BobbyBiscuit

Fit's this? Are you saying that those who were picked for the squad get a cap even though they don't turn up (I've nae idea like, I'm not being critical)? I'm not sure who's being penalised here? Do the replacements nae get a cap anyway?

 

Caps should go to those who play minutes in a friendly. It does them a bit of good, gives them a bit of confidence and something to put on their CV. Huns should not get caps.

No, I'm absolutely not saying that.

Does anybody agree that we shouldn't really be handing out caps for friendlies??

I think we should take a cap off all those who called off.

Don't see why the guys who actually wanted to play for their country should be penalised. Look at what it meant to both McKenna and Shinnie.

Just throwing it out there

 

Louis Moult was plucked from mid table english conference and the consensus from many folk is last season would have been so much better had he turned up on Pittodrie in a red shirt.

 

Dean Windass was plucked from a Hull City team which had just been relegated to league 2

Nicky Maynard plucked from a team not long to be relegated to League 2.

Josh Parker plucked from fuck knows where.

There are success stories from the lower leagues in England and there are those which just don't work out and you wonder why the manager has signed the player and what he has seen in him to believe he would be good enough for us.

Each signing should be based on how the individual performs for us and everyone deserves that chance.

One thing which does hamper us is the lack of quality in the lower leagues in Scotland which used to be a very successful area for us; the likes of Archibald, McDougall, Weir, Stark, McKimmie,, Grant, McQueen and Irvine all signing from small(er) Scottish sides.  There aren't players coming through the "big" sides of their quality never mind in the lower leagues.

However, if we do want to improve, then I think we have to change where we shop, or at the very least, mix it up a bit.

Watched the documentary "Kenny" about Kenny Dalglish which was on after the Champions League final the other night.  Fantastic watch, download it if you have never seen it before.

 

Too young to see him in his prime but vaguely remember him as player manager at Liverpool.

 

Never quite realised all of the history behind the man.  He went to the Ibrox disaster game as a fan, took on the Liverpool manager job one day after playing in the Heysel game then of course suffered through the Hilsborough tragedy.

 

Growing up as a Scot you always just get told how great he was as a footballer but now I have seen another side to him.  Just a lovely, lovely person.  Kind of makes you appreciate that fitba is only a game no matter how worked up we all get about it.

I was disappointed in that film. Didn't show enough footage - particularly in terms of Celtic and Scotland. 

The History Channel are having a football fortnight. A lot of new documentaries, a decent one on Italia 90 with Butcher, Paul Parker, Lineker, Toto Schillachi, Roger Milla and Lotthar Matthaus.

They are also showing One Night in Turin which I've recommended on here before. 

Watched a "Head to Head" programme last night which was Platini vs Zidane - Linker, Ryan Giggs, Matthaus and Jermaine Jenas  debate who was the best player out the two.  There are others coming up - Maradona v Pele and Beckham v Bale 

Sad, sad news.  Met him just the once but even from that one brief meeting you could tell he was a good guy who loved the Dons.

Never knew until yesterday that he was playing for the reserves aged 14, 1st team debut at 16, that's something else that and a sign of how good he was and how highly regarded he was by his coaches.

RIP Tattie

Wednesday 30th May 2018

Peru v Scotland

International Friendly

02:00

BBC One Scotland...

 

Sunday 3rd June 2018

Mexico v Scotland

International Friendly

01:00

BBC One Scotland

 

BBC showing the two friendly Scotland games live at a time when most folk are in the land of nod. Still it's the thought that counts.

Do you want them to show it live when it's not actually being played?

I thought that as well just a few months back but the goalies aside their squad is basically made up of players who feature regularly for City, United, Liverpool and Spurs plus a couple for Leicester.

 

Their potential front three of Kane, Vardy and Sterling are pushing 70 goals this season.  If they can keep the goals out at their own end I think they've got a chance.

 

A lot of people are tipping Belgium but not convinced their team is any better than the guffs to be honest. Also remains to be seen whether the Germans and Spanish still have the hunger to win it again.

Goalkeepers: Jack Butland (Stoke), Jordan Pickford (Everton), Nick Pope (Burnley).

 

Defenders: Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool), Gary Cahill (Chelsea), Fabian Delph (Manchester City), Phil Jones (Manchester United), Harry Maguire (Leicester), Danny Rose (Tottenham), John Stones (Manchester City), Kieran Trippier (Tottenham), Kyle Walker (Manchester City), Ashley Young (Manchester United).

