Firstly no intention to wind up Rico ( but it is a bonus) by starting this more than forty eight hours ahead of January window closing BUT as a squad we are all over the fucking place and even at this early stage I would imagine we all would have opinions on what need to happen over the summer.

Appreciate that certain things might be addressed in the remaining forty eight odd hours of the winter one BUT given our performance to date, coupled to us being manager less, I wouldn't stake any money on it

Thoughts lads and lassies 

Yenghi away to Hiroshima for a season long loan. Option to buy too so let's hope he doesn't bomb there.....

I'll get my coat

13 minutes ago, tlg1903 said:

Yenghi away to Hiroshima for a season long loan. Option to buy too so let's hope he doesn't bomb there.....

I'll get my coat

Sadly not an obligation to buy so think he will be back again.

Such is the squad I think Phillips would improve us. Aremu and Phillips in the two midfield roles would be an improvement on what we’ve got.

1 hour ago, Kowalski said:

Such is the squad I think Phillips would improve us. Aremu and Phillips in the two midfield roles would be an improvement on what we’ve got.

It did cross my mind when watching the game yestersay, 1st half in particular, that a Phillips type player could have been pretty handy.

1 hour ago, Jute said:

Sadly not an obligation to buy so think he will be back again.

Indeed but it's a funny old game sometimes, maybe it will click for him there.

2 hours ago, Kowalski said:

Such is the squad I think Phillips would improve us. Aremu and Phillips in the two midfield roles would be an improvement on what we’ve got.

I read yesterday, no idea if true or not, but statistically, Phillips was St Mirrens 7th best player for them last season.

if you applied his stats to us, for last season, he would have been our 13th best player.

We have enough guys who run about like headless chickens and can handle the physical side of the game.

I think it is some flair we need more than anything in our squad.

1 hour ago, TheDonbytheDee said:

I read yesterday, no idea if true or not, but statistically, Phillips was St Mirrens 7th best player for them last season.

if you applied his stats to us, for last season, he would have been our 13th best player.

We have enough guys who run about like headless chickens and can handle the physical side of the game.

I think it is some flair we need more than anything in our squad.

That seems like a dubious use of statistics!

We do need flair, but unfortunately we also still need a dynamic midfielder that can go box to box. We actually have lots of players who would consider themselves flair players. Guys like Armstrong, Ronan, Briedl, Marshall all seem to prefer two players to mop up for them while they try and make the cutting edge passes (whether any of them are any good remains to be seen!). We basically setup to get the worst out of them, and have been doing similar since Thelin played Shinnie and Nilsen until they ran out of steam. The two ball winners plus one flair player model works incredibly well in Scottish football, I'm not sure why managers (on budgets like ours or less) continue to attempt otherwise.

I don't think we're too far away from having an okay team. A good winger and a midfielder that can run all day and is strong in the tackle and we're in an okay place. You often don't need much to get an average bunch of players playing to a much better level, as long as they can follow their instructions, which I think they did for the most part at the weekend.

It'll be interesting to see how many we can ship before Thursday. Would expect Palaversa, Marshall and whoever else we've got kicking around to be off. We'll need a squad list as I can't remember half the dross we've still got.

58 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

That seems like a dubious use of statistics!

We do need flair, but unfortunately we also still need a dynamic midfielder that can go box to box. We actually have lots of players who would consider themselves flair players. Guys like Armstrong, Ronan, Briedl, Marshall all seem to prefer two players to mop up for them while they try and make the cutting edge passes (whether any of them are any good remains to be seen!). We basically setup to get the worst out of them, and have been doing similar since Thelin played Shinnie and Nilsen until they ran out of steam. The two ball winners plus one flair player model works incredibly well in Scottish football, I'm not sure why managers (on budgets like ours or less) continue to attempt otherwise.

I don't think we're too far away from having an okay team. A good winger and a midfielder that can run all day and is strong in the tackle and we're in an okay place. You often don't need much to get an average bunch of players playing to a much better level, as long as they can follow their instructions, which I think they did for the most part at the weekend.

It'll be interesting to see how many we can ship before Thursday. Would expect Palaversa, Marshall and whoever else we've got kicking around to be off. We'll need a squad list as I can't remember half the dross we've still got.

Briedl was meant to be "an aggressive, explosively fast, tough tackling, pressing midfielder with a superb passing range" according to his old sporting director. That's exactly what we seem to need in the middle of the park to complement Ronan and work well with Aremu. So the fact he isn't doing that, or getting to do it, suggests something's slightly off somewhere. Whether he's needing time to adjust, isn't any use or hasn't been asked to do it yet, we don't know. I mean, he sounds perfect...

Press and Journal

EXCLUSIVE: FC Blau Weiss Linz sporting director tells Abe...

