RicoS321

Or they're just pragmatic? If it meant investing in a good left back, a decent attacking midfielder and a decent winger, then I'd sell McKenna in January. The sums we are talking about for McKenna (and I don't believe the ones touted in Jan) would be worth several seasons' prize funds, so it's not about money v success. Retaining McKenna isn't going to be the difference between us finishing 1st, 2nd or 3rd, but not having a left back, some decent supply and a finisher might. I'm pretty certain that we could assemble a team to beat the huns and tims without McKenna in it, but we certainly won't do it with the existing first 11. The Tims cashed in on Dembele when they could. If they'd held onto him for longer, there was a huge risk that they could lose a lot of his value for little return. It's about positioning yourself in the wider game and understanding the correct balance between letting players move on and associated detriment to the team. For the right amount of cash we could let McKenna go and be no more or less succesful because of that (if re-invested to a smaller degree).

You should show some respect, our Queen made Andy a Sir. He's the people's champion.

There's a lot of points to go on there Rocket! Murray was world class at the endurance part though. Just phenomenal. I'm not a massive tennis fan, but I enjoy watching it now and again. Some of the returns he made against the very best were just insane. The number of times, when watching Murray, I would think to myself "fuck, this boy is good" was telling. He could get his arm round anything and produce accuracy at speed that I didn't think was possible (obviously Djokovic did similar). Throughout the nineties, serve and volley was the only strategy and it was severely boring. You wouldn't get a hoofer like Goran Ivanisovic winning in the modern game (although I did enjoy watching him). Regarding the endurance part, the same is happening in every single sport, both professional and yer olympic pish. Fitba is exactly the same, with the top leagues churning out athletes. The analysis and ironing out processes that go on to get to the perfect fitba'rs is indeed making the game less fun. Fuck being a professional sportsperson these days like - it'd be fucking shite.

^^^^^This. Did folk just ignore the entire EBT side letter thing with the huns? Directors cannot directly fund a player's wages. They can provide investment to the club, which in turn can be used to pay players. That investment would be detailed in the accounts. They can provide loans, like the new hun. They cannot pay all or part of a players wages whilst being a professional football club in Scotland as it would invalidate that player's registration and any titles won when that player was registered would be stripp..... actually, fuck it, you can do what you like.

He was fucking rank against the hun, poofed out of several challenges and struggled to move after half time. It was an atrocious performance. Difficult to understate how shite he was that day. I'm surprised anyone thought otherwise. But Ferguson is poor (or wasted, he's not shite there) in the forward role, whereas very dynamic in the sitting role with plenty of room for improvement. All his attributes point to him playing that role, he's nae a James Maddison/Ryan Christie type. I certainly don't think he'll learn anything from Gleeson as he's already a better player. I'm not saying that Gleeson is shite like, he's just very run of the mill. He's Rob Milsom. Tidy on the ball, doesn't give up possession too easily with wayward passing but moves side to side and is a fanny in the tackle. From memory, he had an injury and missed the first part of pre-season so perhaps fitness has been an issue. He looked steady but unspectacular against Hertz, with one decent ball that nearly came off. I definitely wouldn't write him off, I just think that we could do better (or cheaper) in our back up positions. I certainly don't think he's a charlatan either, like Forrester, I think he's genuine enough and will definitely improve given opportunity (just nae enough I don't think). Can I ask, do you attend the games? The reason I ask is that, to me, he's the type of player that looks good on TV as he's tidy on the ball and has a certain gait about him that makes him look like a fitba'r. When you actually attend the games though it's visible that he's limited in his tracking, covering of full backs, dragging opponents away and so on. He's about half as good as Jack was, and I really wanted/expected that we'd get a player who could replace that role (I thought Forrester might be the McLean replacement before actually seeing him).

I'm not sure about all this diverting folk to other forums rather than just repeating the rumours with the caveat that they will likely be utter pish. It's Johnny Russell, by the way. And some cunt called Brendan Galloway (Mike's brither).

