One more European adventure awaits the Dons in Prague, Czechia. The game kicks off at 8 pm Scotland time on Thursday 18th December at the Epet Arena, named by an expat Geordie.

Sparta Prague are currently second in the Czech First League behind their city rivals Slavia Prague. They qualified for the Conference League by finishing fourth last season and negotiating three rounds before making the league phase. They are sixth in the Conference League table.

I don't fancy this game at all. A 0-3 defeat beckons for us, but it won't matter. As long as we don't make an arse of ourselves like we did in Greece.

One of the few highlights of last night for me was the way Lobban stuck manfully to his task against what I thought was their best player. He didn’t always come out on top but you couldn’t question his attitude.

Anyone flying home today

Be warned get to the airport early as at least two hours to get through passport control and bizarrely that is actually before security 😲

7 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

I didn't think he was great, but the role plays to none of his strengths, and all of his weaknesses. Yet, when you compare to Karlsson on the opposite side, there wasn't a significant difference between the two performances.

Karlsson will be away after this season too…

6 hours ago, TheDonbytheDee said:

To take a player, with an alleged poor attitude, in from being out in the cold, then not play him correctly, reflects more badly on the manager rather than the player.

He (Clarkson) might be a petulant dick, who wants out of the club, but last night was more on Thelin than Clarkson.

 

Personally, last night I’d have just played everyone who was out in the cold, on the way out or not likely to start on Sunday - Yengi, Ambrose, Nilsen, Palaversa, Milanovic etc.

Sunday is way more important than that game last night.

The fact he went for a bit of a half way house is what I don’t like, not the fact he played a lad he doesn’t want out of position.

He does that to players he does like too…

27 minutes ago, The.Moog said:

Personally, last night I’d have just played everyone who was out in the cold, on the way out or not likely to start on Sunday - Yengi, Ambrose, Nilsen, Palaversa, Milanovic etc.

Sunday is way more important than that game last night.

The fact he went for a bit of a half way house is what I don’t like, not the fact he played a lad he doesn’t want out of position.

He does that to players he does like too…

I couldn't agree more with the points you make.

What Thelin has done to unite the fanbase, is frustrate the hell out of us. The players must equally feel the frustration too.

I am sure it will all become clearer when we reach the end of this three year 'project'.

We’re supposed to be “competitive in Europe” at the end of the 3 years.

He’s gonna have to have 3 unbelievably good transfer windows between now and May 27 to achieve that like…

2 hours ago, The.Moog said:

Personally, last night I’d have just played everyone who was out in the cold, on the way out or not likely to start on Sunday - Yengi, Ambrose, Nilsen, Palaversa, Milanovic etc.

Sunday is way more important than that game last night.

The fact he went for a bit of a half way house is what I don’t like, not the fact he played a lad he doesn’t want out of position.

He does that to players he does like too…

If the team was even weaker than it was last night, then that 3-0 could have been another 6-0.

Thelin had to balance it with giving some players minutes and still being relatively competitive.

That said, not sure playing Karlsson for the full 90 minutes was helpful if you plan to play him on Sunday, while Shinnie's 86 minutes suggests he won't play either at a venue where you would quite like your captain being in the face of the referee arguing against every shit decision we're likely to get against us.

21 minutes ago, Panda said:

If the team was even weaker than it was last night, then that 3-0 could have been another 6-0.

Thelin had to balance it with giving some players minutes and still being relatively competitive.

That said, not sure playing Karlsson for the full 90 minutes was helpful if you plan to play him on Sunday, while Shinnie's 86 minutes suggests he won't play either at a venue where you would quite like your captain being in the face of the referee arguing against every shit decision we're likely to get against us.

Maybe Nilsen wrote JT a really ace poem on the plane back and will find himself back in contention for Sunday, to replace Shinnie.

Joking aside, nothing should surprise us about a Thelin team.

 

 

If our recruitment is trying to  make us competitive in Scotland and Europe,it seems to be dulling our effectiveness in coping with Scottish fitba,and chasing a standard of football in Europe that I'd say is beyond our means.

   I'd rather we built a side to win,and be attractive in Scotland,ie non St Mirreny,and who knows it might be more effective in Europe than our current efforts

Edited December 19, 2025Dec 19 by Elgindon

11 hours ago, TheDonbytheDee said:

To take a player, with an alleged poor attitude, in from being out in the cold, then not play him correctly, reflects more badly on the manager rather than the player.

He (Clarkson) might be a petulant dick, who wants out of the club, but last night was more on Thelin than Clarkson.

 

True, but it was an opportunity for Clarkson so say "Despite barely playing this season and being hung out to dry I'll show you what I'm capable of".  Instead, to me, his attitude was summed up for their 2nd goal...he was in a lot of space and, with his ability, could have controlled the ball with his chest and belted it upfield, giving us time to reorganize. Instead he made a really dreadful headed "clearance"  straight to their player who set up the goalscorer.

Edited December 19, 2025Dec 19 by dons8321

3 hours ago, Panda said:

If the team was even weaker than it was last night, then that 3-0 could have been another 6-0.

Thelin had to balance it with giving some players minutes and still being relatively competitive.

That said, not sure playing Karlsson for the full 90 minutes was helpful if you plan to play him on Sunday, while Shinnie's 86 minutes suggests he won't play either at a venue where you would quite like your captain being in the face of the referee arguing against every shit decision we're likely to get against us.

If it was 6-0 so be it. Would just prove the duds are exactly that. If they can’t get up to “put themselves in the shop window” that’s on them.
 

