RicoS321

That was a fairly poor performance. The better team won. I wasn't convinced by all the chat about having assembled the best squad in years. The first 11 looks pretty good when fit, but the squad players look a different prospect. I don't get the clamour for Wilson to be given a start yesterday, he was fucking atrocious against Hearts - the worst player on the pitch. I wasn't happy with him being re-signed based on one half decent game post-split last season. Those wages (and arguably added to those of Main), should have gone on a far better striker. Like Taylor in defence, it was very high risk to be buying guys like Wilson and Main to be your fringe players. With Cosgrove a doubt for Thursday we've got to rely on them now and they've shown in the past that their not that reliable. Main would have probably been fine on his own as a cheaper alternative to May, but Main and Wilson just doesn't cut it. As others have said, taking in one of Wright or McLennan would be fine (and an ideal way to bed in your young players) but to have them both starting was always going to end in them both being taken off. I understand that the trip to Croatia would have been tiring and so freshening the team up was a good move, but we simply don't have a good enough squad to expect to win away from home with 4 of our first team players not playing. The signings have been better this season, but risks have been taken on Main and Wilson (and Taylor) that just didn't need to happen. We'll wait and see over the next few games however, we're not the first and won't be the last team to struggle and be very flat after a European away so once we get papped out on Thursday it'll be onwards and upwards!

Apparently we had a clause that if they didn't sell him before the end of his contract we get him back.

Further edit... EE talking pish! He's in Croatia.

I don't think that we do have the budget for him though. There is zero point in having him and Main in the squad, it is detrimental to others trying to get into the team and they both do the same job. "Having the budget" for Stevie May means that we also have the budget for someone better than Stevie May on the same money.

Think the McKenna business will have a huge effect. Very distracting indeed. I'm guessing that no further action will take place before the game and he'll be on the pitch tonight, which is essential if we're to take anything. I expect a really tight performance at the back from the dons. Would I be right in saying that Bryson didn't travel? I heard that from someone at work, but not sure if it was a confirmed rumour. If Bryson not there, I expect Ferguson to sit quite deep. Other than, I've nae idea about how good a team they are, or aren't. 3-0 the dons, Considine etc.

This thread is getting good. I think we should have deployed a DT rep down at Dyce for the day. Could you imagine this was a Tim or a Hun or down South? There'd be a reporter there checking for the team getting on the plane.

Is it not a 5pm deadline? I assumed he couldn't sign (for an English club anyway). However, being in Croatia doesn't mean he can't come home - or fly to England - tomorrow. Hopefully we get the loanee across there later today or first thing tomorrow if he signs.

To be honest, we're probably more in need of right back cover when Devlin and Taylor are both fit anyway. The fact that he's played CB before means he can slot in there tomorrow night and perhaps the next couple of games. Whilst the European games are very important, we need to sign someone that's going to cover us for the whole season. Hopefully he'll be half decent. I'm not expecting much and the circumstances are a little bit beyond our control - I suspect he wouldn't have been our first choice and we'd have preferred to see who was still around post English window close. Anyway, we need someone, and he is someone.

Yes I did, I just threw in a bit of extra information too! The answer is yes, we knew who our opposition would have been had we beaten Limassol.

We definitely did for Limassol, because they were a pish team. We knew that all we had to do was buy a striker that wasn't Stockley or some other pish then we'd have made the group stages - thus making the transfer fee back. Instead of going for Moult for a few hundred thousand more, though, we waited until after we were papped out and decided on £400K bargain Stevie May.

But if he doesn't do it before Thursday, there's a danger he could remain in Scotland for the next 6 months. I'm assuming this coincides with the English window, which suggests it won't be the Tim he's targetting (or is targetting him). He's between a rock and a hard place like as he ideally needs to move before Rijeka (for himself), and he's not in control of when the bids are being made. It's a quandary like, as we need him on the plane and he needs to be in the UK to discuss terms and do medicals and such like. We'll just have to take him and keep him up to date with offers. Not great preparation, but I'm sure McInnes can handle it.

