There were still some 2,000 tickets available yesterday, so hopefully they’ve now been shifted. This is probably our winnable game if we can call it that. At home and confidence is good. Do we set up the same as the county game rather than huns? I’d suggest yes, but I’ve no real idea of the opposition. Hopefully we see a bit more of Sokler, needs to get the opportunity to start shining, not that I think we should be dropping miovski for him.

anyway, hoping for a decent turn out, was a decent package the club put out.

out

bed

work

work

2-0 dons, miovski and barron

I would expect Helsinki to sit in so we will have to approach the game the same way we did in the games against county rather than Saturday’s formation. Would expect Barron to replace Polvara in midfield. Duk maybe to come in for Clarkson or McGrath. Worth a lot of money to the club if we can win this one. 
 

oot

Euro Disney

Hopefully a sports bar that has TNT

Hotel

2-0 Miovski and Duk

Nae sure what to expect from Helsinki,though the Finnish league is supposedly a step down from the Swedish.As said,would expect them to frustrate us,might be a night for our trickier players

In - Mainer

Prediction 3 - 1 Dons  Dukx2,McGrath

As Elgin don said, not sure what to expect. They have a squad of mostly Finnish players, and while they are top of their league, how good is that?? Don’t see any Brazilian or Eastern European studs, even a top player like hacken had. Let’s have a go and get a win! Confidence is high from the weekend, looking forward to this.

I honestly think we’re a better team without duk, felt this was at this point last year too. Duk went on a tear hence we built a team around him, but I think we play the same formation as the Huns game but be more attack minded. Get Mackenzie and devlin to push up and give us width, and play McGrath close to miovski. 

3-1, miovski, McGrath, Jensen.

 

 

The thing with the Ibrox formation is it's a counter attacking one. It's also slower, which Robson has maybe learned we need to be away from home and that his plan to overwhelm teams with quick passing football doesn't work against the better teams.

I don't know how good Helsinki are, but I expect being at home we'll revert back to the 3-4-1-2 that we used v Ross County.

Robson now has a welcome problem with who does he pick. Does Clarkson get dropped, does Barron start, do they both start and McGrath gets dropped? And all three are playing well at the moment. Been a while since I felt we had competition for places.

Harsh on Duk @OrlandoDon - he was excellent v Ross County (home). Dunno if you get to see it over there (it's geoblocked) but Sportscene isolated his performance in that game.

 

30 minutes ago, Panda said:

The thing with the Ibrox formation is it's a counter attacking one. It's also slower, which Robson has maybe learned we need to be away from home and that his plan to overwhelm teams with quick passing football doesn't work against the better teams.

I don't know how good Helsinki are, but I expect being at home we'll revert back to the 3-4-1-2 that we used v Ross County.

Robson now has a welcome problem with who does he pick. Does Clarkson get dropped, does Barron start, do they both start and McGrath gets dropped? And all three are playing well at the moment. Been a while since I felt we had competition for places.

Harsh on Duk @OrlandoDon - he was excellent v Ross County (home). Dunno if you get to see it over there (it's geoblocked) but Sportscene isolated his performance in that game.

 

I see very little of us these days, sadly, my 4 and 7 year olds and two jobs ruin everything!

we looked really poor when we got significantly exposed earlier in the season, and looked really weak defensively. I think the extra midfielder has helped, obviously to the expense of duk. I also think domestically teams know duk now, shut down his speed and he’s limited. I hear you regarding Ross country, I just don’t know enough about Helsinki to know if they’ll sit in like a Ross county or try to come out and play like hacken. 

I’ve said this before, unlikely we stray from the 352 this squad was built around, but a 3-4-2-1, with McGrath and clarkson attacking behind miovski is an option, with Barron and shinnie deeper. Obviously Barron and clarkson can switch as I think both are better deeper.

Been raining most of the afternoon in the NE,might be a bit of a mudbath,though rain easing off just before k/o.

 First Euro game for a while for me,cant make a lot of midweek games.Last one was Appalon Limassol I think.Looking forward to it,any win will do.

Just heading off shortly. Those Finnish lads won't know what's hit them in these conditions.

Traffic horrific already,leave early abdyl

I got to the pub in nae time. Through denburn, avoided market street which was horrendous for some reason.

