Panda

Good chance Armstrong might be back (think Leven said injury wasn't too bad but Wednesday was just a bit too soon for him).

Would start him ahead of Milanovic. 

Other than that, same team as much as possible (dunno the situation with Shinnie/Geiger, hard to keep on top of suspensions these days). With five subs available I don't think you should make too many changes though unless necessary.

Was gonna post this in the Motherwell match thread, but seems apt to just start this one early.

Was just saying to someone on my way home from work there that the Dunfermline tie being away is the best thing that can happen to us.

If it had been at home, of course it increases our chances of winning, but it's another 9,000 home crowd, a win expected, and even if we get through it's not going to give our season a massive lift. The same way it didn't when we beat Raith Rovers in the last round. Sometimes even reaching Hampden gets a muted response.

But away from home, Saturday night, 2000-3000 travelling fans - maybe even more - the away end buzzing. One of those nights that - if we win - you get that connection between the fans and the players that we've seldom had this season. The new signings get to see just how good our away support can be if they deliver good performances.

A "proper cup tie" if you like, a chance to make Neil Lennon greet. It's something to look forward to which we really, really needed to keep the enthusiasm going for this season.

Also, despite Hearts, Hibs and Motherwell having significantly better league seasons than us, the odds on us winning a trophy are a lot shorter than it is for them, which is really quite something. 

Tickets: Stand behind the goal holds 3,000. When Hibs sold it out they were given an extra 1,000 in the main stand and in the stand opposite, turning the ground almost into a 50/50 split. Saturday night will put a few off but we'll still take very decent numbers I'm sure.

11 minutes ago, Panda said:

Next red card is vital though... 

I was only joking when I said this

7 minutes ago, Panda said:

 

Nothing much coming off for Milanovic, but I can see him scoring.

Or maybe not..

Have played well. The goalkeeper doesn't fill me with much confidence with those goal kicks though.

Nothing much coming off for Milanovic, but I can see him scoring. Both him and Keskinen are getting a run on their defence, and Nisbet has been excellent. We have another goal in us I feel.

Next red card is vital though... 

This is the biggest game of our season, and yet we're going into it with a feeling that losing to Motherwell has just become normalised.

Lose this, and with top six looking unlikely unless we can find some stunning form, our next meaningful game will be in July in the League Cup group stage away to Spartans or something.

Win, and the whole outlook of the season changes. Now you have a huge cup tie awaiting, potentially 3,000 plus Aberdeen fans heading down to Dunfermline, electric atmosphere on a night when the whole country will want us knocked out, with Hampden at stake and a real chance to win the thing again. It's something to look forward to, which if we lose tomorrow we won't have. No European football for at least 18 months, no trips to Hampden this season, we don't even have life under our new manager until summer.

We haven't had a statement win in the league (beat a top six team coupled with a good performance) since Hibs in April 2025. Hearts has been our biggest win of this season, but it didn't really have you feeling the corner had been turned.

Praying the cup brings something out of us. 

Just keep our grip on the cup a little bit longer lads. Make us dream again...

19 hours ago, Dougal said:

I think a lot of Thelins success (initially with us) was down to the coaching team as a whole and things went markedly downhill after Emir Bajrami left. 

Don't know if I've said this on here before so apologies if I'm repeating myself. But someone well known within Scottish football enquired at the beginning of last season what Aberdeen were doing so differently in training under Thelin to produce such a stunning run of results. What methods was he using, what drills, was it more intense, more tactical, etc. Just what genius was leading Aberdeen to this run of wins?

He was told they were not doing anything different than what they normally do...

48 minutes ago, OrlandoDon said:

Absolutely there was luck in the way we started last season. We were not playing stunning football, blowing teams away. Credit to us, we ground out results, and fortune was on our side at times. There were certainly times opponents missed chances, and we took ours. Fortunate with the late nisbet goal at Ross county, hung on a little at Dundee in the second half, 3-2 v hearts they missed a bunch of chances etc.

to finish 5th was prob about right because we were rank pretty much from the league cup semi until the end of the season.

Our luck ran out and the breaks stopped going our way. We were unfortunate in the bad games at times too, but for the most part we were a shit watch for a number of games, and a shit watch for most of jimmy’s time here.

in the cup, hearts were better in the semi and them going down to 10 was massive, then 9. Final, Celtic were off that day, don’t think that was down to us, hit the post the bar etc, and we were fortunate with our goal. We defended well, but we certainly didn’t outplay them. Tremendous penalties from us but i do feel luck was on our side that day.

I might concede the first three paragraphs, grudgingly, mainly because last season's league performances mean nothing to me.

But no, not the cup. Hearts were not better then us, was pretty even until they went down to 10, and Devlin should have been off long before he did. I'd have fancied our chances at 11 v 11.

"Celtic were off it". So were we in that case, I saw us play much better than that last season. But even so, the best players on the park were wearing red that day.

5 hours ago, Elgindon said:

Beginning to believe its as much about pot luck as to who fits in where.Deflated when McInnes was appointed,as plenty others were too,but he surprised me.And the opposite with Thelin,genuinely thought here we go,and was surprised at how poor he ended up.

