RicoS321

Are there for us? We've not been past the third round under McInnes, surely Ferguson must have managed three fixtures a season?

Are you joking? He tried it at the weekend, and Rogers saved it. If anything, their keeper should have been expecting it. Would still have struggled to save it, as it was an absolute peach.

Yep, maybe. Although we'll really miss McRorie in the centre. I'm guessing it'll actually be as we were, but with McRorie on the right and McGeouch in the centre. I always get the impression with McInnes that he like to keep players happy. McGeouch has been unfortunate not to be in the team of late and as soon as a spot comes up, he launches him in. With Logan on the bench, I'd have preferred we played the same team and just switched Logan in for Kennedy. Or even McGinn if we want to go for it.

A 3-5-2 maybe? -------------------Lewis----------------- ----Hoban----------McKenna-----Considine----- Hedges---McRorie---Fergie--McGeouch---Hayes --------------Wright---------Watkins------------ something like that.

McGeouch in for Kennedy. Mental. How does that work? A 3-1-3-3? Or McGeouch playing wing back, or McRorie? Seems like an unnecessary fuck aboot with the lineup like. Edit: think Kennedy might be injured.

Good on you if you last the two weeks like. I think I read something like 12% of folk actually stuck to the quarantine restrictions. I think I might text one of my mates and tell him I'm in quarantine and ask him to bring me some booze too. Has to be the same team. Unless there are any plastic pitch issues. Maybe give Hoban a bit more time to make sure he's 100% sorted and take Taylor in? I'm guessing that he'll be fairly quick to invoke the game management if we go a goal up. In a way I hope we go a goal down, just so that we're forced to play some fitba. I think we're more likely to come from behind and win than we are to take a one nil lead and see it out (even though our statistics would not back up my argument at all). I take it away goals aren't a thing?

We were second favourites for all three games though. Kairat had spent a fair bit of dough (Tymoshchuk etc.), certainly more than Rijeka and Groningen could dream of. Maribor had more recent success than either of those two also. They definitely were not more winnable than the Rijeka and Groningen. All five ties were winnable, it's just that we weren't favourites. The only argument I'm making here is the bland use of the word "bottle". It just seems like a meaningless catch all. If we had lack of bottle in the three games we lost, then we had lots of bottle in the games we won. It's just a bit silly. As I say, to me bottle would mean we lost to a team we shouldn't be losing to (where we weren't favourites), and in my mind it needs to be happening regularly in order to say that a team "lacks bottle" (or a manager does, given the change of players over the years). Maybe you guys have a different definition (belief, perhaps?), but I'm struggling to see how you can cherry pick a couple of games and - in the original comment - use it as a reason for us not being favourites tonight. Although I'm struggling full stop to see why we aren't favourites tonight.

Did we bottle Apollon away? I don't think so. Unless you include Milne in that, because we went into that game without a striker, when all we needed to do was spend an extra £150K on Moult. We were never going to be good enough to beat them at their place, only narrowly beating them at Pittodrie. They were a good team and we had an off-form Stockley or Maynard up front. I remember advocating starting Tansey (fuck me) and playing McLean up front rather than waste our time on those two jokers. We then signed Stevie May - too late, and too shite. In the end, I think we got lucky not to be on the end of a hiding. Kairat were a good team too, I suppose it's the definition of "bottle" that I take issue with. We didn't lack bottle (belief) via Rijeka or Groningen, just as we didn't when we beat the hun at hampden and ibrox the other year. I just don't think you can invoke "bottle" each time we don't win and ignore the times we do beat a team that is better than ourselves (or everyone would class as better than us). I think it's just a lazy term. I'd say we were unlucky against Kairat, we didn't hold back in the way we would against the Tim. Apollon we simply didn't have a good enough team and we were always going to be found out. I think the Maribor one is definitely the one that comes closest to "bottle" (or lack of belief). For me, the damage was done in the first leg by letting in that away goal in a game where we should have tanked them. We were miles better than them and had lots of chances, with their random break being one of the few they had and they scored. I think the lack of belief stemmed from that, it was like nothing was going our way, and that's up to the manager to overcome before the game. The circumstances surrounding the penalty (I think if McGinn hadn't gone on to score, Rooney would have finished it; I think he was put off by that) probably gave us even more of an "everything's conspiring against us" attitude. Of the three, it's definitely the only one where I'd say that we were the better team over two legs and should definitely have got through the tie. The other two would have just required a very, very good performance and would have been up there with some of our other good victories where we've been second favourite. To me lack of bottle would be losing to Kilmarnock in a cup semi final or something, not losing a game you're objecvtively expected to lose. There are very few of those under McInnes, we generally scrape through them in spectacularly ugly fashion.

Agreed (I probably wouldn't describe as bottling, but we should have beaten them), but what I meant was that they were favourites going into the game. I'd class them as a level above Stavanger. I'd put Stavanger in the Skonta Riga category, Vilnius, that sort of mob. Certainly not Groningen or Rijeka level.

Have we ever bottled it in Europe under McInnes? I can't think of a single one where the opponent wouldn't have been strong favourite before the game. Even Rijeka would have been favourites against us, similarly appollon. Both could be comfortably described as better teams before we played them. If anything, we've probably won more games where we weren't favourite. I'd put Viking in the same boat (pun intended) as thon Macedonian team we beat the other year, maybe about lower SPFL level. I'm surprised they're favourites, as I'd probably guage it like a Livingston away game, where we'd be favourite, but with a good chance of losing. A lot of that might be based on my ignorance of the Norwegian game of course.

