RicoS321

Fucking Judas Hun cunt.

Seabass knows that they'll take England's place once they pull out after Putin invades.

You could be right. Although as OD says, we were excited by gleeson and Forrester. Up until his final window, I always got the impression that we were quite professional in our signing process under McInnes (although success rate low). Hopefully the data driven, football manager approach will return a higher success level. Glass was hung out to dry with no recruitment team in place for a guy coming from US, which was scandalous. It's difficult not to improve on that. What it did show is just how important transfers are to us, and how important a recruitment team is. I can't remember a single season in the last 30 years where we started a season without a single player who signed the previous year in the starting line up, and I think that might be the case this year. Watkins might be the only exception (and really he doesn't count having been here on loan previously so recruitment wasn't really required as such) and perhaps Bates may come in, but only because our Tim is ineligible. That is a massive indictment of Cormack's lax approach last season and in my opinion very little reflection on Glass.

Welcome aboard foreigner. The teuchter pronunciations are going to be beautiful next season.

Disgusting self promotion in my opinion.

Aye, Boyce is better than Shankland. Nae quite the same as signing severin from them, but I expect there'll be plenty of their support unhappy to see him move.

At the moment, any impartial viewer would have to say that the full international with over 500 club appearances is significantly stronger than the guy with 35 games for Shamrock rovers. On paper, this guy looks nowhere near as good, and certainly a higher risk (Considine obviously not without risk, but he's not a player plagued with injury and generally very fit, hence saints' signing of him).* If you had told any dons fan a few months ago that we'd be ditching Considine to get in an untested loanee with no option to buy, I think they'd have thought you were a bit mental. We are where we are of course, but it's fucking atrocious that we didn't have better options than a loanee guaranteed to miss at least three fixtures. I know I'd rather be starting with Considine on the opening fixture ahead of this season's left sided shoehorn. That we don't even have a permanent replacement lined up ready for the following season suggests that the request for a two year deal really wasn't a ridiculous one. Edit: *Of course Scales could be very good, there's no reason to think he won't be and he'll be given every opportunity. If he's very good then he won't be here longer than a year. I'm a traditionalist who likes a settled back two wherever possible, which seems unlikely for us for the next couple of seasons. Also, to add, was Luke Turner not already performing better in the diddly dee leagues than this lad?

I'm about 75% in this camp. This perpetuates the model whereby the "big" teams simply buy talent to then loan out. We're effectively subsidising them. I simply don't think that loans should form part of our business model at all. None of last season's loans worked, and few have. Where I'd make exceptions are guys like Logan, Reynolds, Watkins etc. who aren't getting a game for their side and we are likely to be able to pick up at the end of the deal (as opposed to developing a youngster). Exception would obviously be made for any loanee with agreement to purchase. The other 25% is because Goodwin has to play with the hand he's dealt, so I think he should. Our two chances of success this season are in cup competition. The chances of us beating the Tims (which we'll likely need to) on an off day is significantly reduced with our left centre half missing. We have zero cover in that role presently. I don't like it, but I'm not totally aggrieved by it. Obviously I'll boooo the cunt the first time he misplaces a pass.

Fuck sake. Slow doon with the signings. Fucking ridiculous.

Shite. Should have signed Shaun Rooney instead. Welcome aboard loon.

We can rate a lot of players that we don't need highly. It's not a great signing policy.

Definitely the type of young lad we should be looking at. Lots of potential.

That's a McInnes type signing. Very Stevie May. Reached his limit years ago (not a criticism, he's worked very hard and done well). £500K is a rip off.

1-3. Girona up. Third time of asking.

1-1. Reckon the Dons would give these two a run for their money. Once we sign a team of course.

I'd be tempted to deal at not much more. Despite finishing our top scorer from midfield, he's not reached the levels he could have in the last year (I think the employing of Brown was an absolute disaster for his development). I think that a sideways step will be all he can really hope for at this stage (although the Scotland appearances will have helped). He needs to be challenged at championship level, where he'll play against a handful (or more perhaps) of teams above the dons level (of a couple of years ago). It'd be a massive punt for anyone above that to go for him, and I don't see him going abroad either. I think we missed the boat last season with the best offer we were likely to get. Try and get a few teams interested and see if we can get £2M. Another year in the SPFL will do neither him nor us any good.