I wasn't at the Livingston game, so couldn't comment. The Hearts game Gleeson did quite well when he came on, but only in comparison to Campbell who was struggling a little. His performances earlier in the season were weak as pish (especially the opening hun game) and it was no surprise that both Ferguson and Ball have been in ahead of him all season. Ferguson has been light years ahead of him in terms of movement, covering, pace and general game intelligence and at the moment Gleeson will - correctly - get nowhere near the team if Ferguson is avaible (I see our midfield as Shinnie and Ferguson, with Ball covering for Shinnie and Gleeson for Ferguson). Where I think Ferguson struggles, is in the attacking midfield role that you suggest could work - I think he's been poor nearly every time he's been played there. He's basically a direct replacement for Kenny McLean, who came into his own when played in the deeper role leaving Shinnie to do the pressing and hassling. He has a lot to learn, but everything suggests that Ferguson has the attributes to be a better player than McLean. From watching him in every game apart from the Livingston one, I don't believe Gleeson possesses those attributes and thus will struggle to ever be the player that Ferguson is/will be. The only question for me is if we are paying Gleeson far too much money to be midfield cover. I'm inclined to think so, however Campbell's introduction against Hearts suggested that holding onto Gleeson at least until the end of the season would be beneficial.

I agree, although I think there'll be an element of both, with a reasonable compromise. I doubt that there are many players who'd want to sit around the periphary of a club and not play for a large chunk of their careers. The notion of being "due" money from us is a bit ridiculous and I doubt would trump any player's desire to play fitba (unless at the very end of a career, or after a bad dispute). I can only really think of Bobo Balde in recent years who seem to actively want to sit on a bench and collect money. Obviously, the opposite side to that is the agent in the middle, who will want to get his client the best deal, and I would have thought there would have been a decent pay off for the lad that would have been orchestrated by the agent in order to get the deal with St Mirren through. Perhaps an agreement to pay him until the summer (the equivalent of) or some such. Still the cost of a Cosgrove transfer fee though, but freeing up budget. It's another failed signing though, and needs to be recognised as such. Tansey is just another example of a signing that was never going to be good enough (his team-mate Miles Storey being another). It was an unacceptably bad signing. I had watched enough of Tansey to know that he didn't possess the attributes required to be an AFC midfielder presently (he'd have been fine under McGhee, Brown or late Calderwood of course). His movement was poor, his dynamism not there, his left to right tracking when the ball wasn't in our possession terrible. He was like a really shite version of Kenny McLean, without the positional sense to be a Ryan Jack. Capable on the ball of picking a pass and taking a dead ball, but not the fitness, pace and effort to back it up. The thing about Tansey is that he played in our league long enough for us all to recognise that. I believe that Gleeson is in exactly the same position as Tansey, which is why I don't think he should be near our first team. People get tricked by his occasional excellent pass and tidy ball play, but he's so short on movement, strength, positioning and dynamism that he's never a starter. I have no idea what Gleeson was like down the road, so I can't tell if he has the ability to consistently raise his game in those areas, but in all the years of seeing Tansey it was very obvious he couldn't. Hopefully Gleeson will come good, but there is nothing in his play to date to suggest he can (TC mentions he can't last 90 minutes, but I think that this is less of an issue than his 60 shite minutes on the park so far). I think at some point we'll need to make a decision on both Gleeson and Forrester and they'll suffer the same fate as Tansey if there is no improvement. The problem is that - given their lack of game time in the SPL - there won't be a St Mirren waiting to pick them up, so we'll probably have to take a decent hit on both. I wouldn't rule out Gleeson just yet mind, but it's not looking good.

I think Yatai is excellent, I'm surprised you don't like it, it'd probably be my go to for good food that is at least original and consistent. Agree regarding Chester, but other folk have been happy with it so I thought it must be me. Anyway, Tyrant was suggesting some all you can eat meat place, which is probably for fat people, so I reckon my list would be better than thon pish . Never seen the enjoyment in eating shite loads of just meat. Much prefer more original stuff being done with veggies and spices and the like - far more challenging cook. The point I was making though was that there were plenty of good restaurants, with good being at yer Shay Logan level, rather than necessarily Scott McKenna. I think the thread about the Livingston is definitely the place for this discussion too!

Yatai, Moonfish, Food Story, Yorokobi, Light of Bengal, Shri Bheema, Goulash, the Chester, Musa, Bistro Verde, Atlantis (Mariner), Da Vinci, Cafe 52 Probably others. The first few being top class.

Surely that's just a quantity thing though? We have some very good restaurants in Aberdeen. How many do you need?

