Sweetchuck

I agree that Miller's contribution wasn't the best. However, if he had been presented with the chances that Mackie had, I doubt he would have missed the target completely with both. I also think JC uses Miller's height as a justification for his eye-gougingly unpleasant long-ball tactics. He is the focal point of our attack, and the fact that he has to produce so many flick-ons is a direct consequence of the way JC wants the team to attack. However, when he did get the ball on the deck, Miller was guilty of over-playing and trying to beat too many men from a standing start on more than one occasion. Miller's performance on Saturday also reminded me a lot of the way Stevie Crawford used to have to drop deep and help the midfield do their job. Kerr and MacDonald were so hesitant and deep-lying that even Smith and Maguire/de Visscher were having to come inside to close down the space they should have been covering, and Miller was having to do likewise. That to me says far more about the quality of our midfield than the quality of our strikers.

But Kerr and MacDonald are central midfielders, and were played in central midfield on Saturday. I agree entirely that JC plays people out of position, and have been arguing pretty strongly about it in the Aberdeen Vs. Inverness thread. However, Kerr and MacDonald have no excuses in this respect. Their performances were simply very, very poor. Part of that is down to them, but part of it is down to JC and his management of players, even when they are in the right positions.

Does that explain why MacDonald couldn't tackle and Kerr couldn't pass? I'm all for giving players the opportunity to build up a rapport, but come on. MacDonald was anonymous on Saturday and Kerr just didn't seem to know which side he was on. Their performances on Saturday had nothing to do with the fact they don't really know each other. It looked far more like they were simply under-prepared and ill-advised by the manager on what their job actually was.

Nice to see that someone else actually values something other than effort when it comes to appraising Darren Mackie's "contribution". His turn and shot from 6 yards and his blocking of a shot (which appeared bound for the top corner) before skying the rebound miles over were, for a professional footballer, embarrassing.

So would I, but that's not what I asked. Seve may be a better CB than Considine, but that's a sad reflection on Considine as opposed to a glowing endorsement of Seve as a CB. Is Severin a central defender? So, you agree that he was played out of position. If not on Saturday, then for the whole of last season. Half of the match up front; half of the match on the left wing. He can't a) score goals or b) cross. Again, played out of position, years too early. It staggers me that anybody can even contemplate defending JC against a charge of playing people out of positions.

Is Seve a central defender? Is Foster a defender? Is Maguire a winger? Is Langfield a goalkeeper?

So having a go at him for seizing an opportunity the same way we all would is okay? It's his fault, is it? Worse than being a man down? Get a grip, FFS. Kerr misplaced far more passes than Foster on Saturday. As a right back, it's not Foster's responsibility to be the playmaker for the team. He does most of the essentials in a basic manner. I lost count of the number of passes Kerr played straight to the opposition and straight out of play.

The problem is that the problems seen on Saturday are not new. They are the same problems which have plagued us since the end of JC's first season here. - Inability to play players in correct positions - Inability to get players fit - Inability to train Langfield to KICK a fucking ball - Inability to identify gaping holes in squad, which are plain for all to see - Inability to motivate players properly, regardless of the size of the game - Inability to accept responsibility for problems of his own making If this was a one-off, I could handle it. It's not. This season will follow the same pattern as last year, but without the creativity of Nicholson in midfield, I reckon we are a stick on for the bottom six. THIS IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM, CALDERWOOD - THE FANS HAVE BEEN TELLING YOU THIS FOR ALMOST TWO FUCKING YEARS. He whines about service, but chooses to spunk his budget on journeyman defensive midfielders and a striker with a mediocre goalscoring record. It's clear to see that Maguir and de Visscher are not up to standard. If the rest of the world can see it, why the fuck can't you? Swallow your pride and admit that your own signings have not been up to scratch. Flogging a dead donkey by persisting with Maguire and de Visscher is doing nobody any good. There is still time before the transfer window closes. GET IT FUCKING SORTED, YOU USELESS BLIVET.

