Panda

Watched both Hibs and United's games. Dundee United were really poor, but it was their second game and they've almost a new team so you presume they'll improve. Strassen were no mugs to be fair. I wish them the best of luck v Rapid Vienna (it does us no harm if United have a bit of a run). Rapid aren't the team they were a few seasons ago when they played Rangers. They were fifth last season (so, on our level maybe?) and although they did the job v Decic of Montenegro, they weren't exactly up against top opposition. As mentioned in the other thread, if United can win they would take Rapid's seeding for the play-off round. They also get to visit a cracking newish stadium. Is one for us to take inspiration from if we ever build one. A 24k capacity (28k with standing). Built nine years ago. For Hibs, they started well but faded badly, were fortunate on a few occasions, wasteful finishing from Midtylland kept them in it, managed to find an equaliser from somewhere and were hanging on for penalties. Again, with United, early in the season and that, but wasn't overly impressed with Hibs. The quality of the Ukrainian league has dipped for obvious reasons - but Oleksandria were second behind Kyiv last season and were walloped 6-0 on aggregate by Belgrade, so that's a tough one for Hibs to get through.

Aberdeen Midtylland

Yeah don't know who to believe. Previously Aberdeen have been desperately trying to shift shirts at the end of the season, so have obviously over estimated what they would sell. These are "record sales" now though and certainly I've never known us to sell out in just a few hours (I actually went on the club shop site this morning just to see if there were any more photos of the strip and was put in a 20-minute queue). We're not considered an "Elite" club by Adidas (odd, considering we're the only club on their roster who are Scottish Cup holders) so getting a restock appears to take time. If you remember the 'spezial' thing they did, the stock appeared to be really low and has never been restocked. Likewise, I wouldn't put it past us to make headlines with "record sales" and "strip sold out in hours" thing. But why make someone wait a month for a shirt they want now - in a month they might have changed their mind (or found other means). For comparison, Man Utd (who are an Adidas elite club) you can buy both strips in all sizes on their site, and likewise Celtic (elite from this season, which is odd because... I already used the Scottish Cup joke didn't I?) all three strips on their site are available in all sizes.

No, Hamrun face Maccabi in QR3, but take their seeding as the draw is made before the QR3 ties are played (Monday to be precise). Hamrun were in the Champions League and have dropped down after losing to Kyiv. Hibs and Dundee United are now big underdogs in their Conference League QR3 ties, but the one good thing for them both is they will be seeded for the play-off draw as they'll take Partizan Belgrade & Rapid Vienna's seeding respectively. There's still some very tough teams who are unseeded though so they could still end up with a Utrecht, but there are also some very winnable ties there. From what I watched tonight though both need to improve massively, especially United.

A good move for both. Would be hard to see us pairing Pape with Yengi or Lazetic (should he sign), and I think pre-season shows Boyd is perhaps the back-up for Aouchiche, so his game-time would be limited, so sell him now while his stock is high. Will be watching his semi-final header, and his turn and pass in the final accompanied by "Gueye's done quite well since coming on" for the rest of my life. Cheers Pape.

Lovely. If this is the last Dons strip with Adidas then it's a fine way to bow out. Aye they've had a few - as @RicoS321 put it - abominations. But generally we've had 83 and 90 inspired kits and it's been decent. I get the fear with some of them. Castore's kits were falling apart, Hummel I don't like the arrows on the sleeves which Hearts & Killie are stuck with. Nike - surprising considering they're a big name - a lot of their strips look cheap. Joma have produced some awful Hibs strips. Puma I'd accept (although that would be a kick in the baws to Adidas), I liked some of the strips we had with them previously and they've been producing some very decent ones for PSV. Umbro have been making a comeback and have a long association with the Dons. Also, don't know if it was just someone making up a rumour, but someone said we were possibly going with Mizuno. Not seen or heard anything else about that, but that would be interesting as their golf gear is of high quality. They're quite new to the club football market - Lazio, Monaco, a few smaller German clubs and their own Japanese market appear to be all they produce for.

Unless we're signing a new deal, then this is the last season we'll be with Adidas, so I suppose they have to milk every last drop out of it. I'm pretty sure I read Aberdeen saying they were getting a new batch of 'north-sea' kits in, then after that there would no more restock, so fairly soon that strip won't even be on sale.

