RicoS321

To be fair, they're all al cunts. You'd expect a high mortality rate.

I haven't heard how is Alloa stint is going. He missed a chunk of their games in the last month or two. Hopefully it was injury, rather than ability, related. Played every game up until March. Happy to have him as back up like if he's good enough.

The problem is, is that is what we tried to do last summer. We got a few key signings in as first teamers. We then spent the end of the window adding Lowe, Hobban, Wilson, Ball to make up for the fact that our initial signings were pap. We've ended up with a lightweight squad which wouldn't have been the case. We'd have been completely fine if Forrester, Gleeson and Wilson hadn't been shite. We've ended up with a squad with a host of extras who all need game time at some stage to keep them happy, but if Gleeson and Forrester had been up to it then Ball wouldn't have been signed. If we'd got Lowe in earlier, then Hobban wouldn't have been signed. If May and Cosgrove hadn't been average then Wilson wouldn't have been signed. The problem that we have is that we're looking for so many first teamers we'll inevitably get a good few dross purchases at the same time - it's the nature of the business unfortunately. Given the turnover again, I think we'll struggle to retain a light squad without being completely ruthless. For example, I'd happily have Cosgrove, Anderson and another striker up front but we'd have to ditch May. In the front 3 McLennan, Wright, McGinn and GMS replacement might again be enough. I'd happily have Ferguson, Shinnie replacement (Djoum), Campbell, New Signing in midfield but that would mean getting rid of both Gleeson and Ball. In defence we've only really got Harrington as cover for right back coming through, so Lowe (or Lowe replacement), plus Considine, McKenna, Devlin and Logan would seem exceptionally light so I'd get a Hobban type signing too. That is a minimum of 6 signings right there. Are you realistic about our ability to make 6 accurate signings in the summer window? I would think that we'd have to make ten signings in order to get 6 good ones (by good, I mean two midfielders that are better than Ball for example). That's going to leave us with an additional 4 players who we'll have on the bench fighting for time with the youngsters. Even that would/should be deemed a succesful window with a 60% success rate on signings. It certainly highlights the stupidity of those suggesting we get rid of Considine.

Is Ferguson not still suspended? I thought he had a two match ban? If Shinnie is missing, then I expect he'll play Devlin at right back and move Ball into midfield and Gleeson and play a 4-5-1. If Ferguson also missing then I think we're screwed (I think we'll struggle without Shinnie anyway).

I've always found that shiteloads of booze is an excellent bet at Perth races.

2021. The year that Scotland breaks free.

Ball just puts in a good robust challenge. There's no way he'd be cited for that. I don't see the leg headbutt on the replay, but that's not to say it didn't occur after. The ref is looking at the incident from shortly after the moment the ball goes loose, so he'd have seen the majority of it. There's certainly not enough video evidence to cite Ball for anything is there? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/scotland/48006978

I just watched it back. You're right, kicking him when they're down is poor, but it's a wee tap. It's like it's being done to get a reaction from our player rather than to hurt him. The sort of force you'd use to get someone off your foot if they'd landed on it. It just seems very weak to be a red like. I doubt they'd get it rescinded, but it doesn't seem worse than Morelos'.

Not a red card though. As per the Morelos precedent it should have been a yellow. Looked very similar in that it was a frustrated petulant kick rather than an attempt to cause harm (or whatever the wording was). They should appeal, citing the Morelos case and make their appeal public.

I'm not sure this happened.

No, I'm saying the opposite. Overall, the decision was correct, but in isolation it looks like poor planning. Has he let Frank Ross go? I thought he was injured?

I like John Hughes, he's ace fun. It'd be a tremendous joke to play on the tartan army to have him at the helm for a bit. Really test their passion for the national side.

I disagree. Wright is of the age that he either needs to do something or get shipped. Another 6 months sitting on our bench with the occasional appearance here and there would have done him no good. It might have been useful for us in the short term, but we've got to put the development of our youth first and if that means we lose out on a player for the few games he might have been useful in then so be it. A good run of games at Dundee - if he gets them - is far more than we could have offered him. After 3 months rusting on the bench since January too, we'd probably end up with a worse player out wide than Stewart who he'd be brought in to replace. To me, it wasn't bad planning, it was just a choice that had to be made. I think McInnes took that short term approach with Wright a year ago and it totally backfired then, so he had to make up for it this time round.