We'll definitely need one with Woods gone.

I think he's that sort of Ryan Jack type where what he does isn't immediately obvious, but when he's not there it's noticeable. He had some really good games for Scotland but struggled to make an impact in others. It's a bit like McTominay and Robertson these days. The role they play isn't something that is going to turn a loss into a win necessarily, but they will be the best option in their position. Wales have been very lucky in having Bale as world class in a role that will also bring lots of goals (Portugal with Ronaldo). McFadden is probably the closest thing Scotland have had to that since somebody like Dalglish (there were others at McFadden's level of course, I'm talking recent times). There wasn't a single player I'd have had ahead of Fletcher for Scotland during his 80 caps, and I doubt Man utd fans would have swapped many for him in his time there. I bet there were some pretty high profile players in that time who came and went and couldn't displace him too. Don't know enough about Marcelo at Real, but I'm guessing he's that type of player who is bloody good but not in area that can be adequately measured by stats. It'd be very difficult to put a figure on how many attacks were stifled by Ryan Jack for the dons because he covered for a full back, jockeying his man until the defence recovered their shape, but it was a large number. It didn't require a beasting challenge or tanking about like a feel, just really intelligent fitbaing.

Jack Gurr would be up there.

Di Rocco was good. Kiriakov was mince. Probably wasn't even the best Bulgarian we signed that year. I'm guessing that we've never signed good foreign players because we've never had the scouting in those areas. It's likely quite expensive and finding a comparable league(s) would likely take a few years of trial and error. Unless we have scouts in country, it seems likely that we're going by stats, videos and then perhaps a follow up viewing in person. That seems a shakey foundation to build scouting on, and I can imagine it's often difficult to know what you're looking at. The teams we played in Europe give you an idea about how unknown the level in different leagues is and how they'll perform in Scotland. I went into our first couple of European ties last season thinking we were in for a real battle, when in reality they were fairly pap. Apply that to a player, and it seems a little higher risk. We actually seem to be recruiting from several new (to our scouting networks) European countries at once this season, which seems to suggest a different strategy completely (i.e. one that relies heavily on data).

Nonsense. He's pish. Never does anything for Scotland.

I don't think that those are actually the only choices available. Both Jet and Main were unsuccessful SPFL strikers when we signed them, they were just shite signings. The objective should be to reduce the gambling wherever possible. Players with good SPFL experience. That said, there's nobody in the striker department that's setting the heather alight just now (maybe former players Anderson and Hendry). Given that we've got absolutely zero backup in that position (assuming Ramirez is away), then we could be in for another season where we can't make any meaningful changes in a match, or even go two up front. I think we need some good SPFL players coming in from other sides. There has to be a balance in our recruitment. I'm sure we'll see that as the weeks go on.

Think it was €10M, so about £8.5M ish. That was after add-ons too. I expect the figures aren't that far apart, but we'll be trying to drive a hard bargain.

I've never been a fan of Hanley, but he was one of our best players in qualifying for the Euros and at those Euros. He's strong and aggressive and is good to have in a three, when you've got someone like Tierney bombing around and someone that can play football on the other side. There is still a place for a no nonsense defender. Attackers don't like it, and often the simple thing just needs to be done. Compare with McTominay fucking about with it and still making mistakes and you can see why. Hanley massively redeemed himself over the past few years and I think it would be unfair to throw him back under the bus just yet. I think playing both Hanley and McKenna isn't a good pairing, and we see a massive drop off when Tierney is out in general. I think the timing of these fixtures has really done us in. We don't look fit, and the players look ready for their holidays. Hanley is a player who was always terrible when he wasn't match sharp. You really can't afford a guy who plays like he does being half a second late to every ball. We should have used the squad better and kept Souttar. The worst thing about yesterday for me was the absolutely clueless triple sub. Screamed of not knowing what to do. Could Stewart not bring something to Adams game, coming on at half time? Gilmour is a youngster who should have been given the summer to rest and improve his game too.

I mean, the Bosman ruling was a good thing though, wasn't it? Var is the worst thing to happen to fitba since Mark Hateley.