RicoS321

I think Cooper fell into the "if you're good enough you're old enough" category though. I think that the question is "would he have been better served by playing less games in his early career". He could easily have had all those medals whilst only playing 20-30 games per season. I suspect it's entirely different for every person though, and probably only easier to evaluate in hindsight. There's no doubting he had a great career.

That threw me as well. By that logic you'd support the Tims because there are too many huns in the North East.

Aye, shame like. Nice guy, very friendly.

It was the shittest hatchet job I've ever seen. Barely touched the guy, and it was his shoulder that hit the ground furthest from Ramos that had the "suspected dislocation". Doubt he'll even miss the world cup, looked like he was fine. Pawlett re-appeared for the dons in the second half against Utd a few seasons back after dislocating his shoulder and just had it flopping about, thon Egyptian just ditched his team for a wee bash. Probably went to burger king for some nightfall ramadan feast. Looked very much like he could have played on. Bottler. Anyway, hilarious performance from thon keeper.

He could definitely do a job in league one, and possibly low end championship. He won't be guaranteed a game for us next season with Devlin in the squad, so he could be right about it being better for furthering his career. When it comes to career, in modern footballer parlance, I think he's referring to: "how much money I can make", rather than opportunity to win trophies (second place trophy for example) or play in Europe. His ability to hoof the ball means he might fair okay down South, however he doesn't have the physical presence of even an Ash Taylor so he may just struggle a little if it came to somewhere like the championship. Good luck to him, I'd rather he was elsewhere.

This: https://genius.com/Carol-an-duffy-mrs-faust-annotated Never read it before. Good if you have a spare few minutes.

Watched the last few episodes the other night, you were right. Terrible ending, like they couldn't be arsed, or ran out of budget or something. Could have had a lot more depth to the whole thing. The "gated community" (not really relevant for most UK citizens), could have been used to far greater effect than just the "it exists, we'll use it later" approach to give a far more nuanced and thoughtful show as an example. I stand by my recommendation, as long as you never watch the last three episodes and never find out how it ends. Watched Kiss Me First on all 4 last night, t'was good. Maybe not a lot of folk's thing, but I enjoyed it; as original as can be expected these days.

He did play two up front against Hearts and Hibs and in part against the hun and it worked well from a ball retention aspect. It was May who got the nod however. Understandably too, as he scored a shite load up front for St Johnstone in that format. I'm not sure on which planet Rooney is going to reach a flick on though, it's not his game. He'll get knock downs, but that means you probably need a 4-4-2 with high wingers. With the better teams switching quickly to a 3-5-2 to counteract this, you're left completely exposed, and either your winger has to come back the way, or you sacrifice Rooney to the wing in a 4-2-3-1, which invariably happened (this was usually down to our lack of midfield option that would allow Shinnie to play left wing back). Rooney needs us to hit the byline, and that happens best - for us - in a 4-2-3-1, with plenty of protection and McGinn and another hitting the fullback at pace. Rooney is great over 5 yards at getting his body in front of the marker and getting on the end of everything. Do you genuinely see Rooney playing the Mackie role of the Miller/Mackie partnership* alongside Cosgrove? *this is light-heartedness, clearly Mackie shouldn't be on the same pitch as Rooney

Of course he would. The question is, would he be snapped up by someone better than us? I don't think so. That's why I'm highlighting his limitations. I agree with a lot of what you and CvB say, and I would rather we got rid of May than Rooney. I spent several months defending him when others on here were questioning him whilst going through a poor patch a while back, and he came good again as expected. Whilst I think May has some better attributes, I think Rooney is a better penalty box striker. We spent a couple of seasons working a team around Rooney, and it worked very well, and he banged in a heap of goals as a result. That said, it was blatantly obvious in the European games and the games against the Tims that we couldn't afford the luxury of the penalty box striker - it's a function of creating significantly fewer chances. We're not going to get to the next round in Europe with Rooney up front, for exactly the same reason that we didn't in the last few years (Rooney was injured this year, but his replacements weren't up to it either). That's why Rooney barely features in games against the bigger teams, and when he does he's often anonymous. Not just anonymous though, him being there actually has a negative effect as he doesn't bring others into play or take the pressure off. His fantastic work-rate means he can regularly be seen way back in our own half attempting to catch someone. When we get the ball back, he's then unavailable for a good twenty seconds while he gets back in position (obviously that could be coached out). McInnes, in attempting to play him alongside another striker, ends up moving him out wide - as better teams have worked out that all you need to do is play a wide 3 at the back to force Rooney out of position - rather than just sub him as he doesn't want to lose the option of his best scorer. Rooney's a 20 goal a season man because we have/had the providers in our team that were better than any others in the league. He's the first person to do it since Shearer because he's the best striker we've had since then, but we've also got a better team than every other team in the league outside Celtic for the first time since Shearer.

