Sand dan Glokta

I’m not doing your fancy break down so I’ll just reply for the below. But then that is my argument. We keep starting the same way every time against both cheeks and it never works. We try to keep it tight against them to begin with, giving them lots of the ball and going man for man for the first 20-30 minutes and every time we lose a goal. He tried playing our more attacking formation this time round but again it fell apart. Having Christie sat deep in our half when the ball breaks and hoping he runs through the team won’t work. This also explains why we stand off them so much in games and allow them confidence and to grow. Christ, Celtics best game this season apparently was the 3-0 gubbing of us at home. Why? We did all of the above and made them look better. Man for man isn’t working. It might work if we went a goal up and had them chasing the game, but if we sit in against them then keep a shape and make them struggle to get through the lines. We just seem like a team at sea against them. Don’t have Logan chasing around the pitch tracking wingers. This would also explain why he has been gash for so many big games. What would I have done differently? Not sat in against them or chased them man for man round the pitch at the start of the game. We have a good attacking forward line. Set up you stall and show them we aren’t here to chase the game this time. Push them back into their half by concentrating on our strengths rather than trying to second guess what they will do. We had 2 opportunities where we went 1 on 1 with their keeper. That had McLean, GMS, Rooney and Stewart all in or around their box at both points. Give them a headache trying to stop us not chasing them round our half.

I agree to an extent with you. I’ve never really understood why we haven’t given a LB from the youth team a chance when we were clearly short at LB. Surely there are more at the club than just Harvie. If Considine is the best option we have available for that position, surely the youth coaches would need to be called into question. Arguably our youth team shape and formation should be the same as the first team, so that when they are called upon they play the same way and know what will be asked of them and expected – akin to Ajax. Wishful thinking probably, but it’s not difficult if you prioritise and sit down and map it out. I agree with your point about McKenna, he was taken in to plug a gap through necessity, more so than his performances for the youth set up warranting a start. I’m sure that day we played 3 CBs or Arnason couldn’t start 2 games in one week; but credit where it is due he’s taken it with both hands. Sometimes a sole opportunity is all a young guy needs. Not to beat a dead horse, but by all accounts Fraser wasn’t a stand out for the youth team and he ripped up the SPL from being thrown in at the deep end. Sometimes the arrogance of youth is exactly what you need. Although, this won’t always work for every young player. Outside of McKenna no one has really impressed when they had their chance. Ross was not bad as an impact sub, willing to get forward and have a shot, but he wasn't massively influential in his Dundee start. Hopefully his loan builds him up though.

After watching a guy break down on twitter break down our tactics in the build up to their first goal; we play man for man against them. This leaves huge holes in midfield and has our wing backs in central defence chasing wingers and centre backs out wide to cover them. I’m not a coach or manager, but even I can tell you that is tatties over the side from the get go. You let players drop off onto a players playing position. Why do we never just play them as we play everyone else? Every other team plays generally their normal game against both cheeks and manages to take something off them. Question marks over McInnes for me now. Naivety in trying to out think the other manager with his football intelligence. No wonder we never look up for it when all we do is set up to chase them round the park for 90 minutes. We need to hope he's smart enough to admit his mistakes and change things otherwise we'll turn on him big time.

It's good to see we are now in the position to turn an offer like that down. In years gone by we would of bitten Hulls hands off with that for a 21 year old.

Can’t say I really remember very much of Devlin, but he can’t be any worse than AoC, so that should be positive – hopefully AoC is away in the summer. The whole deal with City boy seems very suspect. He’s been punted round Europe to places where it is easier to get a permit by the looks of things. I don’t mind an unknown quantity if he’s a step up from what we have, but the way this is dragging on it looks like he may not be coming at all! I would imagine we have a few other faces in mind, but we’re looking to take them in on Bosmans rather than fees in January.