New Aberdeen signing Alexander Briedl rejected interest from clubs in Germany and Austria to move to Pittodrie reveals the sporting director of FC Blau Weiss Linz who tried all season to sign him on a

Edited August 31Aug 31 by wee toon red

53 minutes ago, wee toon red said:

Briedl was meant to be "an aggressive, explosively fast, tough tackling, pressing midfielder with a superb passing range" according to his old sporting director. That's exactly what we seem to need in the middle of the park to complement Ronan and work well with Aremu. So the fact he isn't doing that, or getting to do it, suggests something's slightly off somewhere. Whether he's needing time to adjust, isn't any use or hasn't been asked to do it yet, we don't know. I mean, he sounds perfect...

Press and Journal

EXCLUSIVE: FC Blau Weiss Linz sporting director tells Abe...

New Aberdeen signing Alexander Briedl rejected interest from clubs in Germany and Austria to move to Pittodrie reveals the sporting director of FC Blau Weiss Linz who tried all season to sign him on a

He does sound amazing.

Oh well, it hasn't worked out, we should sign someone else.

14 hours ago, Jute said:

Sadly not an obligation to buy so think he will be back again.

From the Press and Journal, June 2027:

Aberdeen head coach Stephen Craigan believes Kusimi Yengi can help fire the Dons to the top six after being impressed with him in pre-season.

On 27/08/2026 at 10:35, Don Julio said:

Moving to Japan in October. I shall keep a weather eye on him!

My daughter is actually heading to Japan end of this week to study university In Kyoto. I will get her to keep an eye oot on the Japanese sports channels Yengi updates and let me weekly how he is getting on 😂

So realistically if we are going to be moving Palaversa and Bilalovic on it probably has to be today as I can't see them going to Scottish clubs.

9 minutes ago, tlg1903 said:

So realistically if we are going to be moving Palaversa and Bilalovic on it probably has to be today as I can't see them going to Scottish clubs.

Turkey doesn't close its window until Thursday and Saudi isn't until October. Unsure of any others but it's mainly the "big 5" leagues that close today so you never know.

4 minutes ago, wee toon red said:

Turkey doesn't close its window until Thursday and Saudi isn't until October. Unsure of any others but it's mainly the "big 5" leagues that close today so you never know.

Croatia is open until the 7th as well 2bf, maybe Ante will go home

Former Dons legend Lyall Cameron apparently heading to the Arabs on loan. Won’t be any more popular a signing there than here you’d imagine.

Rumours aboubd that Palaversa is away, or just about.

Didn't work out, but legendary status granted through that penalty, noising up the tinks afterwards and then his post match interview.

Cheers Ante!

Daily Record has Robinson saying we are still potentially looking for another keeper as competition/back up to Muller. Also Robinson says he is not ruling out picking up English cast offs once their window shuts.

8 hours ago, Jute said:

Daily Record has Robinson saying we are still potentially looking for another keeper as competition/back up to Muller. Also Robinson says he is not ruling out picking up English cast offs once their window shuts.

Oh joys, because that’ll work out well.

We can but hope for a Maddison type loan rather than the vast majority of duds that have disgraced the shirt in recent years. Was there not talk of some guy from Liverpool earlier in the window (until Iraola saw our style of fitba)?

14 minutes ago, Brochred said:

We can but hope for a Maddison type loan rather than the vast majority of duds that have disgraced the shirt in recent years. Was there not talk of some guy from Liverpool earlier in the window (until Iraola saw our style of fitba)?

The problem with Maddison, and Clarkson, or most young loanees is that they're rarely ready for regular first team minutes, in the same way that our own young players aren't. That can be overcome by getting a good box to box midfielder in alongside Aremu, but the same thing could be said about Armstrong, Marshall*, Ronan etc. Similarly, we'd have the time and patience to develop Yogane if we didn't have Olusanya to work with on the opposing side. We're going to have to pick up an exceptional young talent in order to make it worthwhile, otherwise we're going to end up with another squad filler as competition to our existing squad fillers, replacing the exiting squad fillers.

Obviously, that could apply to any signing, but we should at least attempt to get a very good starter in place before Friday. We should be quickly accepting that Briedl isn't going to be the guy to perform the expected role, and sign a replacement. It's not a role we can afford to give someone time in.

*Edit: if, as expected, Marshall goes out on loan again, then it's simply replacing our own young player with someone else's to do exactly the same thing. If Marshall had been given two athletic midfielders to work with, he'd have managed, I'm certain.

Edited September 2Sep 2 by RicoS321

14 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

The problem with Maddison, and Clarkson, or most young loanees is that they're rarely ready for regular first team minutes, in the same way that our own young players aren't. That can be overcome by getting a good box to box midfielder in alongside Aremu, but the same thing could be said about Armstrong, Marshall*, Ronan etc. Similarly, we'd have the time and patience to develop Yogane if we didn't have Olusanya to work with on the opposing side. We're going to have to pick up an exceptional young talent in order to make it worthwhile, otherwise we're going to end up with another squad filler as competition to our existing squad fillers, replacing the exiting squad fillers.