I disagree, I think striker has been issue for a long time, and will continue to be next season as May clearly isn't an improvement on what we've got in Rooney. Striker is the one position that has prevented us from getting to the next level in Europe and taking more points off the tims. Rooney's limitations have been obvious for a few years now, despite having a phenomenal scoring record in general. Cosgrove provides something different for those types of games, but I doubt he'll be good enough to do that consistently and to the level required. I'd say that striker is equally as important as midfield right now and we should be spending the biggest portion of the budget on those two areas. That said, I'd class Shinnie as left back within that opinion, so really we'd be looking at two good midfielders. If we start next season with the same strike force as this, I think we'll struggle to improve. If it was a choice between a striker and defender then I think we could cope with a back four of Considine, McKenna, Devlin, Logan against opposition at Appollon's level (for example), but I think if we had to play May, Rooney or Cosgrove up front we'd be likely to lose again. Obviously, the answer is to be looking at 4 good players to fit straight into our first 11, but if we were putting an order to it I'd be saying midfielder, striker, midfielder, fullback/winger.

If they're anything like the cheap-shite Roth I picked up at the airport, they'll be missing many pages, which just seemed to fall out at will. Annoying as fuck like, and one of the reasons I use a kindle these days as it happened to quite a few books I bought in succession. The plot against america definitely worth a read like, even just from the (un)historical perspective. It's an alternative history of course, but it's believable. Read The Sellout by Paul Beatty first though. It's imperative that someone other than me does.

Have you read "The Plot Against America"? A good read like. Surprised there's not been a film of it like, as it'd fit well in cinema format. Not read American Pastoral, will maybe make a space for it on the kindle at some point.

The article didn't say much. However, there is clearly - and obviously - precedent for coldness, the/my term should have been "unexpected". If the usual number of days below zero is 70 and the figure hits over 100 then that would be unexpected I think it's fair to say, regardless of anecdotal experience.

There was actually another news story on the BBC this morning suggesting that Aberdeen had an unprecedented >100 days below zero this winter and that the cooncil spent £600K over on their budget for road gritting, so it probably isn't nonsense (if gritters are required, then I'd expect road building would be difficult). Here's the EE take on it: https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/news/local/plan-for-20-large-scale-community-grit-bins-to-help-with-severe-winter/ What's interesting about the Guardian story, is that it doesn't say who's liable for the cost. It looks like it's just the company informing their shareholders rather than an increased debt of the Scottish government. In which case, excellent contracting, for once.

Yep. By virtue of anything after season 2 being fairly pap, the last season was quite good. I only still watch it to see how long they can keep it going. It's impressive in that respect. Should have finished after season 1 really, maybe 2.

I can see why they have a place in the lower leagues. The number of called off games and the absolute state of pitches for 50% of the season makes for pretty atrocious fitba. The ability to train and play on them is vital with decreasing public space, and the added revenue from hiring out the surface. The weather even affected us for three months this season, when the pitch was a disgrace after a heavy winter. I think that there are grades of pitch too, Hamiltons was definitely worse than Killie's for example, and also whether or not they decide to water them (or water them too much) which has a more radical effect than it would on grass. In terms of injury, it'd be interesting to see the stats. There is the odd player who struggles - for whatever reason - to run on the surface, but very few. On the opposite side, I suspect you see far less wild challenges on a plastic surface as people are more wary of throwing themselves into tackles on it. Any time I see it mentioned, I here anecdotal evidence (Fyvie is one that still gets mentioned, which is a long time ago to look for a correlation) but it seems to ignore the fact that people get injured very regularly on grass too. Looking to the future, it's clear that a lot of kids will have grown up playing on these surfaces more regularly than their senior equivalents, so perhaps the injuries will be far less likely. In general, I'm with you though. I think that a good grass pitch should be possible for the top flight teams all season round. However, us, Hertz, Hamilton, Killie, Motherwell and probably others have all failed in that regard this season and very regularly in recent years. Hopefully the hybridisation of pitches will assist in future years, but our own delve into that has been fairly non-productive in recent times, so I remain fairly sceptical.

Hopefully a hybrid, that'd be decent. Get the tims to pay for it, seeing as they're always moaning about it.

Agreed, couple of episodes to go and been pretty decent.

Stockley had a gash start to the season. Everyone on here, me especially, wanted to see him gone. We had nothing up front against Apollon, and Stockley was a large part of that. The ball 5 yards either side of him and he was nowhere near it.

Hope not. He's pap. Another striker that isn't quite quick enough to threaten when we're struggling for crosses. File in the May/Rooney category.

So it turns out that last bet won. I just remembered about it today when speaking to a colleague about betting, which shows just how much effort I put into my betting. (Un)Fortunately this means that I now have over £100 in my gambling account, and still nae idea. Given the price of high class whoors these days, I'd rather attempt to make a bit more before cashing out (or, more likely, losing it all). I was hoping to have a couple of hundred quid in there in time for the world cup so that I can make more spectacular losing bets throughout that tournament. Any suggestions on bets for the wikend?

Ach, it's good to see in the modern game. Too many players keep their mouths shut and don't say what they're thinking. It was a dirty challenge, something Scott Brown is quite familiar with. It's a pity the "journalist" doesn't have a note to hand of Brown's booking count from the previous season (16 I think?) when he makes jibes like that. Typical of the professionalism shown by the UK media, go in with a shit-stirring question but with no preparation for a response, so it ends up a pandering puff piece where the player can say what he wants. Shinnie will do him big style next season.