That's a real tragedy. I, I, I love Macclesfield.

So free for RedTV internationalists? Think I might take a flight to Paris for this one.

If it goes downhill fae here, we're blaming you Elgin

You think? I hadn't really considered that. I assumed that he just wasn't fit enough to play professional fitba these days and we'd see him in the lower leagues or in the Irish leagues. You'd think that there'd be training and stretching methods that adapt a player's body for playing on plastic. It's not significantly different to grass. Obivously it would be hard going and take a couple of months to get used to, but surely far too early for him to write off his own chances.

It'll be available on Red TV international I'm guessing, but not sure. Doubt Premier sports would pick it up. Likely be a stream somewhere on the day though, as I expect Viking tv will have it in some fashion.

They said on red tv at the weekend that they were trying to sort something out with Stavanger. I'm hoping we get a Norwegian stream. The commentary will be far more sensible.

I like him. Did he nae get Scott Brown sent off? Good lad. It's funny, he gets a lot of abuse for the diving he does, but check the nick of all those incidents, what an embarrassment. Barely a tap between them and they've all been snipered. The boy he tapped on the back of the heid is equally as much a fanny as Neymar. It's a shame too, if the guy made a racist comment, because few would believe him (Neymar) because of his prior reputation. It would be like if Morelos accused someone of it. I'm guessing that if he did say something, then it was in the prior incident, in which case a player would surely know to report it immediately (the Logan protocol)? Or at least confront the guy at that point if it angered him that much. Overall though, I think scrapping like this definitely improves the game and it should be encouraged.

I don't think the covid thing had anything to do with getting rid of Bryson. He came on against St Johnstone (in arguably his best performance for us, which doesn't say much, but he did play a significant part in the goal), then he didn't feature anyway. I think the signing of McRorie had a big part to play, but also the change in formation (initially to match up against St Johnstone) which has allowed us to keep both Hedges and Wright in the team. Their movement is fantastic. You just have that horrible suspicion, especially with McGeouch performing quite well, that McInnes will break it up at the first opportunity because we're giving the opposition too many opportunities (even though we aren't, but they're getting a fair bit of possession in our half and there are numerous holes). Hopefully - as mentioned in the BBC article - this is where the pressure from the board will come in and McInnes will feel the need to entertain as well as get results.

Moved to Canada. The shiterag did a "where are they now" on the development league champions a few months back. https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/sport/football/aberdeen-fc/donsnews/where-are-aberdeens-2014-15-spfl-development-league-champions-now/

Yep, I suspect he's just referring to the number of possession we gave them in front of our box, number of corners etc. To be fair, I think he chose to make the subs at the right time, and Hayes still had two great attempts subsequently, which showed we didn't really manage the game too much. Even Considine was up in their box with a few minutes to go. I hope he continues with this approach as we created the better chances with Lewis not really having much to do.

Unintentional doesn't matter these days, it's hand in an unnatural position. The handball that was given was because the guy's arm was raised, the handball not given was because the guy's arm was at his side give or take. Edit: good win, some nice fitba, especially in the first. Really annoying that Wright didn't finish that one in the second, just took it a tiny bit close to the keeper and narrowed the angle too much. Our goal was great though.

No I didn't say that. I said that opportunists were taking advantage of the situation. The alternative is that Matt Hancock and fucking Deloitte have engineered a fake global pandemic in return for £250M worth of contracts. They've involved the entire NHS testing organisation and multiple laboratories and done so in collaboration with their counterparts in every country in the world. Have you ever worked with Deloitte before? You're theories break down within a second of basic thought, but you throw in known truths like Cummings' trip to try to make it sound vaguely plausible whilst going way off argument. The thing is, I may be being played like a fiddle, but the notion that you have any understanding of how and why that is being done is ridiculous. You're scattergunning the fuck out of it in the hope you might get something right so you can come back and prove your prescience. It's frustrating, because there is actual conspiring that goes on that when pointed out is thrown into the conspiracy nutjob basket that you've conveniently woven. There are investigative journalists out there who must get seriously fucked off with your unevidenced shite - the boy who cried wolf.

That is fairly pathetic then. Even the Hun Jack gave his all in the cup final for us in his final game despite being out of contract and having a deal on the table. That situation is a fairly normal occurrence I'd have thought. But surely Bournemouth or the player could have taken an insurance policy to cover that possibility?

You clearly don't understand basic statistics, which doesn't help you. You've most certainly not proven anything, other than you don't understand excess deaths and that you don't understand the effect of a lockdown on those. As we've established, you are allowed to publicly challenge that. We are gullible, which is why it's important to look at facts rather than anecdotes about yer mate's da'. In order for it to be a conspiracy, there'd have to be a motive, somebody directly benefiting, somebody directly controlling and so on. Who do you think concocted this worldwide pandemic? How many people would have to go along with it in every single nation in the world in order for it not to unravel? How many people would have to keep that secret? Let's assume you're right, can you tell us how such a simple conspiracy could be conceived?

I've never heard of Simon Jordan, but he sounds like one of those cunts that is paid to be controversial. It seems like there's a fact or two missing somewhere, but I could be wrong. Is it really the case that the only reason he didn't sign a short term contract was incase he got injured? That doesn't seem likely to me. That would seem completely ridiculous. There must be more to it.