Mackie missed two glaring opportunities which any striker deserving of that label would have buried. Far too many people in the AFC support confuse energy with talent when it comes to Mackie. Mulgrew by a mile for me.

Picking on Foster for being shit is like having a go at the Down's Syndrome kid at school for coming out last in the spelling test. His manager has let him down big time by playing him out of position not for one or two games, but for an entire season (and probably two seasons, if we don't sign a RB pronto). How many players would put up with being totally mishandled, with the result being that they becomes the fans' scapegoat week in, week out? Foster deserves some credit for not telling JC to shove his full back positions up his overweight, over-tanned arse, and at least giving his all in a position where most other players simply wouldn't bother at all. The worst perforrmance - relative to capability - was Mark Kerr by a country mile. I hope to Christ that there is a hell of a lot more to come from him.

I was stunned by how bad he was. His tackling was shite, and his use of the ball was astoundingly poor: constantly into touch or straight to a blue shirt. If it wasn't for Foster, I'd have had him down as the worst player on the pitch. He was disappointing in pre-season, but I thought he (and the rest of them, mind you) would up the ante when the competitive matches kicked in. Not really, but he would still manage to put Mark Kerr to shame in that respect. We are gradually losing the players who made us a stand-out in JC's first season and replacing them with also-rans from other SPL clubs. Nevertheless, for the time being - and certainly this was the case for both semi-finals last season - we are still (ostensibly) more talented than most other teams in the league, and certainly more so than ICT. Like I said, JC did a great job early on, but by virtue of his character flaws, he's now knocking down all that he built up, and alienating a huge number of the fans and several players as a result.

