Slim

There’s a lot of chatter about Barron signing a pre-contract with the Huns, wouldn’t be surprised to see it hit the papers in the coming days.

I would have thought the sole reason for putting Milne at RWB and Devlin at the back is so he can eventually replace Milne with Morris. That was his preferred line up before Morris got injured.

Robson’s lost me after that. It was evident early on that plan A wasn’t working, certainly by half time. Yet we persisted for 72 minutes. The only thing more absurd than waiting that long to change things was plan B itself. Remove a striker and double up on wing backs. Anyone could see we were losing the game in the middle of the pitch, especially after Shinnie got booked and had to reign himself in. Sokler for Duk, Barron for Clarkson and Polvara (to add a bit of height and physicality if nothing else) for Shinnie and I would have fancied us to nick it.

He’s managed to draw a few fouls and dance around their full back out wide a couple of times. From what I’d heard of him from previous appearances I was expecting a lot worse, I’m maybe just easily pleased.

First time seeing Gueye, looks quite good at holding it up with the ball at his feet, despite the conditions. Duk has been complete pish, clearly doesn’t fancy it. Milne good so far but bit concerned he’s been left isolated to defend so often, but then if it’s Rubezic who should be covering he’s probably best left alone.

I don’t know, I reckon if Jack Gurr was a Kiwi he’d probably get chucked at least one cap by the age of 25 to cement his allegiance in case he turned good.

Used to get my Aberdeen strips (shirt, shorts and socks in a box) from Robert Raes. Seem to remember they had 2 branches, one on Marischal Street which lasted longer than the one on George Street (I think). Used to get a great selection of obscure fitba strips in Justrite for a fiver. I remember getting Sweden and Soviet Union circa 1990. Toy Bazaar was fucking ace as a kid, and I remember there being a joke shop on either John Street or St Andrew Street that did a roaring trade in devil bangers and stink bombs.

You thinking of Littlejohns? Early 90’s would fit for that.

I liked Ramirez but Miovski is a couple of tiers above him.

Biggest issue seems to be that we can’t replicate the work rate we had in midfield last season with Shinnie + Ramadani which in turn allowed Clarkson and Duk a bit more freedom. Only time we look like getting results is with 4 central midfielders and Miovski on his own up front but we’re reluctant to play that way against most of our league opponents presumably because of the optics of playing so defensively and the fact we bought 2 expensive strikers to supplement the 2 expensive strikers we already had. If we can get a proper Ramadani replacement lined up for January (fully aware these guys don’t necessarily grow on trees) I’d take grinding out 1-0 wins with a 4-5-1 formation for a couple of months. Overall though we seem obsessed with playing the high press and being quick on transition which is applicable in about 10% of our matches. When we have the ball, we’re far too static and predictable. The amount of times we waste an opportunity to put the opposition on the back foot by having the nearest player to the ball when it goes out of play take a quick throw in is absolutely criminal. I think we retain possession from no more than 25% of our throw ins.

We need to be smarter as a team, play up the histrionics, demand VAR reviews. There’s evidently a way to influence what gets reviewed and what doesn’t in some cases, we will always be at a disadvantage if our opponents are wise to this and we’re not. There’s no reward for dignity unfortunately.

Can’t say I’m too much of a fan of these long throws we get Jensen and Gartenmann to do but for some reason position the rest of the players further away than either player can throw. Think we got into double digits tonight doing that and failing. Thought we looked very lazy/tired tonight. Too much just standing about hoping for fortuitous breaks and desperate flicks rather than anyone taking responsibility for driving us forward. Shinnie one of the biggest culprits which I suspect is more through fatigue than lack of desire. They looked very shaky at the back when we were a bit more direct and tried to play the ball in behind them through the channels and were more than happy to put the ball straight out for a throw-in in a dangerous position. Probably because they knew the long throw would go straight back to them I guess. Devlin also needs some cover too, he looked very leggy.

The change in recruitment team over the summer probably didn’t help. It would be interesting to know how that all works. Are our signings the previous guy’s targets or targets the new guy has brought from West Ham? Or is it more of a team effort with a bunch of scouts chipping in with suggestions for whoever is in the hot seat to investigate? Might explain why there seemed to be a couple of weeks gap between the initial batch of signings and McGrath/McGarry/Gueye/Etc.

Bavidge didn’t go out on loan then?

Danish defender? https://insidefutbol.com/2023/09/01/aberdeen-have-loan-deal-in-place-for-danish-star/619266/

No reason we can’t finish 3rd, PAOK are beatable at Pittodrie (but then so are we). Frankfurt will be the big trip for most people I’d imagine, although there are loads of other cities in Germany preferable to Frankfurt. PAOK play in a part of Greece I’d love to visit but concerned it may be a bit “stabby” as an away fan? Helsinki could be a shout depending on the timing, I assume it’s fucking freezing late-November/early-December?

Roma, Bratislava, Betis would do me

Sunday Monday Pape Gueye Tuesday Wednesday Pape Gueye Thursday Friday Pape Gueye Saturday Pape Gueye Scoring all week for you What do you reckon, we having that?

Looks like he was linked with £2m moves to English teams last summer, including Watford and Millwall. Only scored 3 goals in 28 games last season. Still only 23.

Isn’t Clarkson this type? Not going to pish my pants over the signing but my concern is that we’ll end up treating Clarkson like Kenny McLean and wasting a good few years making him play deeper than he is effective playing.

Not really paid that much attention to him, but from memory he’s not a similar type of player as Ramadani and plays further up the pitch meaning that if he plays, Clarkson is likely to drop back?

Striker sounds like he’d have good conditioning.

Not good to see us concede 5 goals though. Is that Jack McKenzie playing in defence or another McKenzie?

It’s not really about making a difference, more balancing out Celtic having 5 players with fresh legs and fitness levels usually being a main contributor to result swings in the last 10-15 minutes of games.

Another game, another baffling lack of substitutes.