RicoS321

Aye, I'd probably stick with the same lineup and hope that Barron of the Killie game turns up. It's essential that the triangle of three in that midfield perform together. The biggest problem we've got, which isn't unusual when in a rut and late in the season, is that we've got absolutely nothing on the bench to change it up when we're struggling. Duk is a lost cause until summer anyway, and Sokler hasn't really shown anything beyond one good game against the Hun. We've got no exciting young winger, or a big lad to change tactics.

I think it's a little revisionist to say that Robson had Clarkson punting long balls for Miovski to chase. Firstly, Clarkson doesn't really punt, he's an extremely good passer and, secondly, it worked very well in the run in last season with two high midfielders. The two wingers point is valid to a degree, however a back three is fairly pragmatic in Scotland and the two wingers were replaced by an on fire Duk and McRorie bustling about fairly high up the park too. You take all those things out, and add in a defence that doesn't really like defending and you've got to move to plan B. For whatever reason, that took Robson up until the day he was sacked to realise. Since we've moved to a 4-2-3-1, it's been fairly obvious we don't have the personnel to play the way Thelin would like, and he couldn't just magic those attributes into the existing lot. A summer of recruitment will be very unlikely to get us from here to there either, so if we do employ the guy he has to be aware that he's probably going to have to do plan B for a while, and the fans are going to have to be patient. I'm certain that Cormack will "go foreign" if he can, so this guy seems as good as any other. I'm just very wary of when people say "this is how a manager likes to play football", especially when we've just sat through six months of Robson setting up the way he likes to play football in full view of the evidence that it was failing miserably. Pragmatism is going to be required for some time, something a guy like Steve Clarke understood at Killie for example. Playing it simple, to the strengths of the players available, and keeping their individual instructions simple.

That's basically what Robson attempted but failed. For all the accusations of us making long ball punts under Robson, it was very clear that was never the intention. Clarkson was clearly instructed to move the ball as soon as he got it for the over the top run, or flick on when we had two up top. Shinnie and Ramadani provided the high line last season, which we couldn't replicate this one. Because that's the issue, isn't it? If we can't implement this lad's first choice strategy because the recruitment doesn't quite return the necessary players (high likelihood), what's his plan B, and will we show the required patience if he needs three windows to implement? Also, what does he do when Livingston sit inside their own box for ninety minutes? I'm not suggesting this lad wouldn't be a good manager, of course, just that these computer game analytics don't generally give the whole picture. Anyway, get him in. Even though he refuses to come because we're shitter than his current team and the myth that you need to move to a country within the UK in order to "be seen down South", is exactly that.

It's actually not that strange, it's exactly what our supposed strategy should allow us to do. It's what data Dave talked about when he first joined as chairman, before spending the next four years making an utter cunt of it.

Who cares? He's not obligated to be at the club full time, and if he's farmed out his duties in picking the next manager, then that's a good sign.

No we don't. It doesn't exist.

One thing is very clear, we don't do enough work on free kicks, defending or attacking. I'm very surprised by the return of the long throw and punting freekicks into the box. We switch off at freekicks, like the one that led to their "penalty", every game. I think that the new manager might have to give up on Duk this season too. Hoilett was doing okay when he came off, and we were well in the game despite being off it.

Aye, that was all round pish, a bit like the state of the club at the moment. Players just look disillusioned. Dundee deserved to win by one of the numerous chances that they created, but no team in the world of football deserves to win by a game ruining decision like that one. In fairness to the refs and VAR, they're doing exactly as the system instructs them. Thank fuck for the international break.

That's a honking performance so far. Barron was excellent against Killie, and good against St Mirren, but he's been terrible tonight. The game just completely passing him by. I'd maybe take Polvara on there, or perhaps take Phillips back a bit and put Clarkson on. Might as well try something out for the semi! They've basically cut out anything to Phillips and Miovski with the big lad in holding midfield. MacDonald defending well, but his passing coming out on his wrong foot is an issue. Hoilett needs to do more, he just lacks pace. I don't expect changes at halftime, but they need to come quick if we start the way we finished.

If we'd set the club up properly I'm time for Glass arriving then we'd know if that was a workable option, but we didn't. For me, the idea behind having the various football departments is so that you can have young managers come through our system and retain a solid background structure ready for the next guy. You give them a bit of time and you sell them on just like you would a good player. Cormack has made too many mistakes already to try someone like McCabe unfortunately and, ironically, we'll get an experienced manager just at the point we finally sort out our backroom staff.

Exactly. Davie Martindale does all that and paints the stands, and shovels snow off the pitch.

No Jacob Brown*? Disgusting. *That's his name, isn't it?

Scottish football needs them to avoid each other. Or certainly that's been the narrative since I can remember. There's nothing bigger than an "old firm" final. The greatest derby in the world.

I don't think that it still exists, but there was certainly a higher than chance avoidance of one another up until about the eighties. Since the new entity, it's actually been imperative that they play each other as soon as possible before sevco got pumped out. Now that normal service has largely been resumed, they'll need a new way to ensure they avoid each other. AI or some shite.

Good point!

Shinnie being suspended makes this one extremely difficult. Phillips was good against the Tims and Killie, but he's not good enough at football to be sitting in front of the defence. Polvara doesn't have the coverage but is basically our only option. Unless we go wild and include one of the defence in midfield. Or really wild and play Rubezic there on his first game back from injury, with an instruction to "take no prisoners".

The real question there is how often have the other two teams in the draw been the scum? For most of Scottish football history, the hot ball would have been play to keep them apart.