 

Midfielders: Dele Alli, Eric Dier (both Tottenham), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Jesse Lingard (Manchester United), Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Chelsea).

 

Forwards: Harry Kane (Tottenham), Marcus Rashford (Manchester United), Raheem Sterling (Manchester City), Jamie Vardy (Leicester), Danny Welbeck (Arsenal).

That's not a great squad. A lot of players there who are much of a much-ness. Some decent players, but not going to win a world cup. Probably not going to come anywhere near it.

Very little creativity in the team bar Alli.

No outstanding, dominant centre back. Same for goalkeeper.  So I can't see them keeping the goals out at the other end.

They'll rely a lot on their full backs getting forward into good positions for crosses, as the tournament goes on that just won't be enough. 

Out in the round of 16 to Colombia 

I am struggling to know the rules nowadays. Surely the Man U defender that gave away that penalty was denying a goal scoring opportunity, no?

Double jeopardy rule (or law, to be precise). Jones made an attempt to play the ball, but happened to bring him down, therefore it's a penalty and a yellow (if the ref deems apt). If no attempt was made to play the ball with the player through on goal it would be a penalty and a red.

Or something along those lines.

I’d say Gascoigne, Ray Wilkins, and Souness were all bigger signings for them. Even Terry Butcher, captain of England at the time I think.

 

Bryan Robson would have been captain of England then. Butcher only in his absence, which admittedly would have been quite a lot....

OK, the season is finished so now we have the World Cup to 'look forward' to. For me, not quite the same without Scotland being there but dare say, will probably end up watching it nonetheless.

 

With no Italy or Holland in the mix I am actually beginning to wonder whether the guffies have a chance. At 18/1 they may be in with a shout and if the worst does happen then at least I would make a few quid. Not sure if I can bring myself to back them like.

Italy and Holland aren't there because they are piss poor - if they were there they would have the same chance as England to win it - fuck all. England's squad is as poor as I can ever recall.

I'm looking forward to the World Cup, the last one was really enjoyable, but it's a month of football, it can never exactly be bad, can it?

 

 

Ferguson is an unknown quality, comes from a good background though. He's 6'1 which pleases me, I think one of the reasons ball has done well in midfield is that he has a bit of physicality.  Fwiw I would try and keep Ball too, he's a versatile team player

Is Ball versatile though?  The only time he's looked passable is in the defensive midfield position. I would rather we got someone better - he's done ok recently in fairness to him but he's a footballer who looks uncomfortable with a ball at his feet, and for playing in the centre of the park that's pretty criminal.

I would hope we can do better than Ball.

If Shinnie is earmarked for midfield then we need a pacy, overlapping left back to come in. We miss the threat from the full back area when Shinnie isn't there - although yesterday's exception was rather nice and welcome.

Considine can then go into central defence once McKenna leaves... 

I'm going to give credit where it's due. I never expected us in a million years to go undefeated post split with the fixtures we had. We've never done it in the top six before and Deek has a poor post split record but we had it all to play for. After the crushing disappointment of surrendering in the Scottish cup it was vital that we secured 2nd spot. Finally managing to hurt Rangers and Celtic a little helped paper over the cracks of a frustrating season. It could have been so different. But the squad was poorer this season and Rangers' was stronger. With a strong Hibs in the mix too we've done well over all so credit to the players and management for that.

This is pretty much how I see it.

Frustrating that we end up only 9 points behind Celtic when so many points were surrendered so meekly. I know many will say that if we were closer to Celtic they'd have kicked on and that is probably true, but we have to at least ask the question and see if they can cope with that pressure.

I hope the club takes the attitude that we can contend for the very top of the league and aren't merely content with competing for 2nd spot. Always going to be hard for us given the disparity in budgets of course, but we have to aim for the top.

Yesterday was a great result, and a good team performance. Hopefully that shows the players they can do it, and it gets that monkey off McInnes's back too which is a good thing.  Big summer coming up for us, I hope we show a wee bit more creativity in terms of signings.

It was his decision, so, whats the problem??

 

I certainly would like to be able to make decision when the time comes.

 

Who wants to sit around, pishing yersel, not being able to do sweet FA? needing some minimum waged teen to wipe yer arse, feed you, dress you ?? being fed god knows what drugs to keep you semi sedated.

 

Fuck That.

Would it make you feel better if the teen was on more than the minimum wage?

And to you DD.

