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Because I was making the point that it isn't "one or two" who shouldn't be there. And yes, I include Adams in that. We wouldn't even be worse off without him.

So you want Barnes, Adams, Delap, Hirst. Luis Binks is also touting himself for a call up. So we're not talking one or two, we're talking potentially five. You could throw Angus Gunn in there too - although he at least has a Scottish dad, let's not forget he initially turned us down for England. And then there was Elliot Anderson, who thankfully has finally picked England, who said: "I went away with the Scotland team and I left camp after a few days.... I'm really thankful I've done that now. "I'm definitely English. That's where I see myself. It's just I hadn't really been called up to England throughout the ages when I was younger so I thought I'd take the opportunity to play for Scotland. Then, once I got that belief that I thought I was good enough to play for England, it hit me, and I focused on England." If you try to make international football like club football and let them switch about, then what is the point of international football? We could have had Elliot Anderson playing for Scotland in a friendly v England, then later playing for England against Scotland.

What if over the next seven months we found 11 players who all had Scottish grannies, no interest in Scotland but want to play at a World Cup? What are we actually supporting then? Or what if we couldn't get tickets because all the Welsh and Northern Irish fans with Scottish grannies wanted to support a team at the World Cup so snapped up our allocation? Nah, not having it.

Yeah, Tom English has never actually knocked us back. But Harvey Barnes can watch the World Cup on the telly. He's not Scottish and isn't remotely interested in Scotland. What he's interested in is getting the chance to play at a World Cup. Would love to sign Harvey Barnes for Aberdeen. But for Scotland, no. They need to change the eligibility rules. The grandparent rule should only be allowed to be used if you have also lived in Scotland for a certain period of time. Otherwise, it should stop at the parents.

This is very much the Hibs formation. Clarkson in deep allowing Armstrong and Shinnie to push further forward than the graphic shows, and it would allow our midfield to have an extra man to Hearts' two. Lazetic or Nisbet to partner Karlsson. I'm not sure which one works best or if Karlsson would even work in a front two. Looking forward to seeing Lobban v Milne on that side of the pitch. Shankland apparently hasn't travelled with the Hearts squad, Ague and Baningime also out. Cammy Devlin - arguably Hearts' best player this season - picked up a knock so will not be 100%. Halkett suspended. Despite their good start, the game is there to be won. Good time to be playing them.

I do like the thought of us drawing their play-off path, then booking all the flights while they have to wait patiently until March to see if they qualify first. Especially the flights from Dublin.

Seems like it, but I'm happy to be one of the faithfuls. #Traitors

Aberdeen winning the Scottish Cup and Scotland qualifying for the World Cup within six months of each other, that's the dream. And yet, within those six months, both Jimmy Thelin and Steve Clarke have had more criticism than praise, and not unfairly so considering there's been more poor performances than good ones from both teams. Despite that, they've still both delivered the ultimate high. Kasper Schmeichel also deserves a lot of credit for being part of both days.

How many moderators does this forum actually have?

The sad thing is Clarkson would excel in another team's midfield. Hibs play a three-man midfield; usually Barlaser who sits between Grant Hanley and the other two midfielders, McGrath and Mulligan. I don't think any of those players are particularly more talented than Clarkson. Barlaser does the simple things. Collects the ball from defence and passes forward. McGrath and Mulligan collect and have three to four passing options -their front two and the two wing backs who get forward at pace. They repeatedly cut us open with just two-three passes a few weeks ago, not helped by our front three doing little pressing on Barlaser, and Palaversa having a nightmare, but that's another debate. For us, when Clarkson plays, often he turns and his options are a long ball forward (not necessarily a bad thing because he can pick players out from distance, one of his strengths) or a side ways pass to the wing back. He could be used so much more effectively in a three-man midfield. Technically, he's a better player than Hearts' Cammy Devlin, but even though they also play two midfielders, Devlin has two wingers and two strikers to aim passes at. Wait for him to sign for Hibs in January and start opening up chances for Boyle, Bowie and the two Caddens, while we're still scratching our heads.

Thains in George Street [insert rowie emoji] But I'm always open to suggestions.

