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I've actually went down a bit of a Maloney rabbit hole, looking at his tactics at Wigan and why it went wrong, and also at his short time at Celtic with O'Neill (he's actually still at Celtic as he's the pathway manager). And you (and me, considering my earlier comment) are being a bit harsh on him. Hibs - was his first job and he only got five months in it. Wigan - was a very difficult situation with points deductions and losing his best players, but his sacking was a surprise, and the general feeling is they've got worse since he left. I would actually say Wigan was probably his Bristol City/Derek McInnes and he'll be better for it. By all accounts he was pretty instrumental in the dugout at Celtic in getting them results. Favours a 4-3-3, attacking football, yet at Wigan and Celtic he improved the defensive side of things too. I'm not saying he's my first choice. I'd like us to cast the net far and wide before hanging my hat on anyone. However, I do think the club will consider him, and if they do I could warm to it. Like I said, ticks a lot of boxes for the club. Would be more of a head coach than manager, fulfills that popular phase "knows the league". Knows a few players as well - managed Shinnie at Wigan and was keen to keep him, tried to sign Kevin Nisbet. And hey, it might mean Mark "if you're no training with intensity, you'll no be in ma team" Fotheringham might follow him up the road. Fuck it, get the Maloney thread started. Bring him home.

Lycka till Jimmy, hejdå

Saw the thread and was impressed we were at 45 pages already, just one hour after Thelin's sacking. First up, Neil Lennon and Stephen Robinson should be nowhere near the conversation. At least there'll be no talk of Derek McInnes returning. Askou, I can't see him walking away when two points off a Champions League qualifying spot. Leven has little management experience. Got a new manager bounce when last in interim charge, and will be interesting to see if he can repeat it again. If he does, then maybe he is worth considering, but also takes some of the blame for the Thelin era (and Robson). Maloney - he ticks a lot of Cormack's boxes. A more experienced version of Stephen Glass, which was Cormack's original plan, and working under Lutz the club may see him as a good fit. I view him as more of a coach than a manager though, and his two stabs at management so far have been really poor.

Fun fact: Steven Pressley scored twice for Aberdeen in his playing career. Both own goals.

By all accounts, the players liked him, but thought he was too soft on those who stepped out of line, and ultimately that loses you a bit of respect in the dressing room. Yesterday raised alarm bells. It's been poor for a while, but I kinda still felt he was slowly getting his head around things, but it was such a calamity at Falkirk that it was hard to make a case for him beyond the weekend. But I'm glad he left before I started to get so rattled by performances I began to dislike him. A throughly decent man who led us to the Scottish Cup, but hopefully we've made the right decision.

No. When I get to Florida in June, me and you are going to sit down and have a very serious chat about some of your decision making.

Harsh on Keskinen. Works his arse off, and would say when he came on at Hibs he showed how he can make an impact (most similar player we have to Morris). There's a player there, but like others is arguably mismanaged - in and out of the team, given various different roles, not given much help from more experienced teammates. Would also say it's a bit early to give up on Gyamfi. Hasn't ever had a run of injury free games.

I really don't know where I stand on Thelin anymore. A few weeks ago I was confident he was getting January to make signings, and then at least until the split. And, I do kinda feel he deserves to defend the Scottish Cup. The Falkirk game for me though was one where the spotlight was really being shone on Thelin. Yes he went four at the back, but 4-2-4 didn't work. Then 4-2-3-1 with Armstrong at No.10 looked fairly promising as Armstrong began to look a threat. He kept that for 24 minutes before switching it again with Nisbet playing off Lazetic. That lasted six minutes before another change. That's just flinging darts and hoping for something. What now for Ibrox? Go five at the back again? Start Karlsson but haul him off like he does every game when he's doing little? Keep starting one of Nisbet and Lazetic despite neither working as a lone striker? Shinnie benched again with Devlin shoehorned in somewhere to take the armband? I've got no confidence in this team anymore, and I struggle to see Thelin having a really clear plan of what to do. My guess is the first half will be one game plan and it'll be ripped up at half-time.

But, you won't find that out until summer. He's not moving to us in January. IF Thelin leaves, would we wait until summer for Askou, with the chance there'll be offers from elsewhere? More chance of getting your dream of Allan Campbell signing.