I'd argue that the short memories also occur each time we lose a game, and hysteria ensues. Describing McInnes as "above average" seems to be the best it gets on this thread, which I wouldn't call happy clapping. We didn't have a great team this season with a lot of failures last summer in the transfer market, but he's been above average for the club in his time here, earning him the chance to make the same mistakes again or prove he's got the ability to improve on his recruitment. Finishing second has to be given the recognition it deserves, as it is a good (above average) achievement, and pretty significant in terms of retaining some pride in the club. Had the hun finished second, we'd have seen a tail off in support and a "welcome return to business as usual" approach by the press. Second place fucks a lot of people in Scottish fitba over and is rightly celebrated. In any other circumstances it would just be another league placing, but in Scotland it's important - vital, even.

All round professionalism. Any dons player will tell you that Deek is meticulous in his planning for games (too meticulous in my opinion) and leaves no stone uncovered. Calderwood was all about having his mates around, and Levein takes the latest fashionable formation and tries to apply it to a ridiculous degree when it's obviously not working. My point was in regard to getting results against the bottom 8. We've been ultra consistent in our setup for those games (the occasional back 3 against Motherwell and Hertz) and we've won the vast majority of them by playing to our strengths. We've not fucked up against the little guy - in the league - like Hibs and the Huns, because McInnes is very precise in his tactics. He plays to our strengths, and is cautious when we go ahead. We didn't lose a game when went ahead this season - because of his tactics - where Hibs and the Huns did. We lost against the tim and hun because our personnel weren't up to the standard required (more so when any single player was injured). Cosgrove is what changed. It was the ability to play the One or two high up the pitch without being turned over. It was first used in the Tims game against their back 3 when they completely destroyed us. We repeated it against Hearts with Cosgrove and it worked perfectly. It wasn't weak tactics against the scum, it was personnel, hence why it worked when Cosgrove appeared. Deek's tactics were clear against them, when you were at the game it was very obvious what he was trying to do against both Tims and Huns, we just lacked the personnel to actually beat them. I actually believe that he had more shouty Calderwood/Lennon traits then he'd have taken more points in those games. There was blatant evidence of poor effort by players in those games, rather than poor tactics. I'd say that he over-thought them, trying to find the perfect system to beat them. I came on here after each scum game asking what formation folk would have chosen with our personnel to beat either team and all anyone could say was "press higher" - that's not a formation, that's a function of effort. When you looked around our squad, we just didn't have the options to play differently, which was required against better teams. No point in having a plan B if you don't have the personnel to change to it (May too similar to Rooney, Stewart to McGinn/Christie, Wright to GMS, no big centre mid, no cover to allow Shinnie to left back, no option to replace Logan when not on form etc. - all personnel issues). I'm 100% convinced it was a personnel/recruitment issue this season that saw us dropped points in the old firm games (i.e. they were a better team with better players), and equally as convinced that Deek's preparation, analysis and caution was what won us many games that under previous managers we'd have lost. I wasn't suggesting that Celtic's total had anything to do with Deek's tactics, I was suggesting that it was evidence that the league was stronger, and we've only finished 3 points worse off. I'd agree generally, but we've seen more than our fair share of games where effort was questioned. Stewart, GMS, Christie, O'Connor, Logan could all have been questioned about their motivation at times this season. There is evidence that he recognised the issue because A) he signed Cosgrove to fit that role and B) he tried it disastrously against Celtic earlier in the season with Rooney and May. He's not a tactical genius, but he absolutely isn't naive, and definitely above average. I think he could do much better at raging players into a frenzy for the bigger games against better teams when tactics alone aren't going to cut it, and I think that is far more an issue for him. You could switch him for Lennon and we'd tank the huns a couple of times a season but we wouldn't finish second; he doesn't have Deek's discipline.

He's clearly not average though, he's very much above average. Calderwood was average, Levein is average. Two seasons running he has finished above his budgeted position - that's quite rare. It relies on sevco making a slight cunt of it, but even they didn't finish far off the tims. The league strengthened enough to make the tim fare 30 points worse, but we only finished 3 points worse. Most of that was down to McInnes' tactics. His tactics are what ground out results, that no other team could, against the bottom 8 teams: Tims 3/12 Huns 1/12 Hibs 7/12 Killie 10/12 Hertz 5/12 Well 6/9 Saints 9/9 Dundee 9/9 Hamltn 7/9 Partick 7/9 RossCty 9/9 Those are very strong stats. His current weaknesses are recruitment, recruitment and recruitment. Probably subs as well, in that they take too fucking long and rarely change a game (although, as the stats show, we rarely need to). No plan B wasn't a choice by McInnes, he just made poor signings which meant we couldn't adapt to anything else. That changed, and so did our form, with the introduction of Cosgrove. That shows he at least recognised the issue. It's important to mention that our budget is a huge limiting factor in our recruitment success too. The Tims made some poor signings that made no impact too (Massonda, Roberts, the defender they signed in January and probably others), but they had a squad of 20 others to fill the gap. A 50% success rate on signings is probably about right. Last summer that didn't happen, we need to get back to that.