    Odds are we must be about due a good guy.....

Aye I am calmed by the fact Lutz has clearly done his homework on this guy and followed his progress for a while, to the point that his tenure in France and the wait to get him hasn't weakened Lutz's resolve to appoint him. 

Thelin perhaps was good on paper, but maybe a deeper dive would have shown a few more cracks, not that you can ever guarantee success or failure.

24 minutes ago, OrlandoDon said:

lucky start to last season, and lucky cup win.

I'm not having this. 

It wasn't a lucky start to the season. It was a team that needed to improve to keep the run going, and unfortunately didn't, but they earned every single one of those wins, the same way I wouldn't suggest the three months without a win after it was "unlucky".

If anything, considering Hibs were very fortunate with some refereeing decisions in various games in the run in, we were perhaps UNLUCKY not to have had a chance of third on the final day.

And as for the cup, what was lucky about it? We actually trailed for most of the game due to Celtic getting some good fortune. 

Let's not denigrate one of the best days in our recent history.  

19 minutes ago, blinlemon said:

Fuck yer Barcas and Pana…Panash, Piana… ach those Greek cunts etc. 
 

Thought that sentence was leading up to Panda there

Trying to see the positives of him starting in summer; I think him being able to sit back, watch the games, and begin planning who will stay/go/come in will be very beneficial. Thelin didn't have that luxury, being the manager of Elfsborg still.

Likely too (unless Leven/Doc produce some magic) that, like Thelin and McInnes (for Hearts), he has the League Cup group stage to build some momentum for his first games.

But, it's also a lot of effort for a guy whose record isn't that good. Healthy win rate at Brann and won a cup. Off a poor spell in France (and I went on a Horneland/St Ettienne rabbit hole and really struggled to find many fans not absolutely slating him), but then a new language, league, culture - it was a difficult gig to take on. Maybe Scotland and Aberdeen will suit him more.

Cant say my excitement levels are the same as they were when Thelin was the target, but then maybe that's down to Thelin himself not being as good as I thought he'd be. But Lutz seems pretty determined this is the guy, and apart from our dignity, what have we got to lose?

53 minutes ago, Ajja said:

Utd play the Spartans and then Killie on that pitch before we visit. Oh joy. 

Yep, four games in 14 days on that pitch.

Been told we might get an update tonight or tomorrow. I'll revisit this on Saturday when we don't

Andreas Hinkel (who was linked earlier in the thread). He's said he hasn't spoken to Aberdeen and it's news to him, so if Horneland falls through I think we can rule him out.

8 hours ago, Jute said:

rom outside it looks like we have only started looking after we sacked Thelin. 

Horneland has been on the club's radar for quite some time, so the "should have names lined up," they essentially did. But, he only became available about three weeks into the managerial search. Would imagine it would have been really frustrating for the club if they appointed someone, only for their number one choice to become a free agent days later, so the time it's taken can be in part attributed to that.

Struggling to see what the issue here is. Perfect football conditions.

1 hour ago, Blow.Up.Sheep said:

It's hardly "jumping to conclusions" tho is it?

 

"It is more like he is not really all that sure if he wants the job or not" is literally an example of jumping to conclusions.

20 minutes ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

There are plenty of options.  From the more experienced like Stevie Clarke, John McGlynn or Michael O'Neill.  A current SPL guy such as Robinson, or someone lower down the chain like Scott Brown or Gary Naysmith.  I'd argue that any of the above would stand a better chance of success than taking in someone from Norway that knows very little about either our club or about fitba in this country.

I can see why people wouldn't be that enthused by Horneland. I think his record is decent, although mainly at one club. I do like his tactics though and think he has the potential to improve on what Thelin did, so I'm on board with it if it's him.

But you've just pitched Scott Brown ahead of him, simply because he has more knowledge of Scottish football.

Two of the managers occupying the top four in the Premiership at the moment are foreign. The "knows Scottish football" thing is an easy thing that gets thrown about - it's a whole management team these days, and we play each other 4-6 times a season so they get to know the opposition very quickly.

1 hour ago, TheDonbytheDee said:

 

Without knowing or checking, we can't be far off most semi finals and finals competed in, outwith the bigots, since our inception.

Think we share that accolade with Dundee United.

2 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

Really hope this falls through and we revert to someone who has experience of managing in Scotland.

Such as?

Great draw if we get through. Hopefully a decent kick-off time & I imagine we'd sell out the away end.

All four quarter finals are usually on the TV so we can forget about Saturday 3pm.

I did wonder with it being so soon since he left St Ettiene if there would be something still to sort out with them; either compensation or a payoff etc. Scott Burns appears to be hinting at that being the hold up.

Good job we've got no games any time soon. Can't see the Tannadice pitch surviving the expected rain next week either.

@swaddon

Provisional pitch inspection this afternoon apparently. So we may hear in the next hour that the game is off.

This game is now 4 March, which will be just after Celtic have played Stuttgart and Rangers, and we even get an extra days rest as we play Hearts on the Saturday.