wee toon red

Just saw the goals and I think Mitov's getting a bit of a hard time. I'd have the second and third firmly in the "could've done better" category and on a good day you'd have hoped he'd save them both but they weren't exactly clangers - like the St Mirren keeper's for Lazetic's first (and Mitov's attempt at the disallowed goal). The defending around both the open play goals was way more of an issue than the goalkeeping but players have off-nights so what can you do? Lobban, Devlin, Milne and Knoester all need to - and will be - better in other games. I just wonder if it's a coincidence that in the game we score three we also leak like a sieve...

So the saviour of Scottish football and the King of Hearts Tony Bloom might be in a bit of betting bother? Oh my!

I think you and others are right: it only changes when the players change. So hopefully January but it likely won’t be great until the summer at the earliest. Pragmatic results beat sacrificing points for pretty passes.

I've said it before so I'll say it again: Miovski was good for us, not great, and any love for him can only have been because of how shite the majority of the rest of our squad was rather than him being any kind of special. Compared to proper heroes he was and remains a nobody. Shinnie deserves 100 times the love and respect that Miovski got but somehow he doesn't seem to get it.

Give in to what? Winning games? Like it or lump, we're winning more than we're losing now so any expectation that the system will change is very misplaced.

I don't think there's a formation that we could use that would solve our left side problem. We don't have a full back worthy of the name to play on that side and we're lacking a winger as well. Maybe Shinnie on the left of a four would be alright, be he wouldn't have much ahead of him so we'd still be pretty shite on that side. As @RicoS321 says, that's a squad-building issue. Likewise in the middle of the park, we just don't have the player(s) that we need to win the battle and control the game in there. If Jimmy is responsible for that then it's a big worry, if he isn't then it's also a concern but perhaps one that has been addressed with Lutz's arrival. He said in his arrival interview that there are one or two positions we need to sort out and I'll be amazed if it isn't left back/left wing back and centre mid. If we're not blaming Jimmy for recruitment then I'm ok with him getting until the end of the season but it'll mean Lutz has a hell of a lot of work to do in January.

Even if the squad isn't quite deep enough, we've got 20+ games left to compensate for that, we're running out of European games to win - and earn a shit ton of money from - so I'd rather we prioritised those. As Orlando says, a few of our squad are highly likely to only be here because of the European games so it's important we give them proper attention.

I'm curious as to the school of thought that the Livi game is more important than this one. We're not winning the league (this season...) and we're clearly not getting relegated, so if beating Livi is to have any relevance it must surely be to get as high up the league table as possible, to... qualify for Europe? Just to "not prioritise" it anyway? Doesn't compute.

Wanting as many Scottish players as possible in the Aberdeen team but not being as fussed about applying the same principle to the actual Scotland squad is quite the take

Because if our board were doing the same thing then I’d imagine we’d feel the same way as the Celtic support do now.

Despite it being Celtic, my sympathy is with the fans on this one. The board are taking the piss and it's starting to show on the field. Get it right up the lot of them, of course.

That's a shocker. Wife died two years ago as well, 12yo twin boys orphaned.

The simplicity of more strikers = more goals never ceases to amaze me. Two up front guarantees nothing, unless the proposal is a big man/wee man set up where we launch the ball from the back in a 00s Martin O'Neill style. Removing a midfielder to stick another striker in the team is far more likely to result in our midfield being (even more) over-run, almost zero possession and no protection for the defence. The answer isn't more strikers, it's midfield players who are more comfortable on the ball and can pick a pass, ideally to hard working wingers and/or attacking midfielders who aren't afraid to have a go at the opposition defence.

If we can’t make a player like Clarkson work in our team then that’s our problem rather than his and he would be better off away. Which, imo, is a sad indictment of our current state of affairs.

We're normally pretty decent at the commercial stuff but this is an absolutely idiotic decision.