Okay, time for my contribution. I've deliberately waited until I calmed down a bit, in order to make this post in as cool, calm and collected a manner as is possible following yesterday's horror-show. Bear with me; I have a few points to make about yesterday before getting to the crux of my argument. Yesterday's Match On the plus side, Mulgrew looks a real player. He was left badly exposed by Jamie Smith's laziness and lack of positioning at ICT's first, but other than that, he looked assured, strong and a good header and passer of the ball. Lee Miller was as problematic as usual, and Darren Mackie ran around as much as usual (albeit also missing as many glorious opportunities as usual). And that's it. The downsides? Well, most notably, MacDonald and Kerr were absolutely appalling. The former was simply anonymous; the latter totally profligate in his distribution and utterly unconvincing in his attempts to win the ball back. A protector of the back four? If I ever hear this again, I'll die laughing there and then in front of the person who is stupid enough to say it. He was simply dreadful - like Chris Clark, but without any passing ability or the ability to distinguish between a red shirt and a blue one. Foster was terrible. Yes; he tries, but he's simply nowhere near good enough to be playing in the SPL, and particularly not in an SPL defence. Smith looked disinterested, and I find it incredible that people are saying that we should lay off him. This guy takes more in wages than any other player at Pittodrie. Why should we not expect him to produce a performance which goes some way to reflecting that on a regular basis? He is rapidly developing a Hemdani complex whereby he'll give it his best for the big games, but will barely bother his arse for anything he deems less important. De Visscher was pish. Still looks unfit, still looks too slow, still looks unable to add anything whatsoever to our team. To take time to adapt to the SPL is one thing, but to still be overweight after 12 months in Scotland and two attempts at JC's famous pre-season training regime is unforgivable. Tactically, I'd like to know what on earth JC was thinking. ICT arguably have the biggest back four in the SPL, and yet we spent the whole time playing to their strengths, sending long ball after long ball forward to Smith or Maguire against Ross Tokeley. Nothing in that performance gave any indication whatsoever that we are going to make any attempt to play nicer football this season. I saw nothing yesterday which gave me any sense of hope that this year's football will be more entertaining than last year's. Long balls, unenthusiastic ambles down the wing followed by crosses straight over the byline, soul-less and spineless midfielders who shirk every possible challenge, and a goalkeeper who can't kick. On that note, can I just ask: HOW CAN YOU ENJOY A CAREER AS A PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLER IF YOU CANNOT CONSISTENTLY KICK A BALL? We're not asking Langfield to play pass of the century every time he receives the ball to feet; just that he kick it as hard and as far away from himself as possible. How can a player make a career out of football if he's incapable of kicking the ball properly on a regular basis? Jesus fucking wept. The number of times that Langfield has put us under pressure or conceded a goal due to his inability to carry out the most fundamental skill involved in playing football would be absolutely hilarious if it weren't so tragic. It staggers me that we are wasting thousands of pounds a year on a player who can't even be coached to kick a fucking ball properly. If that's not an indictment of our training methods, then I don't know what is. This season is going to bear witness to yet more of JC's primitive, grindhouse mentality, which may have worked wonders for Millwall in the 1960s but it's not going to wash up here in the current day. Again, this is a guy who constantly claims to be schooled in the Dutch school of football. Yet another example of his mouth writing a cheque which his talent fails spectacularly to cash. General Conclusions So, what does this point to? In a nutshell, I think that it's becoming increasingly apparent for us all that it's time the club began looking for someone else to take over from JC. I'm not saying that he should go now, but we need to be aware that we will not progress any further under him, and should see what options are available for next summer. He has done very, very well - and I do mean this - to get us to where we now find ourselves: consistent top six finishes and back in the hunt for Europe on a regular basis. I really struggle to see how he can move us on from here though. In fact, I can't even see us maintaining what we now have. If it hadn't been for a flukey goal against Falkirk in the final minute, we would have been back to the ignominy of finishing in the bottom six. That's how thin the line between failure and success (or what JC keeps trying to tell us was success) was for us last year. We got lucky last season, but we were far from being good enough to secure a top six place easily. We are hitting a brick wall in major games not as a result of ability, but rather because of mentality. We have more than enough in our ranks to see off the likes of ICT (yesterday, burden of expectation at start of new season), Dundee Utd (burden of expectation of semi-final) and Queen of the South (again, semi-final expectations). We are better than these teams in terms of the players we have in our ranks. However, we have a major issue when it comes to confidence and motivation, and that stems from the manager's handling of the squad and the tactics according to which they are supposed to play. In addition to the coaching and motivational problems, we have an increasingly prominent problem of squad deficiencies as each year goes by. We lost key players like Russell Anderson, Michael Hart, Barry Nicholson and - albeit to a far lesser extent - Chris Clark last season. Not one of those has been adequately replaced on the basis of yesterday and pre-season. Mark Kerr was abominably bad yesterday: I struggle to remember one single pass whicch went to a team-mate. MacDonald was anonymous. Foster was woeful and Considine simply isn't good enough yet, and indeed may never be. Maguire was appalling and looks so out of place in the SPL that I actually find myself laughing out loud in anticipation of yet another cross straight into the upper rows of the Merkland Stand/RDU after his usual mincing run down the wing. We desperately need another centre half, right back, creative midfielder and (possibly; time will tell with Wright) more natural predator than Mackie/Miller/Maguire. None of these is asking too much, yet still JC continues his pursuit of strikers with mediocre goalscoring records and journeymen central midfielders instead of addressing the gaping holes in our squad. This again suggests that he is either incapable of seeing the wood from the trees, or that he refuses to accept that his signing policy is flawed. Either that, or he refuses to curtail his six-week holidays to Mallorca in order to actually get out there and get some fucking players signed. I have never liked JC as a character, but was only too happy to put that aside in order for him to do a job at AFC. However, when the arrogance, selfishness and abrogation of blame which is inherent in his nature begins to interfere with his job, it's entirely proper that his character be brought into question. If he was capable of accepting responsibility for when things go wrong, if he was capable of not victimising/bullying individual players, if he was capable of admitting a mistake in the transfer market instead of making the same mistakes time and again, this wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I now seriously regret renewing my season ticket and tacitly endorsing JC's brand of football. Congratulations to those who had the bottle to follow through with their convictions and sacrifice their regular attendance at Pittodrie for the greater good of showing those in power at Pittodrie that what we are seeing is simply nowhere near good enough. I'll be joining you next year.