Aye. Could call it "stuff"

Good to see you Blin, been a while. Just don't ask me to clean any ashtrays

I'm up in Aberdeen this weekend, and one of life's great pleasures is getting a proper fresh rowie. I have to make do with the Asda or Morrisons ones down here and they just don't quite hit the same.

️ Warning: Really boring answer coming up. ️ There's been a few articles on this. Typically, a player is entitled to five weeks paid holiday a year. They can't always get those five weeks in pre-season. And I think they get public holidays added to that too as they work Christmas etc. If Aberdeen had lost the cup final, the early European fixtures would have meant we'd probably have started back 19 June like most clubs did. Can't be arsed working out how many paid holidays days that is, but it would fall well short of their entitlement. And then you had Keskinen playing at the U21 Euros and, I can't remember, but Mitov probably playing for Bulgaria etc. The holiday allowance actually starts 1 July, so the longer summer break we had this season doesn't actually count towards this season. So basically, in short, without a winter break, we need to use the international breaks to give them their days off. Woke nonsense etc.

I'd say the majority of this site were the same. I think he's here until the end of the season anyway, unless something drastic happens. We're not going to get relegated. Yes we're close to the bottom, but I don't see it ever being a real threat. Likewise, finishing third isn't the big deal it has been without the group stage football on offer so I don't think the club will panic about that either. Likely, the board will be quite happy to go along with Thelin's plan, and see what the new sporting director brings, all rather safe in the knowledge that qualifying for Europe (fifth might be enough), another Scottish Cup run, bringing through some younger players (Milne and Lobban), recruiting well in January, and the often said "moving in the right direction" are all still very achievable aims this season. I don't think he would survive a bottom six finish though (unless he leads us to Hampden again).

With Tobers confirmed to be out for the rest of the season, be interesting to see if we look to bring in another defender in January. I guess with Devlin and Dorrington we're okay for cover for now, but we saw last season Devlin have a big drop off in form when overplayed, and although Tottenham will be happy with Dorrington getting minutes they won't want a young player overplayed and picking up injuries either.

Thelin is actually beginning to remind me of McInnes in his final three seasons at Aberdeen. The football is boring, there's no real zip to our play, and very much like McInnes he loves a pointless late sub (or three). One thing I'll say though. He often gets accused of not being animated enough on the touchline. However, every time the camera panned to him he was deep in conversation with his coaches, clearly annoyed at something. Would love to know what he was actually saying as his discussions didn't really turn into any action.

That was really boring to watch. Very little movement from back to front. Polvara and Shinnie sat on the half way line when we went forward, so we were always trying to break Motherwell down without enough players to do so, and if we didn't catch them on the break, then plan b was to lob it into the box and hope it fell for us. Polvara and Shinnie were both okay defensively - Polvara won headers that probably none of our other central midfielders would. It's not that they had particularly poor games. But if they're sitting deep then someone else needs to go forward. The 3-4-1-2 / 5-3-2 (whatever you want to call it) would work better. So often we look a man short in midfield. I know Thelin came here with a reputation for his Elfsborg team winning games while not having much of the ball, but it's not a pretty watch.

Shinnie and Polvara an interesting one in the middle. Armstrong further forward again which is good, Lobban and Gyamfi at wing back. As others have said, would like to see more of Clarkson, but little to complain about with the line-up. Also good to see Bilalovic on the bench. Was beginning to worry he'd gone missing.

Aye David Begg is quite a prolific poster on X/Twitter and doesn't hide his Dons leanings. Jock Brown - I met him a few weeks ago when he was in to do the Sportscene anniversary show. Lovely bloke. Hopefully it's just a "you need to slow down" advice from the doctor and not anything too concerning.

There's a username from the past. Good to see you posting here Mason.

Nah we played a lot of good football, but a lot of poor decision making at the crucial moments is why there are a lack of stand out chances. Notable examples: Someone passing to Milne in the box when they should have taken the shot on themselves, Keskinen passing to Milanovic just outside the box when he should have kept on dribbling, Karlsson inexplicably flicking the ball rather than just making a normal pass that would have got us in behind quicker.