Panda

I was, probably like most blokes, quite ignorant about the whole thing until a few months ago when a couple of female footballers were explaining how being on their period can actually increase the risk of ACL injuries. Think they're now doing a study into it. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/10daily.com.au/amp/news/sport/a200217eztjb/sexism-or-science-aflw-investigates-if-players-periods-linked-to-acl-injuries-20200218

Obviously, I don't take any of your posts seriously, I just enjoy them for what they are - an old eccentric trying to survive in the modern world. However, "zero business potential" is worth picking up on. The Champions League is being revamped and from next year there will be some serious money being ploughed into it, from TV deals, sponsorship and UEFA funding. Scotland will likely have two places and clubs will be able to make some serious profit from being involved. From an Aberdeen point of view, the costs of running a women's team are very little, and the potential with the growth of women's football across the world is actually huge. So a successful Aberdeen women's team could actually be a nice little earner for the club in years to come, especially with the Atlanta link-up.

I don't know if women's football has much interest around here, but thought it might be worth it's own thread throughout the season. For the uninitiated, Aberdeen were known as Aberdeen Ladies and were a mere affiliate of the club. They were relegated twice in succession to the point where they were outside of the Scottish Women's Premier League. Then last summer the club took the team in-house, they changed to Aberdeen Women, had a new management team and began to take the whole thing a lot more seriously. They romped the SWFL North last season, and also took some big scalps in the Scottish Cup, making it as far as the quarters before losing 1-0 to Rangers. They begin this season in SWPL 2 as favourites to be promoted to SWPL 1. Hamilton, Kilmarnock and Dundee United will be their main rivals for the promotion. There's one automatic place and a play-off spot. Yesterday they played their first game of the season in the SWPL Cup, and beat Hearts (who won SWPL 2 last season) 2-1 at Cormack Park. The goals from that win are here:

I don't think the crowd was down to not being in a title race, more a combination of playing poorly v Celtic, and boring football across the season. Put in a performance like that every time we play them and the crowds will come back.

Cosgrove has scored just as many times against Celtic as he's been sent off to be fair. Think we're all getting carried away a bit with Main. He had a good 45 minutes against a poor Hamilton side. I'm yet to be convinced he's worth a regular starting place.

Hoban is probably a signing for next season, when we will need him as McKenna likely will be away. Makes sense to get him in now as it'll likely take more than a few weeks in pre-season to get him properly fit.

You could argue Robbie Winters was the most expensive signing, on account we paid £700k plus Billy Dodds for him, and Dodds at the time was clearly worth a hell of a lot more than £300k, so the deal was worth well over a million.

Well, at least McInnes tried something different with what appears to have been a 3-4-3, and by all accounts Dean Campbell had a very good game at left wing back (as above, saw bits on a shite stream then gave up so I'm going by commentary and twitter). But, his subs seemed bizarrre. First sub: Why Main for Logan? It meant McGinn went to right wing back (has that ever been a good idea?), and if putting a striker on, why not a goalscorer, ie Anderson? Second: Anderson for Cosgrove. Fair enough if it had been earlier in the game, not with (from memory) eight mins to go. Cosgrove starting games now on reputation. It's seven games without a goal from open play. McInnes needs to be brave and bench him. Main or Anderson wouldn't get away with those performances. Third: McLennan for Kennedy in injury time. What was that - time wasting? Hamilton haven't had a clean sheet since November and have just conceded eight in two, so surely Tuesday will bring a goal. I was considering going, but we're that bad at the moment I'm not sure. I'm only 25 mins away so might actually wait and see what the line-up is. Drop Ferguson for either McLennan or Hedges, drop Cosgrove for Anderson, that might be enough to spark my interest.

Well, my attempt at second guessing McInnes' line-up was well short. Lewis Logan Devlin McKenna Considine Ojo Campbell McGinn Ferguson Kennedy Cosgrove Think a few folk predicted Ojo would be back in. Good to see Campbell there too, shows that people aren't just getting automatically picked on reputation and one of our young guys can push for a place. Disappointed no Anderson in line-up, and would have stuck with Hernandez, but that team *should* be good enough to beat Killie. I'm sticking with my 2-0 prediction.

Seems McInnes has already announced McGinn will start. Taylor out. Can't see Cosgrove bring dropped despite his lack of form, but think the next best thing will happen and Anderson will start alongside him. Can see it being:- Lewis Hernandez Devlin McKenna Considine McGinn McGeouch Ferguson Kennedy Anderson Cosgrove *probably not in that formation* I think we'll win. Solid 2-0. Will draw Celtic at home in the quarter finals to deflate everyone.

Highlights reel here.

I've a rare Saturday off and live in Glasgow so suppose I should put myself through this. Not expecting much, but I live in hope we'll come out fighting. I was at the reserves on Monday - Aberdeen beating Kilmarnock 4-3. Bruce Anderson missed a few chances (one of which was one on one) but was always in the right place, great turn of pace, was just a constant handful for Killie and did eventually get his hat-trick. Would start him at Ibrox. McInnes needs to shake up the line-up a bit and certainly needs to be bolder in his team selection. We haven't scored from open play since Anderson's goal against Livingston. We may aswell play the on-form player.

