New boss needs his own thread.

My first thought is that he's not even wearing a suit in his unveiling photos in the official site. We have sartorial standards at AFC, you know.

54 minutes ago, Panda said:

Maybe long term. But not next season. Robinson is right to say top six for now.

A very good Motherwell team just finished fourth. An impressive Falkirk were sixth. They, and Hibs, are our immediate targets.

There will be comparisons with Hearts - but they had a good squad last season, but the wrong managers in Naismith then Critchley. Shankland, Halkett, Devlin, Baningime, etc weren't bad players, just under performing. There was always a feeling a better manager would get more out of them. And then their recruitment added gems like Barga, Kiziridis, and a few others.

We're not in the same boat. That's why the criticism of Robinson is harsh. He has a far bigger job than the one McInnes walked into last year.

Now Hearts might struggle next year due to European football, although squad wise they look like they can cope with that better than the previous teams who made it to the groups. Also, they might not even have group football, it is possible they could lose qualifiers in all three competitions. So a weakened Hearts might just mean third for them.

Hibs will be interesting. They actually would improve with a better manager. Again, we have more to do in summer than them, and it's not like we have a bigger budget than them to play with.

Honestly, unless we have a superb transfer window, we'll struggle to be above fifth. Fourth would be a very good season. Top three would really be some effort.

All good points, but I also think it’s fair to add, how many of these teams are consistent year to year? And how many of their better players (and managers) will be there next season?
In 2024-25 Motherwell were 8th, hearts 7th, united 4th. Hibs dropped to 5th this season, obviously utd dropped. Other than the old firm, everyone else it’s year to year, and you can only speculate for the future. At the same time, both rangers and Celtic have huge summers ahead too after abnormal years for them. Maybe Celtic pick another Nancy! Rangers are average right now.

hearts is an interesting one. Much like us who hit the jackpot with Rama and miovski, who is to say if hearts replace summer transfers with like or better players? I think they may do well in the summer, but only time will tell. They also have grabbed the attention, shankland braga devlin kyziridis, they may well get attention in the summer and move on. I also have to think both Mcinnes and askou will get attention and potentially move on this summer.

as for Motherwell, they could lose a bunch of players this summer, falkirk too, but don’t have the funds to spend well, hard to replace those who move on.

fuck knows what we’ll look like next season, we could see 11 new players starting in 8 weeks! You are right that third may be out of our reach next season, but it’s where we all expect to be and any dons manager who speaks otherwise will be looked at negatively.

34 minutes ago, OrlandoDon said:

All good points, but I also think it’s fair to add, how many of these teams are consistent year to year? And how many of their better players (and managers) will be there next season?

Motherwell and Falkirk will likely weaken for the reasons you mentioned. They are realistic targets.

However, we are miles behind Hearts right now. They have Bloom's investment, a very good recruitment model, and their budget will be bigger than ours this summer. They expect to lose players - the model is to replace them. We're basically hoping Hearts drop down a level because that's more realistic than us rising to theirs in one transfer window. At the moment it's difficult to see us going into next season stronger than them.

For two seasons in a row we have finished behind a Dundee United team managed by Jim Goodwin. It's actually a pretty wild suggestion to say that "we expect top three" when we only just avoided the bottom three. As Robinson pointed out, we've been bottom six in three of the last five seasons. We've finished top three once in eight seasons. He's being realistic because he's seen the budget he has to work with, and it's not a top three one.
 

Robinson will get time and I haven't heard anyone having a go at him at games, as I'd say near 100% of us know he inherited a shower of shit.

There is an element that didn't want him and I'd include myself in that, but he is here and I can't fault him so far, bar some of his line ups have been WTF, but we were safe, so didn't matter.

In Scotland, it doesn't take a lot to go from the bottom six to the top six and vice versa, so a couple of good signings could go a long way to remedy things for next season.

I don't think we could be much worse than we have been this season, but this club of ours do like to do things the hard way, so who knows. 

 

 

 

Will he ever stop whinging?

Stephen Craigan about to join the coaching staff apparently. 

8 hours ago, Kowalski said:

Stephen Craigan about to join the coaching staff apparently. 

Hope he is a better coach than pundit 

On 20/06/2026 at 12:15, Kowalski said:

Stephen Craigan about to join the coaching staff apparently. 

I’m still in shock about this tbh. How the fuck has this been allowed to happen? He’s not even a fucking coach.

7 minutes ago, manc_don said:

I’m still in shock about this tbh. How the fuck has this been allowed to happen? He’s not even a fucking coach.

He’s been hired to round up the Yengis and Ambroses and drive them to a faraway field

Just now, 2stars said:

He’s been hired to round up the Yengis and Ambroses and drive them to a faraway field

We can but hope…

Just now, manc_don said:

We can but hope…

I am with you on this one though- what coaching will be bring? Hopefully not another wage thief or he can stay in that field with the aforementioned 

He was a centre half and we've been complete dross defensively for yonks. I've absolutely no idea about his coaching ability so don't feel qualified to comment on his suitability. The proof of the pudding will be how we defend when the action starts and until then I won't exactly be lying awake at night worrying about his appointment.

Edited June 22Jun 22 by wee toon red

So Craigan’s role is to be a “transition” coach, overseeing the integration between the academy and first team, according to Scott burns. Apparently held a similar role at Motherwell. Hopefully that’ll help calm a few excitable heads down.