Aye, important one. Would be nice to push the hun all the way for second with a very strong finish to the season (including beating them again of course). I doubt we will like (push the huns for second), but I think we've got a good chance this weekend. One thing about having a weak bench and injuries means that the team picks itself. -------------Lewis------------- Ball--Consi--McKenna--Lowe ----Campbell--Shinnie-------- -McLennan---May---Stewart- -----------Cosgrove---------- Might see Gleeson in for Campbell I suppose, but hope not. I'd actually put May out wide and Stewart through the centre, but I think McInnes will keep him wide.

Let's be honest, it hasn't been turgid for a few seasons. It's been poorer for two seasons. At points last season it was still a pretty high standard (based on our league and based on this century by any team outwith the cheeks). Three seasons ago we were banging in goals in a manner we haven't done since Shearer was up front. We scored 7 goals in more than one game and six in another. To say it was turgid is to hold AFC to a ridiculously high standard. We were excellent that season by any standard any non-scum team has set in the last 25 years. After losing Hayes and McGinn we struggled significantly but still turned out some excellent performances such as the hibs one at Pittodrie and we finished an impressive second in the league with some very good post-split performances. I think that's an acceptable state of affairs given the difficulty in replacing players lost. However, because we were so far away in our signings (May, GMS, Stewart, Maynard etc) it set us up for another poor season. May, GMS etc weren't terrible, but they were significantly poorer than what came before. Going into this season we followed up poor signings with poor signings and it's put us further behind. We've had some great results and a handful of decent performances (Hearts at Pittodrie, the early league games where GMS was playing well, the Huns at Ibrox etc), but we're grinding most performances out and one or two injuries are having a huge impact on the overall performance (Shinnie at the weekend, Lowe on boxing day). It's been mostly poor. I don't think we should overstate the problem, but still recognising that there is a problem. To me, getting a new manager in won't fix the fundamental issue with recruitment. One thing that the Tims did really well under Lennon in his first spell was set up a good recruitment network that put ready-made players under his nose with only the paperwork to go. We're either not doing that, or we've got the wrong people doing it. McInnes can't be expected to do everything on his own and neither can any replacement. That recruitment wing of the club needs a complete overhaul to get people who can decipher what the manager needs in a player and recognise that in players in other leagues. If I could see that Gleeson wasn't dynamic enough for our first team in 30 minutes, then our scouts should have. Scouts can watch these guys over 5-6 games, with a manger likely only to see 1 (Lampard only came up to see one dons game as an example before going for Shinnie) where a player could just have a good game or they are already sold on them by the scout. McInnes takes the blame, but the problem clearly is far more systemic (we've barely scouted and signed a good player this century). Guys like Tansey, Zola etc show he's hit or miss in his own judgement so as a club we need to do significantly better. In my opinion, McInnes showed a couple of seasons ago that he could get a team to play fitba, but a team with poorer players he resorts to game management and grinding out results. A change in manager will just be something different to that.

Would also be a pretty decent one though. I don't think he's as good as Shinnie (despite many suggesting otherwise when he was at Hibs) but he's good and he's good in this league. We can afford a few risks down South but we'll need the tried and tested to ensure that we don't end up massively worse next season. That's not specific to McInnes' ability to sign players either, just a general truism.

I've not seen any evidence at all that we received an offer of £6.5M for McKenna and I don't believe it for a second. Our director of football would be an idiot if he turned that down, final day or not. McKenna wouldn't have been the difference between us finishing second and fourth given the personnel we had at the start of the season in that position (Hoban, Devlin, Considine, Ball) and we certainly wouldn't have predicted the injuries we suffered. We could have picked up a free transfer like Halford to make up the numbers until January. The risk of McKenna having a poor season or getting injured just wouldn't have been worth the money not received given the average abilities of the rest of the team.