Aye, of course, but you could see the player saying the opposite: the club were content that he would leave given the right offer and be talking to him before bids were rejected or whatever. With a player wanting to leave I expect it wouldn't take much for him to feel he has been wronged. Given we don't know, I'd hope the fans would give him an easy ride in Croatia. One thing I think of is that we won't be getting near to what most AFC fans would consider acceptable. I think the rumours last season were inaccurate, and I reckon we'd be doing well to get £4M this summer.

Meh, who knows. The club could also be being dicks here, they've got form. The best thing is transparency in these situations and I expect both the club and the agent are incapable of such. They should be working together in the best interests of the loon and the long term best for him is to go for as much money as possible, because that not only increases his wage in the short term, but will ensure that future offers retain a high value too. "Handing in a transfer request" is overtly political as it's contractually meaningless. However, if the club have turned down offers without informing/involving the player - for example - then that too is under-handed. Either way, the club should be able to deal quickly and easily with this type of thing and ensure that the boy plays this week and perhaps next too. He'll know that it's in his best interests to keep playing to the best of his ability and I've nae doubt he'll do that. Unless he's taking the huff because McInnes told him he was shite yesterday of course, which he should have, because he was.

Where did the rumours surface? The hat? We do seem to the job of the weegie press quite well in unsettling our own team. He's a dons player under contract and he's a good professional so he'll do the business at Rijeka. If an acceptable bid comes in then we take it (and immediately get him back on loan until January!) and move on. The ball is in our court.

Emmm... that was Willie Miller (and Gary Naysmith)

Exciting opening to the season. Great performance in the circumstances. I've never seen that ref before, and I hope I never do. Hearts were cynical as fuck and how they finished with 10 men, I'm not sure. Constant, deliberate, hacking that could have been brought under control pretty quickly by a stronger ref. Anyway, it made the victory even more sweet. Cosgrove again was excellent, Logan was good and Hedges and McGinn both good when they came on. McKenna was pap against the big cunt, Considine considerably better, which is worrying. More worryingly Wright poor again and Wilson absolutely atrocious. Wright is a low-cost youngster who will either make it or he won't, Wilson was a high risk signing and he seems to have reverted to last season's form. That's going to put a lot of strain on the squad as we can't expect McGinn to be good in every game and McLennan is a bit raw still. The signs are that we are a better team than Hearts, but that's about it so far!

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That was an enjoyable evening's fitba like. Great performance and some great play and superb goals. Best all round performance of his career from Cosgrove, he did everything right tonight and worked his arse off. If he can play half as well as that consistently this season he'll score 30 goals. Good all over the pitch and a great confidence boost for the Hearts game. Difficult to tell how good a performance it was obviously, as it's not obvious who you would compare thon lot to in Scotland, so Sunday will be interesting. I'm hoping we go with a similar line up, but I have a feeling we might see Bryson, which would be a shame. Wright did well when he came up, with a really confident finish (could you imagine May in that position?); he doesn't seem to let his previous poor performances in the first 11 get to him at all but he needs regular game time and chances to fall for him. Roll on Sunday and then Rijeka.

As the undisputed biggest superfan on this site, I think I know a little bit more about the youth team career of Miko Virtanen than you......

I thought that he moved to centre mid half way through last season and was playing there now?

I suppose McKenna was the break through at centre half. Last season was the first time in years we didn't have a reasonably settled defence for the entire season so guys like Rose (looks a decent player), Harrington, Harvie etc were just allowed to leave after loan spells as there wasn't ever likely to be the opportunity for them. Defence is always a difficult one, as nobody ever likes to unsettle the defence by giving a youngster some game time (instead of Logan for 20 minutes for example) in the same way that you can afford that time to a winger or midfielder. Also, you generally need to make attacking changes rather than defensive ones so you're really just holding out for an injury. Shame, as I'd like to see us bring through a young fullback (McKenna being still a fairly recent youth success in the middle) as it's been a long time since we've had one. They all seem to be very young in our youth team though, which I suppose makes sense if we've ditched a few recently. I think that fullback is a lot more physical these days for a younger loon too, as you have to get up and doon like a fucker or be aggressive with the attacker in the case of Considine. A difficult role.