Obviously, that could apply to any signing, but we should at least attempt to get a very good starter in place before Friday. We should be quickly accepting that Briedl isn't going to be the guy to perform the expected role, and sign a replacement. It's not a role we can afford to give someone time in.

*Edit: if, as expected, Marshall goes out on loan again, then it's simply replacing our own young player with someone else's to do exactly the same thing. If Marshall had been given two athletic midfielders to work with, he'd have managed, I'm certain.

Agree Rico, I think we should definitely be giving Marshall an opportunity (not just one game or the last 15 minutes). There is just as much chance that he will be a success when the options are taking some unknown from englandshire. That would also send a signal to our other youths that they could be given a chance as there hasn't been much evidence of that lately. If Boyd had been given decent time he might have been persuaded to stay.

28 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

The problem with Maddison, and Clarkson, or most young loanees is that they're rarely ready for regular first team minutes, in the same way that our own young players aren't. That can be overcome by getting a good box to box midfielder in alongside Aremu, but the same thing could be said about Armstrong, Marshall*, Ronan etc. Similarly, we'd have the time and patience to develop Yogane if we didn't have Olusanya to work with on the opposing side. We're going to have to pick up an exceptional young talent in order to make it worthwhile, otherwise we're going to end up with another squad filler as competition to our existing squad fillers, replacing the exiting squad fillers.

Obviously, that could apply to any signing, but we should at least attempt to get a very good starter in place before Friday. We should be quickly accepting that Briedl isn't going to be the guy to perform the expected role, and sign a replacement. It's not a role we can afford to give someone time in.

*Edit: if, as expected, Marshall goes out on loan again, then it's simply replacing our own young player with someone else's to do exactly the same thing. If Marshall had been given two athletic midfielders to work with, he'd have managed, I'm certain.

While I completely agree with your principle point here, I'm not sure who the "we" that you think has any patience to develop a player like Yogane is. It certainly isn't the majority of our "online" fan base, that's for sure. It would be nice if the club itself had the strength to ignore public feeling and spend some time developing any player that they think is going to be worth it but I'm not convinced that they do either.

44 minutes ago, wee toon red said:

While I completely agree with your principle point here, I'm not sure who the "we" that you think has any patience to develop a player like Yogane is. It certainly isn't the majority of our "online" fan base, that's for sure. It would be nice if the club itself had the strength to ignore public feeling and spend some time developing any player that they think is going to be worth it but I'm not convinced that they do either.

I think you're right. I've said for years that we (AFC) need to have a well developed and publicised strategy for bringing through young players. Making fans aware that we're going to give guys minutes that we wouldn't otherwise in order to accelerate their development. That there may be better players, but that we believe that taking the short term pain is better for everyone in the long run. Build an understanding between the board and fans and get the manager to continually hammer it home. There's a double standard at play too. We've given Aremu six months to get up to speed, and there has been hints that he can be a good player now. We pick and choose who we offer that experience to.

12 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

I think you're right. I've said for years that we (AFC) need to have a well developed and publicised strategy for bringing through young players. Making fans aware that we're going to give guys minutes that we wouldn't otherwise in order to accelerate their development. That there may be better players, but that we believe that taking the short term pain is better for everyone in the long run. Build an understanding between the board and fans and get the manager to continually hammer it home. There's a double standard at play too. We've given Aremu six months to get up to speed, and there has been hints that he can be a good player now. We pick and choose who we offer that experience to.

That could be Briedl too 2bf

1 hour ago, tlg1903 said:

That could be Briedl too 2bf

It could be, but he was bought as a player that was ready and able to play in a specific role with specific attributes. It's very clear that, at present, he can't play that role and doesn't appear to have those attributes. He's supposed to be the guy that gives others the platform to make mistakes and develop. If guys in that position aren't good enough, then you're not just losing out on a good player in that role, you're also missing out on having the bandwidth to develop a young player too. Unless Robinson can see a clear avenue for Briedl to quickly get up to speed, then I think we need to effectively write him off and get another player in the door that will do what was expected of Briedl. That could, in turn, give Briedl the opportunity to work on the required areas and offer cover for injuries. The usual caveats apply here, of course, before anyone screams "give him a chance!", I'm just going on the limited opportunities we've had to see him, there could be any number of reasons (fitness perhaps) for him not performing to standard as yet (Aremu was fortunate in that everyone knew he hadn't played in 18 months). He looks like he can play a pass and has a good touch. I think we'll see him be switched to a number ten type role as Marshall is moved on, for which we already have Armstrong and Ronan, and we're generally going with Nisbet anyway. Personally, I'd rather see him go out on loan if it turns out he's the wrong type of player.