team would lose 3 players in the summer and replace them adequately. These days, with freedom of contract, no transfer finance and a reliance on loan deals and short-term contracts, football squads drastically change from one season to the next, take this team line-up from September 2011 for example (chosen at random): Six of the 14 players involved in that game are no longer with AFC (and it is interesting to note that the four players from that side that Brown brought in have all left too) and one is out on loan. This I imagine is fairly standard throughout the SPL. My point is, is that progress year on year, unless it is significantly better or worse, is irrelevant with short-termism and high turnover of players. What you're looking for is peak performance with a group of players. That is obviously different if a club retains all of its players, but Aberdeen FC are demonstrably unable to do that anymore. The days of us being a top-4 team every year are long gone. The finances of the league are now so competitive that a player will rather live in the central belt and play for Motherwell or St Mirren than come to Aberdeen for an extra £200 a week when there's no guarantee AFC will be that top-4 team they were formerly known as. This is the reason why a certain type of football manager who can consistently obtain top-4 finishes should be worth his weight in gold in the current climate. We had someone like that, and as Azteca points out, we should be careful what we wish for.

Not working for me on either Firefox or IE on Windows 7. I'm sure it was working fine last week...

...I'd been thinking the same thing.

Craig Brown has been Aberdeen manager for about 2 years now. He is 72 years old and he wont go on forever. His contract is up very soon and Stewart Milne has been cagey about his thoughts as to offering a new one. Aberdeen FC have played some good football this season without really hitting the heights that some might say they deserve; 7 wins (only 3 at home) and 25 goals in 20 league games is not scintillating form. He has steadied the ship after the McGhee debacle, he has made us harder to beat. Everything is relative though. The team that Jimmy Calderwood had finish in fourth and qualify for Europe was unquestionably in decline, but was nowhere near as bad as what it became under McGhee, with similar personnel. McGhee turned that team to shit. It would be interesting to see what Craig Brown would've done with that team, which was undeniably better than the one he eventually got from McGhee. What I'm ultimately driving at is - has Brown actually improved us so greatly that he deserves a new contract at his time of life? Whilst I am certain that we wont finish in as poor a position this season as we have for the past three, we are currently as close to the bottom of the league as we are to the top, and also only 2 points clear of the 9th place we finished in for the past 3 seasons. Unless we round the year off with a cup win or a 2nd place finish, I think it makes sense for the board to let Brown go at the end of the season in favour of a younger man. Thoughts?

Winter Sun - cannae beat it. Anyone planning on getting away, or been away somewhere good last couple years?

What he's basically saying is that he is shitting his pants as he realises that he is culpable for pandering to his slavering masses and the resultant crowd trouble that it is going to cause. Charlie Green - ignorant, gullible, bigoted. Born to be a hun.

Translate for the dyslexics - Rogers has been given an opportunity to stick a Brown bellend where? Stinky cunt.

Max Clifford released a statement yesterday relating to his connection with the paedophile charges. "With my help, we'll help the police catch these sick 7-year old female rapists".

Little bit of ginger?

Pep Guardiola has been spotted looking at houses in Westhill.....

I have the feeling it is the latter. The quote relating to him having been relieved of his duties "without alternatives having been discussed" is common employment law parlance in disputes like this, just not in the archaic world of "professional" football. He's basically after a settlement whereby he gets paid up compensation similar to that already offered to him but also gets out of the "gardening leave" arrangement that the SFA put him onto. There's probably some clause in the SFA arrangement that if he takes another job he'll be due to pay back his compo or some such.

If that is true, the wee shit needs to man up and make his own decisions in life. It might be a short career, but unless his Da's been a professional footballer at some point, he doesn't have any right to be interfering in his adult son's day job. Be professional, sign a deal or don't and move on. Quit with the emotive Dad crap and get on with your career and let us get on with our team.

It was much weirder than that Tyrant. It was too freaky to put into words. The guy said, "I'm not into kids, I'm just into their qualities". I'm not sure if that's a step away from noncehood or what. But yes, obviously fucked up. When the British couple were on I'd said to the wife, I bet they're not able to have kids or something. Sure enough, the wifie had had 2 miscarriages. Tragic of course, but what a way to react to it. The husband had had troubles wetting the bed all his life and wore nappies. Marriage made in heaven I suppose. The UK couple were more sad than anything else. The US couple were just blatant paedos.

Did anyone see that 15 Stone Babies programme on C4 last night? Some middle-aged ginger yank with a comb-over had a 27yr old girlfriend who wanted to behave all the time like a 6yr old.

When my new Indian girlfriend said I could give her a facial, I nearly came on the spot.

You're my favourite Donstalker. Honest.

Video killed the radio star. So the radio killed a nurse.

Ted Heath Alistair McAlpine Neil Hamilton Christine Hamilton

The wife's hydraulic bed hoist not working again?

Frustrations are one thing, but with Hughes, Rae, Osbourne, Milsom, Jack (& Fraser) all out injured, I think we can surely agree that having 5 central midfield players out injured is a luxury that no team can afford and to be fair, it is not an area that necessarily needs strengthening at all.

A player who plays well over a spell of ten games is going through a rich vein of form. We will never know how good a prospect he is/was because he is unproven as a player at this level. Therefore there absolutely is doubt over how good a prospect he is. Comparitively speaking, he isn't fit to lace Stephen Glass's boots. With less than 1000 minutes of pro football under their belts, no player deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as Jess.