Rocket, TC's example above is what I would class as reasonably ambitious. Not breaking our wage structure (which is generally related to our turnover), whilst improving our team in order to get more folks through the door in order to increase our wage structure. I just don't see McKenna (as opposed to Findlay mentioned above) as being the difference between us finishing second or third, getting into the Europa league or winning a cup.

I would say some, not many. Some have improved. I think Shinnie, McLean, McGinn, Hayes, Considine, Lewis, Logan, Cosgrove (so far), Rooney were all better than under McInnes than they had been previously. They all seemed to enjoy playing for him too. The biggest issue for me is his inability to turn young players like Scott Wright, McLennan and so on into regular first team successes. He tries to make things far too difficult for players breaking through rather than give them basic instructions and a few simple tasks and allow the 7-8 more senior players to cover for their deficiencies and then increasing the instructions as they gain experience. Lack of ambition has to be tempered with realism though surely? If we were offered £5M+ for McKenna (I agree with you, we wont - certainly not this summer) then the only question is if we can get a good replacement for a significantly smaller sum that would allow us to develop elsewhere and put the remainder towards future development of youth through better training facilities or a shitey stadium in the middle of nowhere. I think I could buy a good centre half and a good striker that would make us a better team for £2M whilst still losing McKenna and putting the remainder toward capital investments that helped to create more McKennas. That's not unambitious, that's just good logic. I don't want the club to be beholden to a hoose builder for constant investment.

There is rarely optimism and false hope in any of my posts if you were to look at them. I think I'm quite a realist. Me suggesting that McKenna hasn't regressed is hardly an example of blind faith, if there is regression, it's very marginal. In terms of the team, again I'm a realist. I stated at the very beginning of the last two seasons that I thought our recruitment was poor and that we had a poor team that would struggle to win anything or finish in the top two and that's exactly what happened. I'd say that it was my realism in how poor a team (squad, really) we'd assembled that meant my expectations were low. I think that our recruitment has been terrible in the last few years and mentioned it in nearly every single post. I'd say it's the primary cause of our poor form, our very ugly performances and thus a reduction interest in AFC. We went from a team that scored a record number of goals in a season, playing some really really good football on the way - under McInnes - to one that deliberately stifled games to see out results in an absolute desire for points on the board over performance (which actually worked when we pipped the hun for second, but showed its obvious flaws in the cup). I've mentioned a hundred times my thoughts on AFC's plans. McKenna was not infiinitely better in my opinion, it's just that most people were uncritical of the mistakes that a young loon was regularly making. He carried quite a few of those into his second season but finished the season strongly and looks fitter and stronger still this season. I don't think that your example of Andy Robertson is particularly relevant to McKenna as I don't believe McKenna has ever been close to that category of player and nor is likely to get there with his skillset. I don't believe McKenna will (or would have with some other manager) make it to the level of Ryan Fraser, but even he experienced a good couple of years where he struggled to make any impact (indeed, his performances even dipped in his last month or so with the dons as defenders worked out how to double up on him and make things difficult). Maddison flew onto the scene as a youngster before ending up at the dons on loan. It happens to almost every young footballer as they try to re-invent themselves and really work out what it is they need to do to get to the next level. Russell Anderson a very notable example for the dons. I have not suggested that McInnes is the man to turn McKenna into the next Alex McLeish but he's got a player that's playing regularly for Scotland and a player that plays with absolute confidence in his own ability with a fantastic temperament. I'm happy to criticise McInnes - and regularly do - with regard to his handling of youth players, but I see very very little to criticise in the case of McKenna.

I've yet to see any evidence of the £6M offer, and I don't believe it occurred. There only seemed to be confirmed bids of around £3.5M last year and I could see that being matched this season. I also dont believe McKenna has regressed at all. He had numerous poor games and a temporary dip in form as you'd expect from a youngster, but I think his overall game has improved and I think that'll begin to become more obvious this season as he gets more and more confident. I think we'll start see him imposing himself a lot more and taking the ball forward a lot more too. He's not worth more than £3-4M in my mind, but I think that a good 6 months could see him stretch that a good bit.