Also absolutely no harm done to the actual first team. We got away with one last night injury wise as that pitch was absolutely dreadful.

Bigger picture / pick yer battles and all that - let’s see what happens Sunday.

Can’t help thinking that selection last night won’t do us any favours, though the tactics I expect JT to employ are likely to do more harm to our chances IMO…

Edited December 19, 2025Dec 19 by The.Moog

2 hours ago, Elgindon said:

If our recruitment is trying to  make us competitive in Scotland and Europe,it seems to be dulling our effectiveness in coping with Scottish fitba,and chasing a standard of football in Europe that I'd say is beyond our means.

   I'd rather we built a side to win,and be attractive in Scotland,ie non St Mirreny,and who knows it might be more effective in Europe than our current efforts

Yeah, it was one of the reasons why I wanted Thelin, because I thought his "long pass" style of play would actually suit Scottish football. Elfsborg usually played a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1, quick transitions, outpaced defences, and their inside forwards were generally the goal scorers. The striker was a mere link up man.

But Thelin has moved away from that.

When we have been at our best under Thelin, it's been a 4-2-3-1 with a second striker. M**** in the few games he played under Thelin was in that number 10 role, Nisbet did it last season when he had Gueye with him, and together they'd find space for Duk and Morris to run into.

Now we have Karlsson on the edge of the box. He waits for an overlap, or cuts inside and takes on three players. Armstrong has to do the same on the right. Whoever is the striker barely touches the ball.

I know it wasn't working at the start of the season, and we leaked too many goals and didn't score, so moving to a back three shored things up.

However, it'll be interesting to see who he signs in January and what our "style" is in the second half of the season and whether the system changes again.

7 minutes ago, The.Moog said:

If it was 6-0 so be it. Would just prove the duds are exactly that. If they can’t get up to “put themselves in the shop window” that’s on them.
 

But would Thelin survive another 6-0 within two months?

 

On 18/12/2025 at 22:16, The.Moog said:

Well thank fuck that’s over- a total waste of everyones time.

We’ll get all the usual guff about learning from the experience, but there’s no learning that can bridge the gap in basic technical ability & game intelligence with this lot.

Only positive, no serious injuries on that horrific surface. Crocked two of their own players.

Yes it was a tough draw, but we finished behind 2 Irish teams & Lincoln fuckin Red Imps. I bet theres a few others in there with smaller budgets than us too.

We’re absolutely miles off it at this level, miles.

Jesus wept… 🤦‍♂️

Dinna agree Moog,

 If all the other shite teams had had to play our schedule and we had 6 easier teams to play, then we would have finished with more than 2 points and well above the likes of red imps etc. It was an unlucky draw not us being shite. We aren't good enough to win the thing but our position was purely down to the luck of the draw.

8 hours ago, Panda said:

But would Thelin survive another 6-0 within two months?

 

If he’d played the duds (who then just proved they are duds) with a view to being in the best possible place for Sunday - then yes.

That result and performance did him no favours, squad or scoreline wise…

 

Edited December 20, 2025Dec 20 by The.Moog

5 hours ago, Brochred said:

Dinna agree Moog,

 If all the other shite teams had had to play our schedule and we had 6 easier teams to play, then we would have finished with more than 2 points and well above the likes of red imps etc. It was an unlucky draw not us being shite. We aren't good enough to win the thing but our position was purely down to the luck of the draw.

You don’t agree we are miles off it at this level?

We’ll definitely have to agree to disagree if that’s the case.

Tough draw absolutely - which shows the massive flaw in this setup, it provides completely uneven playing fields - but we had similar tough opponents under Robson & performed much better.

Noah showed where we really are. No guarantees we’d have had anything different or better with anyone else…

11 hours ago, dons8321 said:

True, but it was an opportunity for Clarkson so say "Despite barely playing this season and being hung out to dry I'll show you what I'm capable of".  Instead, to me, his attitude was summed up for their 2nd goal...he was in a lot of space and, with his ability, could have controlled the ball with his chest and belted it upfield, giving us time to reorganize. Instead he made a really dreadful headed "clearance"  straight to their player who set up the goalscorer.

Play him in a position that suits him then. Anything else is throwing him and the team under the bus, especially, even more so when nothing like match fit.

I suspect if he is refusing to sit on our bench, then he is already gone and no point in having him in our squad let alone the team.

Not sure which side of the fence I’m on re our abilities in Europe. Given some of the “diddies ” in the Conference League (recognising they all finished above us) then we weren’t completely out of our depth and with a kind draw might have scraped into the next round. But that’s about it. We were certainly not competitive in any meaningful sense. I guess that places me in the Moog camp

I had the absolute fear we might sneak our way into the Europa League. Can you imagine? We’d have been horsed, week in, week out.

Are we sure we’re not taking Clarkson’s issue with sitting on the bench too literal?

My interpretation was “I need to be playing not sitting on the bench” rather than “I refuse to sit on the bench”.

Of course, it could just be complete bollocks to begin with.

12 hours ago, Brochred said:

Dinna agree Moog,

 If all the other shite teams had had to play our schedule and we had 6 easier teams to play, then we would have finished with more than 2 points and well above the likes of red imps etc. It was an unlucky draw not us being shite. We aren't good enough to win the thing but our position was purely down to the luck of the draw.

I would also add we seem to have our shit together far more now than when we started the campaign.  I think if we plasyed the same fixtures now we would do better, possibly even sneak the playoff round but no better than that.  Certainly wouldn't take six off athens