Eleven games you say? Jimmy's first 11 league games were:- Played 11 Won 10 Drew 1 Lost 0 Goal difference +14

Do you honestly think he's coming to us? He's two points off second. Honestly, apart from a bigger wage packet, what are we offering him? By the time he sorts Aberdeen out, the Old Firm will have belted themselves out too. His chance to do something amazing is now.

I don't know how heavily involved Leven is on the training pitch, but a lot of our issues are coming from the training pitch. The goal we conceded today was failing to defend a set piece with the defence all over the place. That's the sort of thing a manager delegates to his coaches. And Leven has been part of a few failed management teams now. That would be my view ahead of any clamour to appoint him. But, again, like I said in my first line, I don't know how much power he has on the training ground or if he's being directed by the other coaches Thelin brought with him.

And it lasted six minutes. We have changed the front four a total of four times today. Stuart Armstrong has played four different positions.

Nisbet playing off Lazetic. That's great, but you're 75 minutes too late with that Jimmy.

You can hear "Thelin get to fuck" being sang by the away support

It's not actually our middle two that's the biggest problem. It's that Falkirk ping it wide and not enough players in red are stopping the cross. It means, in a weird way, we would be better with three at the back, as the three could deal with the crosses. But really, our wingers need to track back more, while one of Karlsson or Nisbet need to drop a bit deeper too to be an outlet. I would say Falkirk have shown us their best. A few adjustments and we can still win this.

It's not the 80s, unrealistic expectations again from the Aberdeen support.

Update: Have discussed the issue with tonight's Sportscene commentator, and I am assured it will be Lob-ban on the highlights. We can all settle down and enjoy the game now. Looks to me like a 4-2-4 by the way...

Before this game goes any further.. Dylan Lobban. I'd go with the Lob-ban pronunciation, but it's Low-ban in commentary. Until this matter is resolved, it's hard to see us holding onto the ball for more than five fucking seconds.

FOUR AT THE BACK!!??

Well, here's one for you. Thelin hasn't ruled out cutting Ester Sokler's loan short. I wouldn't be against it in all honesty, because I did say when he left I thought he was better than Yengi and Ambrose, so him taking their place on the bench while we move them on makes sense. And to be honest, is he really much worse than what we've seen from Lazetic and Nisbet? He has six goals in 12 appearances for the team sitting eighth in Serbia. Maybe he's finally found his shooting boots. Of course, we'd all like to see another striker signed that is better than all the names above, but it's likely we'll struggle to find one in a notoriously difficult transfer window. It may well be our marquee signing is someone struggling for game time elsewhere who we hope can rediscover the form that once had [Enter club with too much money] to pay [enter transfer fee player was never going to be worth] five years ago.

Important that we don't give Falkirk too much respect. They've won three games since October; two against a really poor Kilmarnock team, and at home to Dundee, who just avenged that result in midweek. They couldn't beat Livingston at home. "Tough away game", only if we make it hard for ourselves - it's a very winnable game. Our biggest opponent here is us playing slow ponderous football and adding to our recent list of schoolboy errors. I just don't want to see us passing it along a back five, going back the way any time someone closes us down, and then when we do break we have just one guy waiting in the box.

He wasn't rejected as such, more that Barry Robson went on such a good run of results the club opted to give it to him full-time. There's an argument that the club should have been looking at the bigger picture and should have appointed Thelin regardless. However, that's a tough argument to make when football fans generally look at results. Example - Wilfried Nancy's current results at Celtic compared to the interim Martin O'Neill.

I don't criticise him at all for appointing Thelin. It's the sort of appointment the club should be trying to make; a manager whose stock was on the rise and was held in high regard. And it delivered a Scottish Cup and £6m from Europe, so in terms of success it's still above most Aberdeen managerial appointments over the past 30 years. Probably only McInnes ranks above him in that time - he's the only* Aberdeen manager since Smith/Scott to have had consistently good seasons, and even then it finished on a sour note. *Some might say Calderwood too but that's a debate in itself. There's an argument the structure hasn't been in place properly for Thelin, the sporting director is only just in the door for example, and there's been failures at the club that aren't all on Thelin. But likewise, they're not all on Cormack, and there's a few at the club who like to hide away at times like these.

I absolutely would not want Askou. Because, if he even considered a move to Aberdeen, rather than back himself to chase down Hearts and the Old Firm when he's only eight, five and two points behind the three of them, then what the hell is wrong with him? Also, keep this going until the end of the season, and a bigger job than Aberdeen will be on the table for him.