But then what is the point in playing a youngster for the sake of it. If they’re good enough they’d be in the squad and playing. Even Wright is struggling to hold down a first team spot and he seems the most likely out the ones knocking on the door. McKenna and Fraser both came in and made themselves integral to the team. Just playing youth for the sake of it is no use. Hearts have only re-started their youth sides again recently post CVA. They might be benefitting from throwing everything they have at it early doors. They’re also not sitting 3rd in the league and fighting to for best of the rest. If their good enough they’ll be in the team. Also agree with Bamper. Bain and big Joe are the only 2 to leave and look like it may of been a mistake; but even Bain has regressed since his early promise at Alloa and Dundee.

Following on from the other Scotland thread, you can’t give the boy O’Neill grief for leaving NI. It’s his home nation and they’re offering a better deal. I think he wants to come back to club management as well, so a national job with major scrutiny from the off wouldn’t be appealing. As for our nations boss, I’d quite like someone with SPL experience. All they really need to be is a coach at the end of the day; and someone with the balls to play domesticly based players would have my vote. They’ll care and give more than the faceless pointless call ups we have been making!

As much as I think not having meaningless friendlies is a good idea, it does make me wonder when we will ever blood new players? Over reliance on familiar faces will perceiver me thinks.

No? I would of thought there was enough. Murphy didn’t do a lot in my eyes, but I’ll give you Goss looked solid. Those guys you mention coming in would of helped us, but we still had enough on the park to make a difference. We barely spent any time in their half in the first 30 minutes prior to their goal which I again I think was due to the players being told to hit them on the counter. What little chances we did have led to 2 clean through on goal chances. Imagine what might of happened had we actually got in their face from the off. They looked better as we allowed them more of the ball.

I really couldn’t say there was much between the teams at all last night other than desire to win and belief. Outside of their fullbacks and possibly Martin (we didn't test him that much, and we did have a few one on ones) I wouldn't really take anyone else from their team I don't think. They don’t have great players in my eyes, but I do agree with you they were coached and put together right. As painful as last night was, their biggest battles will be the rest of the league. We’re well versed in beating the rest, but they have struggled. For the 3 wins against us, they’ve suffered the same losses to the bottom 6. They get pumped up to play us like we used to against them. Something needs to severely change in our mentality. We have more than enough to beat them and being trounced 3 times by that buck tooth mug is grating.

Agreed. They all give us options that we severely lacked early on this season. I don't think all 3 will play, but when we lose Christie against Celtic, McGinn softens the blow slightly.

As much as I don’t agree with some of your points in other threads, this is spot on. If they did this stadium right and the reasons were right, I wouldn’t have much disagreement with it. No doubt it will all be done on the cheapest of the cheap, with a life of 10-15 years (no doubt we’ll be told it will be 100 years) – which if Milne is involved will definitely be the case. I’ll get behind the whole thing, but the city will suffer moving out the road. We also need to hope things stay positive on the pitch. If things start nose diving the positivity for this will slide pretty quickly.

I would agree with BB on this. We never really take in players for the betterment of the team, it’s always more for the betterment of the squad – which in my eyes goes hand in hand; better players in, the old ‘lesser’ players become squad players ,no? Long term only Shinnie, Rooney, Lewis and May have been better than what McInnes inherited - but even May had big question marks due to his long-term injury and I think he’ll need this season to kick on before we get the best out of him. We have been crying out for a left back which we never sign or even seem to look into. We have been crying out for a solid CB pair, a box to box CM and defensive CM, both of which we haven’t signed – I don’t really know where Tansey falls in there but he was well short of what was required. We needed width this season and signed GMS, which makes sense and despite last night’s display he has been getting better. But then who else has taken us forward? We seem to keep being linked with or signing lower half of the league players, hoping they’ll take us to the next level. Unsurprisingly they do not – Tansey, Quinn et al. Really we should be going after Hibs/Hearts et al players who are out of contract, no? We’re linked with McGeouch at hibs, who is one of their best players. That makes sense. Cadden at Motherwell is young and has promise. When we signed Seve a few years ago that was a coup. Now we just seem to take faces in for the squad. I’d rather we bought 1 player of worth rather the 3 for the squad which we tend to do or pointless loanees like Ball – although we have done alright with younger loanees like Maddison, Christie, Hector etc. Caley a few years ago went through several re-builds of good players from the lower leagues in England and it is a good place to look; but again we haven’t exactly signed stars – ala AoC and Taylor. Whether that is luck or scouting I don’t know. Overall better use of resources is needed. We have a decent budget in comparison to the rest of the league and outside of last summer with the necessary re-build, we never really sufficiently added to the initial lot McInnes inherited when he came in. Even older guys who still have ‘it’ like Robson would be handy. Deek did this a few times at St Johnstone but never really has here.