The thing is, do we genuinely expect McInnes to solve every issue in the team every window, or should we expect that there are priorities? Up until this season (and probably even in the past summer window) left back wasn't nearly as much of an issue as striker, winger, midfield and centre of defence. Considine isn't an amazing left back, but his position wasn't the consistent area of concern across the park either - we had far greater glaring issues in striker in the summer (and still do arguably), central midfield (and still do arguably!) and in the forward wide areas. That we managed to get Lowe in was a huge bonus, as it lessened the extent to which the total fuck ups in other recruitment - midfield, striker - became an issue. I think that we're only now in a position where I'd put left back as the top signing priority, and that has as much to do with Shinnie being irreplaceable in our midfield by any of our existing squad than it has to do with Considine not being able in there. It is also conditional on the ambitious hope that between Cosgrove, May and Wilson we have enough to get some goals in the season run in. I think you're right that we should be looking for a long(ish) term plan for that role, as I think it's vital that we get at least one of our key deficient areas fulfilled in this window due to the fact that we might have several other key areas to fill in the summer. I generally assume that we can only fill 2 (Ferguson so far) key positions per season (and January is especially difficult for this) with long term solid signings, with others being either filled by loan or by adequate short term replacements like yer Balls, yer O'Connors, yer Stewarts, yer Hobans and so on. I think we are kidding ourselves if we think we can do more. If we get a loanee left back, than I'd expect we'll do some good further business in midfield or striker in order to bring in one good solid signing before summer - otherwise we'd have a very busy summer and we'll likely fail to get the required numbers in.

After all the hysterics on the various forums after Fraser left for nothing, it would be hilarious if he earned a big money move and bagged the dons their record transfer fee on the sell-on clause alone. Rumoured to be 22% or some such. The one downside is that he really seems to enjoy playing for Bournemouth, which might mean he doesn't move to a club who can pay the £20M+ that'd pay for our training ground for which he left due to it's non-existence.

I don't get the clamour for Gleeson in midfield. Weak as piss in any outing so far this season, with movement non-existent. Decent game against Hertz aside, he's been pap. He'd get run around by Christie, and slaughtered physically by Brown on previous showings. Considine at left back is significantly less risky than Gleeson in midfield. That said, neither are great options, and it shows the dilemma we have if Lowe isn't fit. I realise that if Considine goes to left back then we have zero central defenders though, so I sort of get it. I think we should just prop Lowe up on the left side and hope for the best - he's nae our player after all. Taking Shinnie out of midfield was not good for us against Hearts though, and meant we absolutely had to sacrifice a second striker. His workrate is phenomenal. Anyway, we'll fuck them up 2-0. Gleeson double.

You didn't answer the questions. Which of these clubs have a scouting network on the continent? I didn't ask you to name foreigners. Aberdeen are perfectly capable of signing the occasional foreigner on recommendation, and that's exactly what these clubs are doing (Kamara from Dundee, signed from England, probably recommending his Finnish u21 teammate for example). They aren't establishing a reliable network of scouts that would be required to get a significant return on the continent because they won't spend the money, whereas all of the above teams have English-based scouts. Of the above, only Kamberi could be classed as a legitimitally decent foreign import (and even he was weak as watery pish against us recently), but he was a loan punt in the January window. There simply isn't a club getting a good return on foreign investment at the moment in our league. The fact that we're pish at signing players shouldn't be answered by giving our scouts even more uselss cunts to look at.

I've asked on a few different threads in the past, and I'm still waiting for this mythical claim to be evidenced. Perhaps you can help? Which club in Scotland (or the UK if you prefer) have produced a regular return of players from a scouting network in central, eastern and northern europe? Which teams currently have a scouting network in central, eastern and southern europe? Which countries within that/those regions should we be looking at? What number of games would you expect a scout to be able to take in within an average week featuring players within our budget range? What would the distances travelled be and costs associated with that travel be (i.e what size of scouting network would be required)? Why do you think that players in mainland Europe or Scandinavia are a better fit for Scottish fitba than players in England? Do you think that this increase in suitability/fit outweighs the difficulty in getting a player to settle? Post Brexit, will we have to return them all? Thanks in advance.

It looked like the first one was aimed at the run of Ball, the second and third just pap. The worst thing was that he just threw the ball down on the corner spot without placing it on each occasion. You would never get McGinn or anyone else doing that. There could have been divots, one of the attempts was closer to the corner flag than any normal player would take a kick and if you can repeat a kick from exactly the same spot each time, why wouldn't you? It was like he was in a training environment.

I wondered if you'd spot that. I was in total agreement with you when you mentioned it earlier in the season, and I think that's the first time I've seen him kick the ball with any force toward goal. The only thing I would say is that it took a few steps to get his feet ready for kicking, so maybe it's an effort for him! Will see soon if it's a one-off, or he just needed a bit of confidence to get going.