Think i'll stick Gothenburg 83 on later and enjoy with a few glasses of red, thankful that our club reached those heights and thankful that the team and management are all still with us after this last week 

Huns linked to John McGinn, coincidentally before they play McGinn's team in a match the huns must win...

Will Aberdeen ever win the Premiership Title again, don't think so, not being defeatist just realistic. The best we can achieve is runners up position, a Cup win now and again and a European run, that is all that lies ahead for us for the foreseeable.The players we have are the best we can get for the money we can afford. I am fustrated as everone else that our players do not seem to have the mindset to win against the Ugly Sisters like a few of the other clubs but hopefully that changes next season. 

Clearly not the case in either instance.

I don't think there is has been much if anything to get excited about in all honesty. They've failed to deliver every single occasion. Even if we achieve second, which should be an achievement in itself, it feels like, as is usual with a McInnes team post split, we're limping across the line and somehow fluked it.  I'd argue that we're only there due to the ineptitude of others around us.  The game against the hunnery was a prime example of this and hence the poor crowds for the last two home games.

 

I'll applaud the team from behind my laptop, well actually I won't because the game is at a stupid time, but you get my point.  I'm genuinely pleased the season is basically over.  I hope and pray for a better summer from McInnes this year.

Exactly Manc. Performances, in the main, have been pretty sub-standard across the season.  So, on one hand it would be only right to say that in those circumstances it is an achievement in itself to still be in with a chance of 2nd.

On the other, you could also say that even a slight improvement in performances and therefore results would have seen us at least apply a bit of pressure on Celtic and at least having wrapped up 2nd place.

But we have a manager and too many in the support who don't think like that. Happy to be second. Brendan's team are too good, we can't touch them. We can't get close to them, so we'll aim for second.

A few players this season have really carried us through and credit to them. Too many individuals have not pulled their weight this season. The horrible period of McInnes flirting with the huns, two really poor cup exits and wilting against the OF continually means I'll also be relieved when this season is over.  Good recruitment is essential this summer, DM has admitted that he bought poorly last summer, a repeat of that is unthinkable if we actually want to challenge for silverware.

It's incredible the number of players you see slipping on surfaces these days, it's almost as if they haven't just had a half hours warm up on the same surface.

I think that he didn't trust Christie to track Tavernier. He's very dangerous on the break and - other than a couple of lapses - he didn't do that for most of the night as GMS kept him reasonably deep. We should be able to reasonably expect Christie to take Halliday to the cleaners on each attack though, but he looked scared and way off the pace. I'd have taken on Wright after 50 minutes to really go at Halliday, but he's biffed McInnes' sister or something I assume. Stewart plays into their hands a little as - despite reasonable trickery - Halliday is comfortable at that level of pace.

 

Anyway, an entertaining game all said, and worth the entrance money. Not said that too often this season.

Christie could easily have halted Tavernier's progress as well, fuck knows he wasn't doing anything else last night.

Stewart, again, should have been played behind the striker when he came on, putting him on the wing gives us nothing and wastes his abilities.

Also, I had said on the way up to Pittodrie last night that it would be a gift if the huns play Halliday at left back.  And they did, and yet we never exploited it. We always went down the other wing, trying that floaty ball in behind Tavernier which he got wise to pretty quickly. Why didn't we switch GMS to try to get him running at Halliday? Pretty simple stuff, baffling we never attempted to make more of it.

Cosgrove did well, he's still a bit raw and needs coaching but I think he's showing promise.  I wouldn't want him to be first choice given the style of football that will mean but there will be games where he will be very useful for us.

Thought we showed far greater intensity last night than we have against them previously but we dropped out of it when McLean got his knock.

A draw was probably fair; haven't seen a replay of it but I thought Lewis was slow to react to the second ball at their goal, but ultimately last night was the same as a lot of matches this season - we just don't create enough chances these days.

Fannying about with the defence and general set up/make up of it is exactly what killed us against the same opponents earlier this season.

It's our home match, play to what we're comfortable with and go at them. McInnes has proven time and again that as soon as he gets "too clever" with his tactics/line up it goes horribly wrong.  But he's also proven when we stick to our tried and tested it is successful more often than not.

Shite news. Fingers crossed for him, got no doubt he'll battle all the way.

Have to say TC that Mason was a superior player to Richardson (as good as Rico was, and they were obviously different types of player).

Mike Newell was an absolute carthorse for us.

Looking at these teams, we've not had a fantastic amount of success with foreigners over the years.