This usually means the launch of a new shirt, so likely a third one ahead of Tynecastle on Monday. The 'granite strip' was only released in September so isn't even a year old yet (although I'll let them off as we did wear it quite often and we probably need this strip registered in time for Europe). The black and gold one, which was heralded so much, was only worn four times - the women's team did at least essentially make it their home shirt which I think is a good thing. Hopefully this one is just plain white without the gimmicks. "It's got green in it to represent broad hill, and the light brown is to represent the sand at the beach". Or it may not be a strip at all, and could just be them getting a new batch of mugs in. I did notice they had run out of the cup final mugs and have been waiting patiently for more.

I'm a big advocate of sizeable away supports, but can see us getting shafted a lot this season. We already get a small amount at Tynecastle, I wonder if Hibs will respond to having their allocation slashed for the top six split last season, and Dundee United are cuttings ours more and more (not helped by some of our fans' behaviour there).

Ties won't be confirmed until the end of this week because Dundee United for example may or may not be in Europe, and that might affect other scheduling etc.

I dunno, I think he's an interesting one. Nisbet (and Miovski actually in the very few games he played under Thelin - I'm thinking St Johnstone away on the first day of last season) played deep and let someone else go beyond them. I don't think we're signing Lazetic to play as a 20-goal a season striker (and if he does bang them in that's a bonus), I think we're signing him to compliment the other attacking players, ie create space for Keskinen, Aouchiche and Milanovic. Keskinen and Milanovic look like inside forwards rather than wingers, and you don't stick an Adam Rooney type next to them because he wouldn't get the service he needs.

Fun fact, Lazetic played against Slobodan Rubezic twice last season. Rubezic's team won both games 2-1. Lazetic started both games and was subbed off at half-time in both of them. Watched a wee snippet of one game. Here's Lazetic slipping in behind the two defenders, and Rubezic trying - and failing - to stop Lazetic getting his shot away. However, perhaps that sums up Lazetic's limitations, it's a fairly tame effort at the goalkeeper, and had he been more aware he could have taken advantage of Rubezic being drawn to him and slipped in his left winger, but probably harsh on account he wouldn't have been in his eyeline.

Fits the Thelin mould - probably not gonna be a prolific goal scorer but brings the wingers into games. Puts the onus more on Keskinen and Milanovic to get the goals. On paper it doesn't sound too exciting, but we've been chasing this guy for some time, so he's not some panic buy and clearly is a fella we see a lot of potential in. Still only 21. Oddly, he moved to TSC in Serbia on loan last season just as his uncle (who was the manager) left to join Maccabi Tel Aviv. From the looks of it only completed 90 minutes eight times in his 39 appearances, but managed to pick up far more yellow cards than goals and assists. My fear with this is it's another project and we have plenty of those already with Yengi-Ambrose-Sokler-Gueye. It's still a downgrade on Nisbet. But as above, I don't think Thelin is bothered about having a Shankland-type goal scorer - even Nisbet didn't bang them in every week - and it's more about complimenting his wide players.

Millwall boss Alex Neil on Kevin Nisbet, who missed their pre-season trip to Spain through injury. “I watched some of his games at Aberdeen,” Neil told NewsAtDen. “I spoke to him since we came back, I spoke to him in the summer before we came back in. “We want to get Kevin fit. Unfortunately he’s injured at the moment but when he does get back fit the opportunity is there for him to try and stake his claim to get in the squad. “So he’s like every other player we’ve got, there’s no differences, like I’ve said there’s no pre-conceived ideas on any player at the moment – everything is up for grabs.”

That's probably why St Johnstone got relegated. Didn't prepare properly by facing Aberdeen in pre-season.

