Slim

If Duff is at Pittodrie next season, I won't be unless he's paying to get in like everyone else.

Plymouth are live on Sky Sports right now, the commentators are wanking over how good Anderson's defending is.

I voted to keep them all - just because when I voted last night I wanted them all to leave and you couldn't vote to keep "none of them".

You other than not voting?

Luckily I'm not friends with any Huns and don't work with any. In fact, I don't think I know anyone that supports a team in Scotland that isn't the Dons, they're all either Dandies or support English clubs.

I've been saying for a long time now that Zander Diamond flatters to deceive defensively.  He was directly at fault for one, if not two of the goals on Saturday and was too happy to let their strikers turn.  We all love him because he is what you'd call a "heroic" defender, hurtling into challenges and such like, but he gets the basics wrong far too often.

I've mentioned this before, he's got Colin Hendry Syndrome. Still has a hell of a lot of improving to do, and for our main central defender, it's not good enough. We can't keep shipping goals and justifying it with the ridiculous 'ach well Russell Anderson was crap at his age' clichéd nonsense.

Out of those who are realistically staying, I'd keep Diamond, Severin, Jamie Smith, Touzani and de Visscher.

I wouldn't keep any of the rest as back-up, you need squad players who are hungry and determined to break into the first team, our lot are in too much of a comfort zone, as long as they've got enough money for petrol for their 4x4's, diamond ear studs, shit haircuts and overpriced drinks in the Pearl Lounge, they don't give a flying fuck about the club.

We need a first team quality goalkeeper, right back, left back, creative midfielder, left winger, 2 strikers and an experienced central defender.

I make that 8 players. Calderwood has said we're going to be signing 6 players.

It's unacceptable for the problems to have escalated so much, that we require 8 quality players in our squad. Any budget we do have won't be enough to cover that, and the blame lies firmly at Calderwood's door for not identifying the weak areas of our squad making making the appropriate signings.

Possible replacements for all of our out of contract players should have been identified well into last year so that as soon as it hit Janusry 1st, we could make a move for these players, offer the players we wanted to keep the best offer we could, and operate on a first come first served basis.

These players have now got us over a barrel and there's no way whoever at the club is responsible should have let it come this far.

Anyone know what the current balance is?

I propose that we use any funds to pay off McNamara's contract.

Can't remember which goal it was, 3rd or 4th, ball is punted up the pitch by the QOTS defence, QOTS forward is in an offside position so jogs back towards the middle of the pitch and for some reason Considine follows him letting another forward in behind him to score. Utterly pathetic.

I'm too worn out to get angry.

The team that started against Falkirk on Monday was atrocious. So atrocious that we were forced to change things around at half time.

So why on earth start with the same team that was a massive failure in the match 5 days ago?

JDV should have started that match on the right wing. In fact, I'd go as far as saying, had he done so, we would have won the match easily. He is the only wide player we have got who knows what he is going to do with the ball before he receives it, and that's an ability that should be inherent in any football player playing at this level.

C4 for me.

That works out perfectly I'd say.

He's been on the bench for the last couple of games.

Why is our official site getting all excited about Dundee Utd players?

I see Joe Lapira has now signed for a team in the Norwegian 3rd division:

http://www.sundet-fotball.no/

We played this way when he came on at half-time against Gretna.  We ended up creating alot of chances, two of which were one-on-ones between Lovell and the keeper.  Both times he took an extra touch and proceeded to trip over the ball.  It was very embarrassing.  It is quite staggering just how short of confidence he is.

He's got a lot of unfair stick over this, both times he was outside the box when he received the ball, the first he was sent out wide because he had to bend his run to stay onside because JDV took so long to look up and play the through ball which made it easier for the defender to get across and tackle him before he could get into a better shooting position.

The second one, he had to beat a defender, which he did and was unlucky that the second defender diving in got a slight nudge on the ball which stopped him striking it cleanly.

He would've been crucified just as much if he'd hit both opportunities first time instead of getting into a position where it was easier to score.

His link up play is fantastic, he produced a great assist for Nicholson's goal, and did the same sort of thing in the cup replay against Falkirk, one of the few games where we've played passing football. He has also won us a penalty and created a goal from nothing from chasing a lost cause ball and out muscling a defender to win the ball. In both these games I've seen him be described as lazy afterwards, even by our manager in one instance.

Despite my future employer's links with the club I'll still pay to get in.

If that's who I think it is, you'll be working next door to me.

Yantorno from Gretna, everytime I have seen him he has looked fantastic, would be an ideal replacement for Nicholson.

I reckon Berra's slightly better, plus Burley will be more familiar with him anyway.

Got my train tickets booked, £20 return, job done. Hope it doesn't go to extra time and penalties though, might be touch and go for catching the train home, all the later ones appear to be fully booked.

What's the bus number that goes from the city centre to Hampden? Caught it last time and got off next to the big Asda.

Soutar - 5 - Nothing to do but kicking was atrocious.

Maybury - 6 - Did ok, one or two dodgy moments though.

Diamond - 6 - Struggled against the big black guy in the air, never looked in trouble though.

Considine - 6 - Steady enough, never under much pressure.

Foster - 4 - Nothing much to do defensively but terrible going forward, distribution was as bad as I've seen from an Aberdeen player.

Nicholson - 6 - Didn't do anything at all wide right in the first half, looked better in the second through the middle and scored a good goal.

Touzani - 6 - Did ok, but the game didn't really require a holding midfielder. Won a fair few tackles.

Severin - 6 - Lost possession a bit too much with slack passes but Gretna's midfield wasn't up to much and he was never really challenged.

De Visscher - 5 - Didn't have a good game, distribution was crap, I've seen the wind blow the ball further than he can kick it.

Miller - 6 - Didn't really get involved in the game too much, came deep far too often and was prone to falling over quite a lot. Lucky the keeper conceded the penalty as he was going nowhere.

Maguire - 5 - He was awful, and not even a goal could mask that. Seemed to be geniunely terrified of being tackled so jumped out of the way quite a lot, or in some cases, didn't bother going for the ball at all.

Subs:

Aluko - 6 - No idea why he wasn't on from the start, ideal game for him, always looked dangerous on the ball, although did tend to give the ball away a bit too much.

Lovell - 6 - Got into some fantastic positions, some of which went unnoticed by our midfield. Probably should have scored at least once, but it was more bad luck than anything that prevented him from doing so. Definitely got more stuck in than Maguire. Good work to set up Nicholson's goal.

McNamara - 5 - Didn't do much other than give the ball away whenever he got it.

Right Calderwood, Yantorno, get him signed, injury or no injury.

 

Dons to lose £50k

 

So if we give them the £30k they need, we'll be £20k better off than we would if the game is called off?

http://www.pontifix.nl/jongerencongres/en/mccurry.html

Erm....