They're pish, we'll take them. Lennon will get the lads riled up for it.

Well.

Yep, I think you're right. I tend not to boo (pretty much just at the ref), and I felt sorry for Morris. However, the Morris situation lies squarely at the door of Warnock. Watch back any videos of our previous performances, ask anyone at the club, and you'd know that Morris can't, and should never, play wing back (and McGrath, very obviously). He just didn't do any research work before and after arriving at the club (because I don't believe he's a terrible manager), that would have avoided these scenarios. The manager basically hung Morris out to dry with his atrocious team selection. He had played him the week before, against Bonnyrigg (his actual first game at Pittodrie), in a role as a winger, which is a legitmate way to play Morris that compliments any abilities that he does have. A good manager should just know this. If he'd played Morris with Devlin covering behind him against Motherwell, we'd probably have been going in level at halftime and Morris could have gone off in 60 minutes or whatever having been ineffective, but without the dog's abuse. Compare our performance with that in the Tims game prior to Warnock's arrival and it was night and day. The players were on edge in the first half, but we kept the formation and approach simple, worked hard, and a calm talking to from Leven at half time settled the players into the game and gave us a solid performance. Incidentally, the exact same setup and approach was taken for the Killie game at the weekend - the weeks of dicking about by Warnock culminated in us going back to exactly what worked before he arrived. I don't like being hostile to a manager, but Warnock brought most of it on himself (St Mirren aside). In terms of the booing of Roos, and previously Lewis for the terrible kicking, I think it has a direct negative effect on a goalkeeper and serves only to make their kicking even worse. We have to accept that goalkeepers are going to be less confident with the ball at their feet. We also have to factor in that for large parts of the year in this country the pitch will not be a perfectly flat surface and that the wind has a big effect on the ball's movement. Combined with the fact that the vast majority of kicks a keeper makes involve taking big swings at the ball, the chance of error is far higher than that of an outfield player. Adding anxiety to a keeper's game with booing is fairly stupid, and it has noticeably effected Roos, and Lewis previously and spread to the rest of their game, notably effecting their decision to come for crosses (at their peak, both Roos and Lewis had no problems coming for balls in crowded areas, latterly both just decided to stay on their lines). I find it strange that our fans were simultaneously booing Roos for poor kick outs and jeering at Denis in the Killie goal at the weekend, without working out that maybe there are more factors at play to cause many of the goalies that come to Pittodrie every week to produce crap kickouts.

I should add, I'm slightly concerned by the timings once again, and I know that it's difficult with the current managerless position. When Cormack first came in (properly), it was clear that McInnes was on his way out and that Cormack was keen to change the structure of the club. I thought that was definitely the right move (not necessarily to get rid of McInnes*). We had almost an entire season with McInnes in which we could have got things right off the park (many of us mentioned it multiple times!). That was the time to appoint the new director of football, the recruitment team etc etc (and get any review done). We ended up appointing Glass with none of the other components in place, and eventually promoted Gunn to director of football, despite him being what appears to be an admin-focused guy. This left Glass high and dry, with zero support, and we subsequently hired two further inexperienced guys without the obviously required (or inept) support from above. We've now been given the opportunity to undergo a review and take our time to get the off-pitch side of things right before hiring a manager. However, we're appointing the manager first and then the Technical Director? This immediately creates conflict where it doesn't need to be. The new manager comes in, sets up his working system, before a technical director comes in and holds it to account and perhaps asks for changes in line with a bigger strategy at the club. It might not be an issue, of course, but the world of football management is an ego-heavy environment. Far better, it would be, to have a technical director in place who had outlined his ideas for the club, before he/she and the other directors go and sell the role to a new manager who knows exactly what is being mapped out for him. I genuinely thought Cormack would be up on this sort of corporate shite. I was quite excited when Cormack came in, because he talked in a way that made sense, like he had a plan. It's things like this (and the other disasters) that make you doubt him completely. This is something he should have completely nailed on, this is his bag - it's his vocabulary. I realise that there are time constraints in fitba that probably don't exist elsewhere, but I don't think that's an excuse. This review could have occurred in the summer, or November, with a Technical director already in place ready for the new manager (or he might even have been able to help Robson not be so shite). *one of the good reasons for getting rid of McInnes was the fortune he was - allegedly - getting paid. I suspect we are away to spunk a fortune on a new manager too, blowing that reason out of the water.

Aye, but Germans ken aboot fitba. I've been calling for more support for the manager for several years now, so can't really complain about a technical director coming in. In truth, I've no idea the separation of technical and football director roles and why it requires more than one individual, so I guess we just have to believe that there's enough competence and challenge at the club to validate this decision. I've also worked in plenty of organisations where the answer to a failing manager/director was to get another manager in just above them that acts as a buffer between them and the board. I've rarely seen that approach work, you simply end up with a slightly demoted employee who is either suitably demotivated that they leave, or recognises that it's really just a job and they can continue to take a decent pay packet whilst having a large amount of their responsibility removed. In fact, I can think of at least seven companies that I've worked for that have taken this approach, and none were improved because of it. However, perhaps technical and football departments are separate entities at Pittodrie, and require separate oversight. I imagine that this new technical guy will need some new employees too, which he'll bravely eschew in favour of using a consulting company, as you suggest. It'll be interesting to see the increase in the cost of the non-playing side over the coming years, Cormack strikes me as the type who could be seriously milked by a well-placed Powerpoint.

In fairness, it's not like they killed Martin Boyl...... oh

Speak for yourself