Tommy Wright confirmed as number 11.

wtf? ROFL When I read it, these guys sprang immediately to mind:

But his one game came against East Fife. It'd be hard for any moderately-talented player not to look outstanding against a team from Scotland's lowest national league. I'm really not sure how much you can read into that one performance. His reputation is based entirely upon a season with Falkirk, of which his game against us at Pittodrie was probably the high-point. I'm not saying that he isn't good enough, merely that I'm not entirely convinced, and clearly neither is Walter Smith, even when the situation is so desperate that he has to bring in youth-team players. In any case, his value is almost certainly higher than any fee we would be prepared to pay. Was he not valued at about £500k in the Lafferty deal? I'm pretty sure Norwich had a £400k bid in for him recently as well. I could be wrong on the figures, but even £300k will be above what we are prepared to pay. Plus, there will almost undoubtedly be other clubs sniffing around him again, and I can't see Rangers being keen on helping us to strengthen our team, given that 2nd place in the SPL may well be up for grabs this year.

Aye, Jimmy could have him in goal.

Burke is an even more injury-prone version of Chris Clark. All show and no product. Most of the Rangers fans loathe him for his consistently shite crossing and inability to beat defenders. Dailly has always been versatile as opposed to talented. He's no better than any of our midfielders or central defenders. Cousin and Darcheville have big egos but little in the way of effort or goal-scoring return. Given our inability to carve out decent chances for our strikers, they would struggle just as much as Miller, Mackie, Wright and Bebo will this season. Gow hasn't played two games in a row for over a year, and has a reputation based entirely upon a fairly decent 6 months at Falkirk. If he's as good as we reckon, why did Smith so steadfastly refuse to rotate him in for one of Rangers exhausted attacking midfielders last season? Even the likes of John Fleck and Andrew Shinnie were given a chance ahead of Gow. Whilst I agree that Hemdani, Boyd and Naismith are a cut above what we have already, not one of them would even countenance signing for us. They are all capable of netting contracts at far bigger clubs than AFC.

1. We couldn't afford any of them. The Huns are looking to make up a £12 million shortfall at least. On the basis of these 5 players plus one other, they would need an average saving (fee + wages) of over £2m for each one. We can barely afford to scrape togather £75k for Tommy Wright. 2. Not one of them would want to sign for us in a million years. 3. Only Boyd, Hemdani and Naismith would genuinely improve us as a team. Boyd has already had offers from the Championship, Hemdani refuses to play SPL matches for the Huns and Naismith has a long-term injury and is a dyed-in-the-wool Filth fan.

With the possible exception of Gow, not one of that lot would even consider signing for us. Not that I'm hugely bothered. Apart from Naismith, Hemdani and Boyd, I don't think a single one of them would genuinely improve us as a team.

Aye, and we'd have fucked off elsewhere whilst your back was turned.

I see your cence of humour has decsended to new depths.

Chuck this, ya cheeky bastard.

I really don't know how to argue with that kind of logic. It simply doesn't work that way, and I think you are in a tiny minority if you are prepared to pay £19 purely and simply because you couldn't bear to see £1 wasted. By your logic, if AFC told previous fairweather fans to bring along an old ticket stub because it would knock £1 off the entry fee, we'd sell out. It simply doesn't work like that, unless you're an incredibly, staggeringly, monumentally tight individual who would rather be £20 out of pocket and watching a game you're not really bothered about than see your £1 go to waste. I could make a really sarky comment here, but I'm in a good mood today.

I don't think I've ever met anyone so mean (or stupid) that they would even consider spending 1900% of their original investment just to make sure that said original investment didn't go to waste. Is it safe to say that you're not studying economics?