Last night was another disappointment against the old firm with the same old stand-off tactics from McInnes. When the team was announced, no-one could say they were overtly unhappy with how we set up. It was essentially the same team that played St Mirren and pumped Hibs. Yet every time we play the ugly sisters we have the same mentality – keep it tight for the first 10-15 mins and nullify them. We all know the script; one goal down and chasing the game to lose a few more. Why do Rangers and Celtic raise their games for us and we do the opposite? In years gone by WE did the opposite. The old firm games, at least at home, were more often than not positive. We do not come out and get in their faces. McInnes panders to them. He’s always trying to be ‘that bit more clever’ and every time we allow them to come flying out the traps at us. The Rangers team have no real better players than we do, they just played with desire. As horrible as that is to say they wanted it more. Huge question marks appear over McInnes now. He’s had it largely all his own way while he has been here, now the pressure is on. The fans will quickly turn on him if this carry’s on, or at the very least he doesn’t acknowledge and address it. The same old, “we want to make a better showing of ourselves” is no good anymore. He has to come out and take the game to these 2. Before some would of accepted this much even if we didn’t get a result; but now he’s built his own rod for his back. He has to win or at least draw and do it with venom. Someone put up McInnes record against the old firm above; it’s even worse viewing against the rest of the top 6 this season. We’ve only beaten Hibs twice and Killie once. The bigger question should be, ‘how’ are we still second? Milne might not press McInnes and be happy to finish 3rd, but the fans won't be. We'll see how much he enjoys the club when knives start coming out.

Rick & Morty. Immense show. Utterly bizarre and highly amusing. It genuinely hasn’t dropped in humour since season 1. Ray Donovan is my current binge. Onto season 4 now. Very good acting all round. Jon Voight is absolutely superb! Still need to finish suits and waiting until the new Star Trek has all 10 episodes released, then I’ll binge into that. Planning on starting Parks and Recs now that I’ve finished Archer as my casual watch.

Thought I'd bring this back, seeing as it's been a while. Does anyone have any idea how long it will be until this opens? I did read something a while ago about it apparently being open by the end of the year, but that was seen to be highly unrealistic. Any update photos appreciated too

Deek fancies him as he's went after him a few times in the past. Where exactly does he play? I thought he was an AM? - when I would imagine he's a replacement for Jack?

Not on your life, my Hindu friend. It's starting to not look too good for the new development. My main worry is the "No Plan B" that Yule has restated in the EE. So what will happen if it gets knocked back? We just stay at Pittodrie forever more? All this minus Deek who said he would be off if we don't get training facilities.

It is only a matter of time before Strachan will get the dunt, but until then they’ll get my support. I thought he actually set the team up well yesterday. The first half and starts should have seen us out of sight, but the defence with any long ball was painful to watch. I didn’t agree with any of his subs, but credit Martin for doing the business – quite what Rhodes has to do to get a game I have no idea like. I reckon the England game will be akin to the Lithuania game for them; they won’t come out of 2nd gear. Here’s hoping we beat the rest of the mob around us and hope for a miracle. Credit to Armstrong; he looked a cut above yesterday.

