RicoS321

Sounds like O'Connor's agent perhaps trying to get the dons to up their offer. Anyway, no great loss, a pretty limited player that could easily be replaced. Save us seeing him in midfield again. Not sure I'd keep Arnason either, don't think he's been as good as folks thought he might. Pool our resources and get one decent centre back with Reynolds and Considine as cover. Reynolds is okay as cover, he seemed to settle in the game in the second half at the weekend but certainly wouldn't be disappointed to see him go in the summer. Again, it comes down to our ability to get good signings in. I think if we got Devlin in we could happily let Arnason and O'Connor leave. As far as I'm aware we don't have any youngsters coming through at centre back (after McKenna), so we get one additional right sided defender in as cover for centre back and full back like we've done with Quinn, Ball etc in the past. Above that, we still need two centre mids and a striker. That could be difficult for us. Getting 4 good players in a single window will be exceptionally difficult. Worse if Christie leaves. We'd be looking at 6 signings probably, and that'd be hoping for a high success rate. With that in mind, perhaps we keep the devil(s) we know in Reynolds and O'Connor for cover, sign a single centre back and a single centre mid and a striker then take it from there. It's easy to ditch players, but we've seen how difficult it is to get decent replacements (see Tansey, Maynard and Ball in the last window). We're 3 from 6 this summer as far as good signings go, which is in line with most seasons. If we let Arnason and O'Connor go then we potentially need 3 signings in order to get one replacement and one cover.

Totally. Although it was probably helped by the example set by his boss too. Any desire to go to the hun was probably booted into touch at that point too when he realised what a shambles they still were.

^^^This. Apart from the "knowing yer second choice" thing. I don't think most managers would care too much about that. But what a spectacular fuck up. I quite liked McLeish as Scotland manager, but he does buy the "fitba needs Rangers" pish a bit much. I'd like to see us go further afield for a good international (experienced) manager, but really can't think of anyone. I'm quite glad both Moyes and Lambert are in jobs as I don't rate either of those two. Just gie it to Jim Duffy. He's been around a while.

Sounds like he's done us a good turn here. Best of both worlds for us, a fee for a player leaving and we get a bit of time to replace him. I thought McGinn had an excellent last 6 months for us at the end of last season when he knew he was off, so hopefully we'll see the same from McLean. He can hopefully play with a bit more freedom and try a bit more of the passing he's clearly capable of. Good to see all the pish about him joining the huns put to bed too. Clearly started by huns but lapped up by dons fans as a stick to beat him with.

The Holiday Inn Express on Chapel Street?

AoC played centre half on Saturday, with McLean, Shinnie and Christie in midfield as ayrshire mentions. Do you mean AoC's role in the last hun game? If so, totally agree, we need to drop that shite right now. Stewart, aye, I like him too. I think him and Niall are similar but I've decided that McGinn hates the huns more. Yer right though, either would be fine and I'm not sure McGinn will yet be 100% fit.

There was certainly of partisan - dons can do no wrong - pish spouted at the time of his departure (dons mad was full of it), and many folk took a pathetic huff when he made a comment about the lack of training facilities at the dons meaning he couldn't do after hours training (rather than accept it as an objective, non-malicious, piece of criticism that it clearly was). It shows the importance of training facilities to guys like Fraser, as I don't believe we'd have ever taken him to the level he has managed to reach.

That's nonsense, he clearly does. Like Jack before him, he doesn't dive in because he doesn't need to and occasionally poofs out. And he can win a header - in fact he's pretty decent in the air. McGinn could play in Christie's forward role in the midfield but nae deeeper. Jess could tackle too, he certainly never pulled out of challenges in the way that McGinn regularly does (which is fine in his current position).

Aye, it'll be on the Red TV I expect, but I don't think it's televised. Should be a good one. We played well at the weekend, but there were some glaring deficiencies in O'Connor and Reynolds at the back. Hopefully we'll see McKenna slotted straight back in at least (hopefully Arnason too) and we retain the formation. I'd probably take in McGinn for Stewart and leave the rest the same (maybe May for Rooney perhaps). If we're ditching McLean, then do it after Wednesday as we haven't got an adequate replacement in the squad at present. Hopefully the chunt fae Nigeria will hae his work permit sorted in time, but I suspect that some hun at the Queen's customs has been given the masonic signal to hud it up until Thursday.

Emmm... Holiday Inn Express, Chapel St - £47 a night. #Culture.

He's scored a few goals this season. If he drops out of the Bournemouth team for whatever reason, Crystal Palace or someone will pick him up and the going rate for someone who has scored in the best league in the world is >£10M. Just hope he gets sold soon so we can pick up the cash that he's due us. Everything that has happened so far in his career has suggested that he was correct to leave the dons when he did, so fair play to him.

