RicoS321

 

I don't think there's any debate to be had about our performance as a club and as a business since Milne took charge. It is very dangerous to seek to mitigate the chairman's responsibility by pointing the finger at the manager. If the players aren't good enough, the manager is at fault. If the manager isn't getting results, it's the boardroom's fault. Our club has been so ineptly run for so long we didn't even understand the importance of a decent goalkeeper. One of my best mates has a ST at Smurren and being four or five years older than me, has been playing and watching for longer. He absolutely detests Langfield already, after half a season and yet some ignorant AFC webspeaksitechatters defended the incompetent fool and indeed, turn on any of us who have the audacity to say it like it is.

I disagree entirely. I think it is solely the responsibility of the manager to prioritise the position(s) required - see my McInnes example above. I actually think that Langfield was about right for the quality of outfield player we had at the time (under Calderwood, McGhee and Brown). That is a criticism of the quality of outfield player we had rather than a compliment for Langfield.

There was a point when Calderwood should have tried to replace him, when we were performing well. It coincided with Langfield's best spell, but the deficiencies were obvious and we should have looked to spend a decent wage on a better 'keeper.

McGhee went into Europe with no central defenders, which was far more of a priority than changing goalie. He then proceeded to employ Ifil and other f'n awful players whilst dicking about trying to replace Langfield with pish like Brown and Gonzalez; arguably he'd have been better spent prioritising a centre half or a full back.

Brown's entire spell seemed to be about us not finishing bottom. He didn't seem to have much of a forward plan.

McInnes, as I mentioned earlier, held off on the goalie position whilst he sorted out the rest of the side - recognising that good ones don't come along that often in the SPL. If Milne had insisted that McInnes prioritise a goalie, then I think that would have set us back considerably, whilst completely over-stepping the mark as chairman.

I agree that Milne has made some spectacularly bad appointments, but that doesn't mean that he should see it as a cue to get involved in team strategy. Once making his shite appointments, he has to put faith in them as a manager - he clearly thought he was doing the right thing.

Anyway, I'm not convinced Rogers is the ready made replacement for Ward, but I would like to see him given his chance because I like the idea of us taking through a youth goalie! I'm going to assume that - given the impact Ward has made - McInnes knows that it's a huge position to fill in the summer and he's allocating an appropriately large chunk of our budget for it.

To add: I dinna really rate Bain either. Only seems to look good against us - based on SPL highlights only!

If we want to reverse the performance trend of the last 20 years, we need to have a good goalkeeper. It's pretty amazing if you think about it that this simple truth has been ignored by the board of AFC and hopefully, will not continue to be neglected when it comes to the management of Rogers. What happens with him is a great barometer of what our club really wants to do and what it wants to be.

It's hardly been ignored by the board. We had Leighton, Kjaer and paid a good fee for Preece (£300K was it?). That Calderwood brought in Langfield and, I assume, paid him well was a management decision - the board can't be expected to question the manager on the merits of signing a player that the manager had previously worked with and obviously rated. Langfield wouldn't have been on shite wages, so its down to poor management that he was never replaced with someone better on the same budget. That said, the state of our outfield playing staff meant I entirely agreed with McInnes's decision to give Langfield another contract when he did, as I simply didn't think we had the time and resource to source a good 'keeper whilst replacing several of the playing squad at the same time. The decision was made early on Langfield leaving, it had been known about for at least 6 months. It's telling/disappointing that at the end of the search, we could only come up with a loanee from the EPL (albeit a f'n good one) to take us forward. I'm not convinced Rogers is as good as this agent-leaked story suggests but nevertheless we're in the position that we know we need a new goalie in June and we've had a year to look for one. I'm hoping there's a huge amount of effort going into sourcing the next guy, with a keen eye on Rogers' progress at the same time. We need to get it right next season, and I'm certain the manager will know that. But it is the manager's job, not the board.

Fuck off. I'm watching the telly.

 

And stop being pedantic. THIRD ok? We should have been going for the title of course but 3rd was the worst we should have expected.