Yeah I think us playing Friday was deliberate in order to give us time to fit in one more match. It'll likely be a full squad game behind closed doors. Hearts are doing the same I'm sure on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Well, here we go again, another season of joy and despair. Hearts had a very similar League Cup group stage campaign as to what we had last season. But, as was often said about us at the beginning of last term, I'd like to see them tested before talking them up. It's easy to look impressive at home to League 2 sides. Claudio Braga and Alexandros Kyziridis could be very good signings though, and they appear to have a dangerous front three with Shankland staying. One thing Derek McInnes generally does is get his striker scoring. I watched the goals from their friendly with Sunderland, and if we thought Aberdeen had gifted Ipswich their three goals, it was nothing compared to Sunderland's efforts, so hard to read too much into that. But we clearly need to tighten up. At the time of writing, with no new signings in and with Sokler, Gueye, Tobers and Gyamfi all presumably injured, I'd expect a similar team to what started v Ipswich. I wouldn't be surprised to see Morris keep his place for "experience" of going to Tynecastle, Nilsen maybe start too ahead of Aouchiche, and maybe even Dorrington in for Milne - which wouldn't be a slight on Milne, more that Dorrington and Knoester have played more games together. But, I'm second guessing Thelin. I rarely manage to get his starting XIs correct. Looking forward to it. I don't think in my lifetime that Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibs have all been good at the same time. The transfers they've made suggest all three could be handy this season, and it would be mouthwatering if they were (and Dundee United too), but we'll see. Likely someone will end up sacking their manager during the season - hopefully not us.

I am actually wishing him well. Firstly, and mainly, because he at least gives good soundbites, and I have to listen to most of these manager interviews every Saturday. Give me a Pressley or Martindale over Kettlewell and McInnes every day of the week. But also, he scored two cracking goals for Aberdeen in his career, and has said before he grew up as a Dons fan, so he seems like a good guy.

No complaints about the result as Ipswich were clearly a level above us, but we did gift them their goals. First, Shinnie loses possession and Milne appeared to be having to mark three blue shirts. Second, Aouchiche gives it away and Mitov spills the initial shot. Third, can't really remember it but did think at the time Mitov could have done better. On the flip side, you could say after half-time we had figured them out, as their third was very much against the run of play. But, basically Ipswich just pressed us high and overloaded us. We couldn't get out because we couldn't hold onto the ball.

Was thinking about this the other day too. I thought we began last season weaker than the previous season, due to Miovski and Hoilett leaving. This season, with Mackenzie and Nisbet leaving I think we're weaker again. But, haven't seen Gyamfi yet so we may well be okay there, but yeah a striker is imperative.

Really hope there's one more friendly in us before we go to Tynecastle, even if it's just a closed-door bounce game among the squad. I don't think we were that bad though considering the quality of opposition and our lack of games and sharpness. Ipswich had a 25-minute spell where they roasted us, other than that we competed well without ever looking overly impressive. However, doesn't help that already we're having to shoehorn Molloy at left-back and Ambrose up front (granted, he scored) because of injuries, albeit it from the bench. Yengi, he's exactly the player to fit Thelin's model - which looks like a target man with pace to run in behind on the counter, and the link up man to bring Milanovic and Keskinen into play. Unfortunately he showed none of that tonight, but hopefully there's more to come from him. He hasn't played a lot of football and I fear he's a guy that we might not see the best of until December/January, a bit like Kevin Nisbet. Polvara - if only he had pace, he could play that roll nicely, and I'd actually like to see Polvara alongside Keskinen, Aouchiche and Milanovic. But we're crying out for either one of our guys stepping up or a new striker arriving in the next week.

Has to be said - Ian Westlake is his name -despite my snippy comment, he's actually been an excellent co-commentator, have enjoyed listening to him. And he may well be right with the "more than four goals prediction".

Three-nil harsh on us, been much more pleasing on the eye from us in this half. But, Mitov been poor, and again our full-back is outpaced. An Ipswich fan doing the Soccer AM "easy-easy" chant about 20 years after it went out of date sums up why we shouldn't invite English teams up here. Yengi not impressing but I'll give him a chance before slating him. Palaversa too sloppy. On a positive note though, the four of Keskinen-Aouchiche-Clarkson-Milanovic are showing promise. Milne has been good - I wouldn't blame him for the goals. Good to see Nilsen back. The new boy Kjartansson coming on too will be interesting, looking forward to seeing him.

Defensively we're certainly getting a work out. It's mistakes they've punished. Their wingers are so much quicker than our full-backs; a quick one-two and they're in behind. Started to get things going for the last 10 minutes of the half. I suspect a lot of that was Ipswich dropping the pace. Aouchiche looks good. Yengi maybe just sluggish due to pre-season and the injuries he's had, but so far disappointed at his lack of pace. The commentators saying Ipswich plan to change most, if not all, of their starting XI on the hour mark, so we'll likely get a lot more joy in the second half.

Also the commentator has not once, but twice described Alexander Jensen as "Finnish centre back Richard Jensen".