It's a'rite, Donsdaft has tickets for the home end.

A 22.5% sell on fee? Fucking accoontants.

That's a fucking weird one like. You're nae good enough for us just now, but we've got a target of being much shiter by the start of next season by which point you'll fit in fine. Fuck it though, he played very well yesterday (was better than Shinnie I thought, who started very slowly) and we'll struggle to replace him before the summer. Ideal situation. Bobby, McGinn in central midfield? I've never seen McGinn tackle anything in the history of McGinn. He's frightened to header the ball.

Reading In Search Of Schrodinger's Cat at the moment. Decent read like, very interesting, but hard going on a subject I dinna really understand (quantum mechanics) - well written for the layman. Done, The Secret Deals That Are Changing Our World was also a decent read recently. Read Beyond Civilisation by Daniel Quinn at the end of the year, was okay, but the Ishmael book is better and also Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics, which is quite good too. Elif Shafak's 3 Daughter of Eve was a good story on the fiction side. Nothing as good on the fictional side of things as The Sellout by Paul Beatty as I mentioned earlier in the thread. Get it read if you haven't already. Classic.

I think it's more the immigration folks that would be the issue. Is he even allowed in the country? I'm assuming he'll be on some sort of weird temporary visa. I actually thought that you couldn't sign a non-EU player without them having so many national appearances for some reason. Perhaps that used to be a thing.

I'm pretty certain that doesn't actually happen in businesses. In fact, I'd have thought that'd be illegal. A little bit like not declaring your full salary and accepting a large part of it in the form of a loan.

All the more reason not to let McLean go yet then. I'm assuming he's going nowhere before tomorrow now. Says a lot about fitba today that Man City can have a player that is not actually able to play in their own country.

Trying to suck yersel aff? In - SS Think we'll tank the fuckers. Nigerian based hat-trick fae the new boy who's name I can't be bothered looking up.

Get it done quickly then dons and make our move for a replacement ASAP. If it's SPL then get things moving before Saturday. We're totally light in that area now (if McLean goes). Our central midfield is made up of only one recognised central midfielder (being a bit harsh on Shinnie!), the Nigerian, and we've never actually seen him play. He'd better be fucking good!

Nae sure about Devlin like. Hopefully it's a smokescreen for Doherty. I'd take Devlin on a pre-contract like, but we're fine for centre halves for the remainder of the season. Has to be a midfielder or/and a striker.

So it isn't a no brainer then.... In a nut shell though, fit you said. The replacement has to be in this window, and it has to be before the Scottish cup tie if we're buying SPL in my opinion. Otherwise no deal. Having a guy "who wants to leave" is nonsense, we're nae little kids - not everyone has to be devoted to AFC for life. Christie wants to leave by your logic. Same for Ball and Stewart. It's not a deal in the modern game. We're nae likely to see a drop in performance for players playing in a good team, that have set high standards, but looking for a contract elsewhere.

Aye, but McLean actually is disciplined enough - for the most part - to play deeper (imagine Christie playing there - for example - if we didn't get anyone to replace McLean?). It's not his best position, but he's better than O'Connor there or Tansey and the like. Against bottom 6 opposition too, we simply shouldn't need two holding midfielders, so it's no bad thing to have a player like McLean how can sort of play both roles. I agree about McLean's shooting though. Although if he was a better goalscorer he wouldn't be playing for us....

Very true. I should have said "should be". Or, more aptly, AFC fans are bound by it's decisions (for the next 100 years). Anyway, recognising Marischal Square is a mistake surely doesn't merit ignoring AFC's proposed mistake? It seems like an extreme case of whataboutery.

Have the club ever asked? The council seems to have suggested multiple sites. Milne has shown throughout his career that he has little or no time for ACC. The Cove site was approved. The club chose to back out because Cove dicked about and ACC gave up. If the cooncil hadn't decided to charge for the land, they'd have been on pretty sticky ground I expect. But it has to be more than that. It has to be a complete collaboration. Drag the cunts to every fucking meeting, and get them involved. Kingsford might be a great site in the future, if that's where the city decides to expand to. It isn't now, and it isn't going to be anytime soon. I live out of town (Sooth, ten miles), and I can get in to the game on time leaving after 2pm. Also, I could get a train, a bus or bike. It's hugely accessible. The point is, it's integrated. It's as good as Aberdeen's infrastructure (poor) allows, and any improvements in said infrastructure will directly benefit the club. It's part of the city. Not relevant. I objected. Loads of people did. However, it's not a members club. AFC is. AFC is accountable to us, the fans.