Fourth? Didn't Hearts have a significantly higher budget than us in the JC era? Kingston and such like.

I think, on the basis of this thread, we should re-appoint Jimmy Calderwood in 2016.

3-0 after 16 seconds of the second half. Still no dons sub. Fantastic result obviously, but has to be McInnes' biggest failing. We could've easily give a youngster 40 minutes.

Or a step toward summer fitba? Either way, another undisclosed, without-consultation, exclusive bag of shite. Might work like, but can they not have these discussions out in the open, engage with folk? At least pretend you give a fuck about what your paying customers think.

I thought the worst thing about Benn's speech was the complete lack of substance. It was well orated, well timed (for maximum cuntishness) and emotional, but nothing new was brought to the table. I noticed a couple of Labour spineless fucks tweeted that they had backed the bombing after hearing Benn's speech. Really? What new piece of information did he bring to the debate that hadn't been discussed in the previous 10 hours.

That sort of thing belongs in a debate down the pub, not in the decision making process for going to war. It should have been an analytical discussion that discussed - only - facts. Like was done by the very committee set up to examine the case for war (who were, obviously, ignored). Our f'n archaic system of democracy doesn't fuckin work, and that's why Jeremy Corbyn has no place in it. Labour need a personality, not a man with conviction or sense, because that's who our parliamentary system works. It's all left to chance. A "who can shout loudest" match. These cunts don't serve a purpose.

Did I imagine Foster being player of the season before being loaned to der hun? I thought he was. Remember he had a decent year that year. Anyway, I don't dislike the guy, and don't boo him, but he can still go and fuck himself. For being a hun, like.

I love how the argument has become binary - to bomb or not to bomb. I'm going to teach that Cameron a right lesson when I get the opportunity to tick a box in 4.5 years time.

It's our best players, picked in the style of Alex Miller. Most folk had forgotten that Left back was actually a position before Shinnie arrived anyway.

Goal for Ireland away to Bosnia! Robbie Brady with it.

 

hope they make it through.

 

Why? Fuck Ireland. What have they ever done for us?

More guns. That's the answer for everything. The only answer is to roll back our foreign policy. Stop interfering in the middle east (leave everything to the UN, so there can still be some involvement), and make it clear that that is what we're doing - don't give people an excuse. Stop spying on our own citizens, and treat everyone like humans. Make society more equal and respect everyone's human rights. Once all that is done, accept that sometimes people do bad things and that spying and guns won't stop that, but make it worse. Perhaps we can use some sophisticated drone technology to get to these incidents quickly and stun the attackers to prevent further casualty.

We're down from 150 at its Sky News peak last night to 120 today. Interesting seeing these things unfold with permanent news coverage. Sky were particularly interesting, as they were just randomly speculating. At one point, the attacks were because it was Friday 13th and that they attacked the concert hall because there was an American band playing. The BBC are, this morning, reporting a spontaneous outbreak of singing of the French national anthem at a French national football game - who'd have thought? Although, so far, no news channel has reported the final score.

150 dead now. Crazy. Fuck it, I'm going to bed.

Blacks and muslims have been treated by the french for the last many decades with the same usual inquiry and suspicion that any new or different clan are regarded by the natives. This often spills over into contempt, not just in how they are regarded on a daily basis, but how they are unfairly treated in terms of social welfare and opportunity.

Unless they're good at fitba. It is very much an internal problem. Borders closed, in a European country, fuck sake.

Sounding bad for the hostages like.

Edit: nae need.

All kicking off there again. 40 deed so far, in a couple of incidents, with 100 still held hostage. Mental stuff.

I think you'll find that most people, including British people and particularly Scottish and the North East people do care about the basic principles upon which the concept of democracy was built, however divorced those might be from the political elite ruling classes.

 

Don't mix up the people with the politicians. These two have become increasingly divorced and it was Blair who drove the deepest divisions between the two.

I wasn't mixing the two, I thought Farage was clearly holding the British system up as a democratic example. Which I thought was disingenuous given their own poor representation due to FPTP. I could have been mistaken though.

