wee toon red

Just catching up with the highlights. Yet another nonsense decision against us for the first penalty. Why did Logan get booked for conceding the second Hearts penalty but the Hearts boy that fouled McGinn didn't?

I agree with Tam McManus. Total embarrassment the club kicking up such a fuss and the supporters letting them down with such a pish turnout.

Aye, good on the club again. Pity no-one wants to buy the shite seats/the trains aren't running on time/I hate the HunFA but won't go help the team try beat them etc In all seriousness, it's great that Milne (Cormack?) seems to have grown a backbone but unfortunate, and short-sighted, that the board didn't wake up before a large portion of the support had thrown in the towel.

I don't for a minute disagree that we're treated as second class citizens when it comes to the arrangements, and, indeed, football as a whole. However, you either go to see and support your team, enjoy the atmosphere and hopefully celebrate a win. If people aren't going to the game because they can't get the best seat in the house then the TV companies have definitely won. There's some list of excuses why people aren't buying tickets, from your suggested "I don't want to sit in a shite seat" to others' "the SFA/SPFL are all Hun bastards" when the reality is that people aren't going because they're not really that interested and/or they expect us to get beat.

If people aren't going to the semi as some kind of anti spfl or sfa thing then that's their right. But to shift maybe 15,000 tickets for a semi and expect 23,000 for the final is a bit rich - presumably those same people will continue their "protest" for the final anyway?

If (when) we don't sell all our tickets for this one it'll be hard to complain about future allocations. For the club to stand up for the fans - for once - and argue for more than initially allocated, and be given more, and then not get the support of the fans is pretty poor.

As far as I can see there are 55 teams in the Nations League.

Not quite. 10 groups for the normal qualifiers. Top two from each group qualify. If any of those teams are due to take part in the Nations League playoffs, their playoff place will fall to another, non-qualified, team from the Nations League. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2020_qualifying

We would go into mini playoff with the winners of the other League C groups. Straightforward knockout, to be played after the "normal" Euro qualifiers are finished.

Excellent win, good to see four new names on the scoresheet. Hopefully McLennan not seriously hurt. Sounded like the first two goals were especially good, going by the radio.

You’d hope this is the kind of game where Anderson and Campbell should be on the park tout suite

They maybe, kinda, somewhere have a point - although Hearts could argue that Celtic played four games at Hampden last season so it evened itself out...

Interesting if true. Could well provide the link between the midfield and attack that we're missing but, equally, could be over the hill and arrive with a shite attitude.

You'd think, but then with Hearts having used Murrayfield for home games a year ago they'll probably use that as a reason to have them in Glasgow.

This "seven defenders" chat is pretty tedious, not to mention completely incorrect. For starters, Dom Ball is and always has been a midfield player who can (arguably) cover in defence, while Shinnie has played more games in midfield than defence in his entire time at Aberdeen, even if you can argue the toss over where his best position really is. You could put out a team of "defenders" but if you asked two of them to play on the wings and another two up front that's pretty different to playing all of them in the defensive areas, which is what the "seven defenders" brigade try to imply that McInnes does so they've got another stick to beat him with.

Bring the bastards on

I think Shinnie works better in there than GMS would, and, also better than anyone else we've got with the exception of Ferguson. Lowe at LB and Shinnie in the middle is, potentially, better than Shinnie at LB and Ball in the middle. Gleeson and Forrester were in "my" team purely as more attacking options than the team McInnes is likely to put out. In reality, the best way to get a result against Celtic is to get in their faces and put them under pressure constantly. With that in mind, I'd definitely have Shinnie in midfield as he has the drive and energy to do that. That also happens to be the way I'd set the team out every week so, picking a team from our full squad (so obviously not for Saturday), I'd go: ----------Lewis---------- Logan - Devlin - McKenna - Lowe McGinn - Shinnie - Ferguson - GMS ---------Wright------------ ---------Wilson--------------- So with no Ferguson or Wright this weekend(?) I'd pull Wilson back to that attacking midfield position, put McGinn up front with Frank Ross wide right and play Ball in CM as I think he has more energy and athleticism than Gleeson.

It's certainly bold but I doubt we'd ever win possession with that midfield, let alone do much to help out or shield the defence. If you want an attack-minded team, how about: Lewis Logan Devlin McKenna Lowe Gleeson Shinnie Forrester McGinn Wilson GMS At least Shinnie in that midfield would provide some kind of screening for the centre backs.

You want to play GMS in the middle of the park?

----------Lewis------------ ----Devlin McKenna Considine---- Logan Ball Shinnie Lowe -----------------GMS------------------- -----------Cosgrove Wilson------------- Lays out quite easily as 3-4-3 but it certainy wasn't as straightforward on the park as it is on paper.

I was going to post exactly that. Feels like there's at least one if not more on this board alone.

I think the point about our youngsters perhaps being better now than those we've had previously is a very good one. Whether that's in relation to the general standard of the squad or to previous generations remains to be seen. The lack of any of our recent unwanted youths going on to any success elsewhere would certainly point to the majority of them having been shite and does, to a certain extent, justify mcinnes' decision not to give them game time.

I certainly don't dispute the assertion that a striker would have made us a better team etc but to pare it down to "if we had Moult we'd have won those games" is far too simplistic. What the if the new striker had got himself sent off, been injured etc? And I emphasised the Scottish Cup game because no centre forward would've made Ball have a better game or sorted Arnason and Lewis out either.

You're not, in all seriousness, suggesting the difference in those games - especially the Scottish Cup semi when the entire team was atrocious - is solely down to Stevie May being signed instead of Moult/AN Other are you?