Despite being a friendly that was painful. Barely any new players ‘blooded’ into the setup, with some weird and wonderful selections. Everyone in that starting 11 outside of Snodgrass should never be near a Scotland squad again – they pulled Snoddy down as he had nothing to work off of. Some of the touches and passing last night were school boy level as well. If that’s a portion of the cream of the crop in Scottish football then it will be another 20+ years before we qualify again. 3 lb’s no rb, old man fletcher, McGregor in goal and Chris Martin up top? Boggles the mind. As mentioned above, the best player on the park was the boy Aird. Ran through the defence as if they weren’t there countless times in the first half. No idea whether that was him or us though. All I want is a manager who pays respect to the domestic league. NI, Wales and ROI all pick players who are SPL standard. We persist with this nonsense of the English leagues being higher standard and again look like chumps. McLeish in after we get gubbed off Slovenia for the same old.

When you look at it, the lack of faith in anyone outside of Celtic in the domestic league is criminal. A good example is Considine. Although I’ll admit I don’t think Consi is fantastic, he’s played and scored in Europe consistently for the past 3 years (only knocked out by much higher ranked teams) a cup winner and been 2nd in his respective league over the past 4 seasons, in comparison to the below: Martin, Greer and Hanley (Relegated, Killie, Relegated). We seem to love playing the same bunch of failed players over multiple campaigns and hoping for a different outcome - no doubt at least 5-6 of these will start: Flecther x2/Brown/Hanley/R Martin/Morrison/Anya/Naismith/Bannan/Berra/Hutton/Maloney

He sprayed the ball about well, but we were hardly watching Beckham or Pirlo in their pomp. As someone else mentioned above, all the world cup passes are fine but I don't remember him pinging them into the danger zone very often - the majority of our crosses didn't beat the first man; or puff into the box for a big bruising defender to head away, albeit they were from McGinn or Hayes. If I'm really being critical, the centre of midfield collapsed for the majority of the 2nd half once Shinnie went to left back and Motherwell grew in confidence - in between their time wasting. I don't want to take away from the win, but it wasn't pretty or pleasant. I was glad that we came out of it with win, but the boys hit the same plays over and over and over and hoped something would happen differently. It's no surprise the quick break lead to a goal.

Never. He' a cut above them. Wouldn't mind him at us if McInnes ever left. He's about the only guy out there I can think of who could do a job.

O’ Connor was solid enough defensively; the only worry is how painfully one footed he is. Every time the ball comes near his left side he’s like a trawler boat turning onto his right foot – probably the main reason he was exploited in the cup final as Celtic knew he had no left foot. I can’t say I particularly noticed McLean having a good game. I always think he’s one of those players you notice is playing well when the team is; but he wouldn’t command a performance on his own. All in all, we deserved the win due to Motherwell’s horrendous time wasting tactics. In years gone by they’d of snatched a winner off that as well, just to rub salt in the wounds!! We need a bit more imagination playing against those kind of teams who sit in against us. When Christie came on he livened it up by running at Well and giving them something to think about and potentially make mistakes; along with Hayes and McGinn floating around. The continuous crosses that don’t beat the first man won’t win us much games.

Can't say I'd be devastated in Pee Paw leaves. He's been good the past few games, but largely anonymous for quite some time now. Outside of the pre-Park Red run he's never re-found the unplayable form he had when McIness first played him. His final ball now always seems to be throwing himself down, or looking for the free kick, rather than a cross or shot. That said, when he starts, despite being largely anonymous, he does find the net quite regularly. Whether he'd be happy to stay here and continue to be an impact sub, as mentioned in another thread, I don't know. He's getting on a bit now in football terms. I'm not Jacks biggest fan and I don't think we play in a way to get the best out of him anymore (similarly to Pee Paw). I'd actually quite like to see what happens if Jack goes. Ever since he first signed and took in Robson and Flood, McIness has largely left the defensive side of CM untouched. It'll be interesting to see who he signs outside of an attacking Mid!! If it's another in Shinnie's ilk we'd be alright