McInnes seemed to hint someone would have to go out on loan before we bring someone in. Obvious candidate would be McLennan since with Kennedy, Hedges and McGinn it's hard to see him getting many minutes.

Now that we've signed Kennedy can't see where Hayes fits in, as appears we'll be signing Leigh permanently too. He's not gonna come here as a back-up, especially when he's still starting games for Celtic.

He's the coach of Atlanta 2, so the recent link-up, Cormack and him being an ex-player all appear to make it an obvious link. Have no idea how good a coach he is but every time someone suggests a name I always ask the question "is he an upgrade on McInnes?".

? You're bat shit crazy mate. But I love it.

Interesting choice, though he'd be the first Aberdeen manager in my lifetime that was younger than me and I'm still trying to deal with the fact the playing squad are younger than me. But, he'd be interesting, different, and as you say he has a vision how he wants his teams to play.

It's bad enough opposition fans believe this without Aberdeen fans believing the same. How many times? Bottom of the table that season would have went into a three-team playoff with the sides finishing 2nd & 3rd in the first division. We knew for months that play-off wouldn't be taking place so the threat of a play-off, never mind relegation, was never there.

That would only be if McInnes (and Docherty) demanded a full pay-off. I'm completely guessing here, but I have a feeling McInnes' plan was always to leave at the end of the season, which was when his contract was originally due to expire. Had he not signed a new deal it'd have caused a lot of problems in that he'd constantly be getting asked about his future, new players signing would be reluctant if the manager was leaving, etc. But with Milne stepping down, I think McInnes will see the season out and then look for a fresh challenge. Of course, I could be wrong, because there's little reason for McInnes to go anywhere. He's well paid, is in a good job at a big club, and isn't as under pressure as he would be should be move to say an English Championship or a top League One club expecting instant results/promotion, so I wouldn't be too surprised if he's still manager next season. But, I just have a hunch he's already made up his mind, and that Milne/Cormack both probably already know this.

Knee injury.

Devlin is off form, I wouldn't say he's a bad player. We're better off trying to help him get his performances back up rather than getting rid of him which not only leaves us with Ash Taylor as first choice, but unless we can find a *good* defender in the next nine days we'll either be chronically short in defence like we were last season when Dominic Ball was playing CB, or we sign another stop-gap of the standard of well, Dom Ball.

McKennan is younger than Anderson, so also falls into the best of persevering with him to give him a chance to develop and grow in confidence. It's how a club like Motherwell have been able to develop a good young team as they've kept faith with them even when they have a horror show.

No. Had the stadium been in Portlethen when I was growing up, we'd have made the same number of journeys there too. I would guess it's not impossible to set up a traffic system that doesn't just drive all traffic towards the city centre. As cities expand and the city centre becomes more packed, new infrastructures generally have to be built elsewhere and traffic systems adjust. I've read many people say the new stadium should have been in Dyce. Well taking the new TECA as an example, how many people walked to the Gerry Cinnamon gig from union street? Did Aberdeen City Council not put up considerations for new bus networks recently that would link Dyce railway and Kingswells P&R, which looked like pre-planning for Kingsford. Here's a link here, though I do remember reading something that had more ideas in it but can't seem to find it:- https://news.aberdeencity.gov.uk/transport-schemes-identified-for-aberdeen-cross-city-connections/ Will it all be adequate? Who knows. They won't eradicate car use but at the same time it's not going to be 100% of fans using cars either. Like I say, Kingsford wasn't my first choice and it was never the club's either. But I can't see it being the disaster some seem to think it'll be. I'm more concerned about the standard of stadium that actually gets built there. What can I say, I like seeing Aberdeen playing in Europe, and a group stage of Aberdeen, Brondby, Rijeka and Maribor might not have the glitz and glamour of the Champions League, but it'd be enough to pique my interest.

I wasn't really suggesting that should be the formation, more just listing the three attacking players and three midfielders. I'd go probably 4-4-2, maybe with Ojo drifting wide. Or drop Ojo altogether and keep McLennan in the team.

Watched the Dundee-Motherwell game. Motherwell were terrific in the first half, absolute gash in the second. Are we better than them? I think they're more attacking and easier on the eye which can sometimes make it feel like they are, but confident when it comes down to it we should be able to take care of them. Presume at least one will be dropping out from the Dumbarton line-up to accommodate Ferguson, but hope Anderson keeps his place despite his misses. The important thing was he was involved in the game rather than being anonymous, was getting into the right areas. Stick with him and keep giving the young lad the encouragement like we did with Cosgrove rather than dropping him back to the bench and hurting the guy's confidence. I'd go with:- Lewis Logan Devlin* McKenna Considine McGeouch Ferguson Ojo McGinn Cosgrove Anderson *It'll be Taylor obviously, I just can't bear to accept he's currently first choice.