I thought Blair did more to put people off democracy completely, become disengaged, and changed the whole political/election process to a charade that focused on personality over policy. I'd say that the vast majority of my colleagues at work have no interest in democracy or politics at all. Whilst, there's still a majority turnout at elections (65% last time round), I think there's a lot of those still do it because they feel it's their duty, and a lot who support Labour or whoever because "that's who I've always voted for" - i.e. folk who have no interest in democracy; it's like they're supporting a fitba team. Obviously, that is all contradicted when the electorate have something worthwhile to vote for, like in the independence referendum. But even with that, try and start a conversation with someone about PR, and the vast majority will glaze over immediately. I think the majority of people prefer the illusion of democracy without even thinking about what it means. See the lack of outrage about the latest changes to internet privacy for example.

He's on the ball that cunt.

Apart from the shite about Britain caring about democracy.

It's an interesting state of affairs in Portugal right now, and he's right about the blanket ignoring of it in the media. Al Jazeera was the only place that gave a decent overview. There's only one way Europe is heading if they continue to ignore the rights of countries' citizens. It's a pretty fucked experiment. The legal requirement for surplus for individual Euro members is fuckin bizarre like.

The dons train at Countesswells, and had to put up some changing facilities separate to those used by kids I think.

Hayes is a good SPL player, however his decision making, occasional poor technique and poor football brain often lets him down. If he had those two elements he would be an international class player. Too often we see shit crossing , poor decisions in terms of passing and woeful shooting. On his day he is our best player.

Totally disagree. His ability to play in several different positions would suggest he has a good understanding of the game. His excellent runs off the ball, and the way he drops in to cover for other players shows a pretty good team player. His crossing has vastly improved since he first arrived, to the point his crosses more often than not hit the man (or the area where the player should be). Decision making and the occasional poor technique happen when you play the game at the pace that Hayes does. There's not a better left sided player in the SPL in my opinion.

Una cerveza por favor.

I'd like to see a replay of the second one though, as I actually thought McLean was at fault as much as Jack. Jack was breaking from defence and running directly toward McLean. Instead of McLean turning and moving into space, taking the defender with him he just stood still waiting til Jack was a couple of yards from him with only a risky pass to Logan on - which he made a cunt of.

Just saw it again, I was spikkin shite, entirely Jack's fault. He did well to get back in and - sort of - put the Jute off.

Jack twice in the 1st half losing possession too easily could've cost us.

Possibly one for the Jack thread, but fuck it. Thought Jack was a lot better today and got better as the game went on. Took responsibility for his misplaced pass, apologising to everyone on the pitch, twice, and McInnes which was quite amusing. I'd like to see a replay of the second one though, as I actually thought McLean was at fault as much as Jack. Jack was breaking from defence and running directly toward McLean. Instead of McLean turning and moving into space, taking the defender with him he just stood still waiting til Jack was a couple of yards from him with only a risky pass to Logan on - which he made a cunt of. I thought McLean was often the weak link out right, he seems far more comfortable in field. That said, I thought Pawlett's movement was excellent again today, keeping high up the park and stretching them at every opportunity. His passes were always in front of the player too (see Hayes' goal) ready for them just to run on to, and he got himself into the box at every opportunity. Hayes man of the match with Shinnie and Pawlett close behind. Flood was very good too, and him and Jack seemed not to get under each other's feet for a change too. Overall, a comfortable performance. I may even watch it again on Alba.

Jon Snow doesn't wear a poppy, a rare if not the only TV person who doesn't.

He also has a history of being a serious journalist and can think for himself unlike yer average news reader.

Drugs like heroin as well, absolutely destroys people. Sure there are some arguments as to how legalising it could somehow help addicts but would it even slightly make it more appealing for people to try it for the first time if legalised? I can't see how that could be a good thing.

Go on. Yer only smoking it.

Luckily for them Oldco issues don't really affect them. 

Apart from when asking: "how did an asset now valued at £62M on your books get acquired for £4M post oldco liquidation?"