Agreed. My hope is that Ball has done little wrong this season and McInnes wants to keep him happy as we'll rely on him in some big games. My biggest fear is that it was in preparation for Saturday. That we'll play Ball, Shinnie and Ferguson against Hearts rather than stick with the working attacking setup. I've said on many previous occasions that we should have a strategy for youth, which meant that if we are 3+ goals ahead in a match that our young players on the bench should be given priority. If we explicitly built this into policy, then guys like Ball, Wilson and Forrester wouldn't feel hard done by when not getting their ten minutes to shine. Neither Wilson or Forrester did anything to merit their appearances again and - Wilson especially - those minutes would be far better utilised on a return on our youth investment. If senior players aren't ready, then they won't ever be. With obvious exception for players returning from injury. Anyway, great performance last night. Battered them.

Is there nae a winter break in about ten days time? I'm in general agreement like, but we don't really have a replacement for Ferguson unfortunately unless Dean Campbell is getting closer to first team form. We saw against St Johnstone the dangers of arsing about too much.

As long as FPTP remains, there will never be a split of either the Tories or Labour. I've always thought that FPTP is an awful system, because it is. However, if it were to be replaced by PR it would actually make little difference given the lack of spread between large parts of the parties. As we see with this Brexit fuck up, there is a form of PR within the actual parties themselves. Currently, there is probably as great a divide between yer Blairites and Corbynistas (as they're both called) or yer Hard and Soft Brexiteers as there is between yer Blairites and Soft Brexiters. Yer left with this shite: HardBrexiters----------SoftB---LibDem---Blairites-----------Corbynites Basically all the decision making happens in that centre space, with a few limited foray into/appeasements to the right and left at times. That model above could easily be illustrating a 5 party system in a PR arragement, with a few limited forays into/appeasements to the left and right wings. Fit I mean is, that a split is unlikely as that would involve losing the power that is only possible through FPTP. However, if it happened, it would have to be aaccompanied by a shift to PR. Depressingly, I think we'd be left with the same shite regardless. That centre circle of Soft Brexit to Blairites can never be pulled far enough in either direction to provide solutions to the challenges that are actually required for us to become a next level fucking ace species. I think I should probably be in charge. This shit doesn't work.

Exactly. Fucking plastic pitch cunts.

Ball was absolutely rank when he played there earlier in the season and definitely isn't a better centre half than Considine. Considine was poor against St Johnstone, but so was McKenna and both were at fault for the goals last night (Considine more so obviously). Prior to that he was excellent against the Huns and Tims. Other than his fuck up for the goal (and miss) last night he was okay (in very windy conditions) and certainly not an area I'd be concerned about against St Mirren. Even his fuck up last night was just a poor touch rather than being way out of position or letting his man go. That type of error is more fundamental and can happen to anyone (I actually think Lewis could have taken man and ball). I actually thought that the second goal was far poorer as a defence than the first, with McKenna particularly culpable (although I'm certain their player was offside in the build up, we still had plenty of cover). Ball is very much a midfielder, regardless of where he played for Sevco in the diddy league.

I have to admit - and I haven't seen it back - it looked to me like Cosgrove moved his leg towards their player rather than the other way round. I was pretty close to it in the RDS, but Thompson is still the worst ref in the league - a total arrogant cunt. We were ace in the second half tonight though, really enjoyable. From the kick off they just pressed the shite out of Livi, with some excellent play by McLennan, Cosgrove and May. Great to see May creating opportunities for himself with huge effort. He's not had many good chances (in front of goal) so getting himself in those positions is the first step. Thought Ferguson was poor until he scored, but he worked hard, as did Shinnie. Considine poor for the first goal, McKenna for the second, but the effort from the whole team (apart from Wright who was shite) made up for it in spades. Finally, special mention to McInnes for getting it right tonight. That formation has to be what we play every time we play at home. There's no room for Ball at Pittodrie unless its as cover for Shinnie or Ferguson. We need to set up to win games at home. Even in the first half we created more opporunities than against St Johnstone, and that setup is absolutely vital to that. He also must have fairly battered them at half time, as we were relentless in the second half. More of the same in the next two games dandies.

I think snooker is completely different, and very easy to compare, similarly with golf or other individual sports that involve a scoring system. I don't need to have seen Joe Davis to know that he wasn't better than O'Sullivan or Hendry, the scores are there for everyone to see. O'Sullivan and Hendry both having far greater century counts and not in tables with giant pooches. Cheating Joe Davis fuck. He didn't even get to the crucible, the deed fuck.