Agree with this, although I'm not sure if it was club spin or agent spin. It would have been ludicrous to turn down £6M for a dons player. That's the prize funds for 4 second places. I always said that £3.5M would be a good offer for McKenna, and I think we might get slightly more than that in the summer if we're lucky. £750-1000K for Cosgrove would be decent business too, but I see no need to move him on in the summer (we definitely need another striker though).

I agree in the main. But then I said the same as you last pre-season until I saw Gleeson and Forrester and changed my mind in a flash. If we had a youth team player with a bit of steel coming through I'd be comfortable ditching Ball as backup. As I said, if we can get a couple of midfield signings that we're happy with early doors in the window then get rid, but - like last season - if we take a punt down South and fail then we should snap him up as backup. Could you imagine if we hadn't had Ball this season? That charlatan Forrester or fellow fanny Gleeson would have played umpteen games and we'd be much further down the league. Campbell isn't yet as good as Ball (I have no doubt that he will be). I'm not saying that Ball is brilliant, just that there is a very high risk factor in assuming that a player we take in will be better. We will be looking at 2-3 new midfielders in the summer for the first eleven with a view to one of them being good enough to replace Shinnie and another to fill the gap left by Christie which we didn't solve last summer. The notion that we can replace an entire team in one window is a little bit niave, so if we have a ready made squad player the pragmatic thing would be to sign him. Put another way, given the turnover, I wouldn't be surprised to see us (if we let Ball go) having a midfielder sitting on the bench for an entire season that we couldn't concievably rely on to come on in a game like we did this season with Gleeson and Forrester. Hopefully Harrington will return from Montrose with the experience to provide competition/backup at right back.

In fairness to Ball, he's being asked to play in a role he's proven he's shite at. Also, his first yellow card was typical of the shite that only that card-happy wanker Thomson is capable of. A fucking awful decision. Just as bad as Ball's decision to go in for that challenge on Christie. That said, I do think there is some merit in keeping him as cover for our midfield next season (as there was this season). Unless we can get in a ready made Shinnie replacement pretty quickly in the transfer window then I think it'd be a big risk to go into next season hoping that the next Gleeson/Forrester is going to be better than the current Gleeson/Forrester. We know Ball's limitations, but we also know that he's good enough in midfield to do a shift against most of the teams in the league if we get injuries to our preferred midfield. Nobody is suggesting that he should be here as first choice midfielder. We'll have at least 4 first team players to sign in the summer and pragmatism would suggest that a couple of Ball-like squad players wouldn't be the worst back-stop. Anyway, we were pretty much awful all over. That said, without the sending off we would have held on until half time where we might have been given a boot up the cunt. With the missing players and the lack of talent in the surrounding squad we were on a hiding to nothing but you cannot afford to make any mistakes. Ball's red card is unforgiveable. We then have a 6 minute period of Christie on the deck to organise ourselves to see it through until half time. We didn't need a sub. We certainly didn't need to leave Cosgrove on that pitch who was only ever going to be wandering about permanently 6 seconds behind where the ball last was. Not his fault, but anybody that has seen him play (or any player of his style) knows that he's not the guy you need against a good team with ten men. It was a mistake from McInnes, and also an unforgiveable one. It was either Cosgrove for Devlin, or continue as was with a back three of Lowe, Considine and McKenna until half time - and that should have been blatantly obvious. The Ferguson challenge was dirty as fuck and McInnes should have said so post-match. On the sectarian side of things, it doesn't surprise me that our own supporters are using terms like "Fenian", they've doing it for years, often at our own players (McGinn). It seems more prevalent at away games. The notion that McInnes was getting sectarian abuse is a bit of a cop out in my opinion. Granted, I didn't grow up in the west coast so I don't really know how it must feel or if it irks you or is just banter, but I only heard chants about him being a "sad orange bastard" which I'm not convinced is actually sectarian. To me, he was sent off because he lost his discipline (which is actually unusual for him to be fair) because of the poor performance.