 

Looks like similar set up to County game to me.

32 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

I got to the pub in nae time. Through denburn, avoided market street which was horrendous for some reason.

Dodged a bullet,single file traffic Market st

Did we sell out in the end? This definitely a fixture both sides will be looking to win, so hopefully this set up will provide enough cover for the back line. Missing the game tonight due to travel to Auckland, hoping to see a good result at the end of it! COYR

The CBS commentator just observed that "some of the younger Aberdeen fans will never have had the chance to see their team at home in a European competition".   Presumably only the ones under the age of two?

Fuck me. I thought Scottish officials were poor! What’s the point in having VAR?!

Making heavy weather of it.This lot are pretty poor

Clearly the rest of the team are jealous of McGrath's battle scar, all trying to get their own

well that sucks.

Well that was a bit disappointing in the end. I thought we were building up a nice head of steam until Duk took that elbow to the head. The guy getting away with that was baffling, but ultimately I feel a bit like I did against Hacken in that we probably had the quality to beat them but couldn't make it click. 

Edited October 5, 20232 yr by DantheDon

Didn’t see it but sounds like another game duk fails to take his scoring chances??

6 minutes ago, OrlandoDon said:

Didn’t see it but sounds like another game duk fails to take his scoring chances??

Yeah he was good tonight at holding up the ball and a real nuisance for them but the goals just aren't coming for him. 

If we'd shown the same urgency before they scored,and Barron had on,we might have had a different outcome.They were shaky first half,but grew into the more we pussy footed about.A lot more like it late second half, but too little too late.New experience for a lot of them,hopefully learn from it

Edited October 5, 20232 yr by Elgindon

Duk’s work rate was great tonight but should’ve scored when 1 on 1 with the keeper. On the flip side he squared a great ball into the 6 yard box late on but there was no cunt there. 
 

I’m more concerned by Clarkson’s form than Duk’s though. 

We were falling to the deck way too much. I think they were hoping a foreign ref would fall for it, but so many moves broke down because of it.

Was a meh performance, draw probably a fair result. Helsinki knocked it around well and could have had a few as well.

Can’t say I’m too much of a fan of these long throws we get Jensen and Gartenmann to do but for some reason position the rest of the players further away than either player can throw. Think we got into double digits tonight doing that and failing. 
 

Thought we looked very lazy/tired tonight. Too much just standing about hoping for fortuitous breaks and desperate flicks rather than anyone taking responsibility for driving us forward. Shinnie one of the biggest culprits which I suspect is more through fatigue than lack of desire.

They looked very shaky at the back when we were a bit more direct and tried to play the ball in behind them through the channels and were more than happy to put the ball straight out for a throw-in in a dangerous position. Probably because they knew the long throw would go straight back to them I guess. 
 

Devlin also needs some cover too, he looked very leggy.

That was honking tonight. Looked very tired and the game was crying out for subs (multiple, early). They dominated for about twenty minutes before they got their goal. Robson is so frustrating. There was simply no need to be playing Clarkson in that two behind McGrath, he's wasted there, as evidenced every single time it's been tried (fine as part of a four in a 5-4-1 before anyone mentions). Barron didn't play a huge role against the Hun, so get him in and let McGrath (best I've seen him tonight probably) and Clarkson be interchangeable for the ten role. It's criminal that he can't see it. Ironically, as soon as we took Barron on we preceded to push both Shinnie and McGrath forward and let Barron play the number six role that Clarkson thrives in. 

Duk was terrible tonight and I can't believe he lasted ninety minutes. Lazy, reactive football and offering zero outlet whatsoever. Probably one of his worst games for us and should have been hooked at the same time as Clarkson. Throwing himself to the ground constantly wore thin about six months ago. He takes so much from the team when he's not on it just by being there - his unpredictability is more of a hindrance for his teammates than it is the opposition. Of course, the fans will see the times that he tanks back to make a challenge (usually quite reckless and usually a result of him losing the ball) and think that he's putting in a shift, but then the next three time he just lets the player go, so the others have to have a constant eye on him. It's clear when he's off it, so just remove in and keep him fresh for the weekend game. 

Miovski and McGrath probably the two that performed well tonight and Barron when he came on. Fantastic finish from Miovski after a lovely flick on from their player (the only way we were scoring).