5 hours ago, wee toon red said:

So Craigan’s role is to be a “transition” coach, overseeing the integration between the academy and first team, according to Scott burns. Apparently held a similar role at Motherwell. Hopefully that’ll help calm a few excitable heads down.

If it means getting more of our youngsters ready for 1st team action and on the pitch then fair play 

His interview on Red TV earlier this week was quite impressive. He seems to have an intricate knowledge of the game and gave some insider info that you and I would probably never have considered.
Glowing assessment of Findlay Marshall’s development and readiness for action.

Mal missed a trick by failing to ask the key questions:

”Are you a Billy or a Dan?”

”It’s a fuckin chipper, right?”

4 hours ago, blinlemon said:

His interview on Red TV earlier this week was quite impressive. He seems to have an intricate knowledge of the game and gave some insider info that you and I would probably never have considered.
Glowing assessment of Findlay Marshall’s development and readiness for action.

Mal missed a trick by failing to ask the key questions:

”Are you a Billy or a Dan?”

”It’s a fuckin chipper, right

I've always been impressed with how Robinson speaks about the game going back to his time at Motherwell.  I'm also starting to feel cautiously optimistic about the appointment.   

On 04/07/2026 at 13:51, tlg1903 said:

I've always been impressed with how Robinson speaks about the game going back to his time at Motherwell.  I'm also starting to feel cautiously optimistic about the appointment.   

I was referring to the Red TV interview with Craigen. 

He's had a lot of stick on his time at Aberdeen. So a happy statistic.

Stephen Robinson has now gone 13 games unbeaten in the League Cup 🏆

Edited Saturday at 16:035 days by Panda

I'm one of his biggest critics so very well done on Saturday. Lot of pressure on him to deliver that result on Saturday.

6 hours ago, GASC1980 said:

I'm one of his biggest critics so very well done on Saturday. Lot of pressure on him to deliver that result on Saturday.

Don’t think anyone can argue with that. This season is not going to be a smooth ride one way or another but we needed a result and it got delivered. More of that please.

I actually feel reasonably optimistic about Robinson. He wasn't my first choice, not sure he was anyone's bar Burrows 2bf. That said I always thought he spoke well and his teams punched above their weight consistently so I wasn't dead against it.

All things considered I actually think he's done pretty well. 6 wins out of seven ain't to be sniffed at and, sure, you can say 4 of them were again lower league teams. You still have to win them though and do so after a very limited pre season. Add in the huge turnover in squad you could argue there was banana skins everywhere. Go ask utd how they dealt with that with far more stability going into the group stages.  

Really, all anyone has to reasonably moan about, is the shit show at dens and that's fair. Unfortunately it seems that dens was just what those who didn't want him as manager were waiting for and some have got a bit carried away.  The win and  good performance yesterday seems to have turned the volume down on that and I think seeing the likes of Aremu, Yogane and Cadden justifying their fees brings a little more confidence to us all that maybe they do know what they are doing. 

I don't see the point in getting too critical at this stage myself. The die is cast and Robinson is manager. It's hard to dispute  that so far he's pretty much done as well as could be expected of him bar a poor performance against Dundee. We are all, obviously, going to offer our thoughts as to tactics, strategy and performance for every game but realistically we won't see what this team playing Robinsonball looks like until the winter when the squad has properly gelled.  What that version of Robinsonball looks like potentially could be what makes or breaks him at pittodrie. If he's able to adapt his play to be a bit prettier and still get results that would win over most fans I suspect. If it's just like what was served up at St Mirren then that negative undercurrent will continue through the support and that usually only ends one way.

I can't say I'm 100% convinced he'll be a successful Aberdeen manager yet, I still have a few doubts, but he deserves far more time than some fans are giving him. The criticism has been well over the top - lot of it fuelled by the disappointment of the club teasing us Horneland for three months only to then appoint the St Mirren manager.

Looking at the next five fixtures.

Rangers (h)

Celtic (a)

Kilmarnock (h)

Motherwell (a)*

Kilmarnock (a) League Cup

*might be after the Killie cup game, date not yet confirmed.

Tough run you could say, but if we got, say, just seven points and a cup semi place - not an impossible task - the mood would shift considerably and it'd feel like we're finally underway with Robinson.

I think you have to be looking at 6 points from the 2 home games. 2 tough away games where I don't expect us to get anything. Cup win is a must I think.

Motherwell are very beatable with the right approach. Huns are vulnerable but will be up for it and have some decent enough players they can hurt us if we aren’t on our game. Celtic look like they will blow most teams away. Beating Killie at home is non-negotiable. Agree, we need 6pts from home as we look pretty solid there but away form needs to improve. I think we can get a result at Fir Pk

2 hours ago, Ajja said:

Motherwell are very beatable with the right approach. Huns are vulnerable but will be up for it and have some decent enough players they can hurt us if we aren’t on our game. Celtic look like they will blow most teams away. Beating Killie at home is non-negotiable. Agree, we need 6pts from home as we look pretty solid there but away form needs to improve. I think we can get a result at Fir Pk

I'm actually pretty pleased Motherwell got postponed. It basically means we have an extra week of uninterrupted training to play with and that should really help the new players integrate.

14 minutes ago, tlg1903 said:

I'm actually pretty pleased Motherwell got postponed. It basically means we have an extra week of uninterrupted training to play with and that should really help the new players integrate.

I'm the opposite. I would have preferred to have a game this weekend and try and build on last week