A surprise inclusion for Halford (is that his name?) at right back? May in midfield to replace Shinnie's workrate? Campbell in midfield? None are great options (harsh on Campbell of course, but I don't think he's quite ready based on his Motherwell performance). It's a real headache. I think McInnes will go: --------------Lewis-------------- Devlin--Consi---McKenna-Lowe ---------Ferguson----Ball------- -Mclennan---Stewart---McGinn ------------Cosgrove------------ I'm not sure what I'd do. Probably something similar. Ball isn't an adequate replacement for Shinnie, we'll lose about 20% of coverage on a single player, so we'll have to sit/end up sitting really deep.

It tells us that Clarke is a better manager, but I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise. Regardless of Clarke winning a trophy or not, he's done an excellent job, and he's sustained it beyond just the season that he took over, showing that it wasn't just "new manager bounce". He's significantly better than both Levein and Lennon (tbc Heckingbottom) too which suggests that it's not peculiar to McInnes. The average is based on total wages/squad size so squad size not totally relevant. As I said, poor signings meant we've probably got a disproportionally expensive bench, which I don't think Killie do to the same extent. I think the McCulloch - Clarke comparison is no different to the Brown - McInnes one. McInnes took us from 8th - 3rd with a lot of players from the Brown era who he just got to play better along with a few good signings (you could compare Robson with Mulumbu for example). It'll be interesting to see how Clarke gets on with re-building. I expect a lot of his signings to date have been from his recent past (watching, as well as working with). The less time he gets to watch other leagues will mean he has to rely on the Killie scouts a lot more (in the way McInnes has with us). If he has to rely on the judgement of others, I wonder it if will upset the cart a little. I don't know if he's added his own people to that area or not of course.

According to Statista, as at Nov18 we were averaging £138.67pa (3rd), with them on £62.82 (7th). I said double as opposed to 45/100. We're in agreement on Stewart, regardless of the circumstances. What I meant about them matching wages is that because of our shite signings, several of our first 11 will be on similar wages. Our higher earners like Wilson and Gleeson (presumably, given he was signed as a first 11 players) take the average up whilst sitting on the bench, whereas their higher earners will be on the pitch. Thus their higher earners vs our below average earners will greatly reduce the perceived budget gap. Guys like Jones, Power, Dicker, Broadfoot, Bachmann, O-Donnell will be on similar wages to the likes of Ball, Considine, Ferguson and Cosgrove.

I don't think that there is any question that Clarke is the best manager in the league. He's also out of our budget now. Killie pay half as much as us with a similar squad size. Not sure how that is made up in terms of earners, but given that they were matching us in the offer to Stewart it wouldn't be inconceivable to think that they had 4-5 players on similar contracts to some of our first teamers. I would think that Clarke has a far greater success rate with his signings, which makes a huge difference in cutting the gap between the budgets. I imagine that our average wage without Wilson, Hoban, Gleeson and Forrester (vs any crap signings they've made) would be massively reduced. Adding in GMS - missing for half a season - and our expensively assembled first team actually looks quite cheap. It'd be really interesting to get an idea of individual's wages (even just in wage-brackets) so we could actually work out a weighted team cost based on minutes on the pitch. I think our failings in the transfer market would leave us without a huge advantage over Killie. Not only does Clarke get more out of his players, but he gets better value for money on signings than any other team in the league. It's impressive like.

I hadn't heard Deek mentioning that before, that's interesting. It is the one area he appears to have done zero work on since arriving at the club. Every other department seems to have at least one DM appointment in it. It's pretty fundamental though. You're right that you always get Gleeson-type signings, however it is the volume of them and the glaringly obvious nature that strikes me as bordering on incompetent. Different players respond differently to the environment of course, but guys like Forrester, Maynard, Tansey etc were clearly never going to be of the standard. Yer Wilson and Gleeson are easier mistakes to make as they've got something about them and have attributes that would suit them to our game, and I accept that 2 or 3 mistakes will be made in each summer window. Really, a 50-60% return should be viable and I don't think that we've been close to that in the last 2-3 seasons (about 5 windows, which shows a repeated failure). With each passing window we've got weaker and weaker. With such a huge turnover due in the summer then that will inevitably be the case again. However, I do believe it is systemic within AFC so I'm not convinced a new manager would suddenly start picking up gems once their initial stock (from previous employment) wears thin. We can't expect everything from our manager, the club needs the set up to back him and I think we're way short.