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.

13 minutes ago, TheDonbytheDee said:

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

And that's fair. See the extra time on the training pitch as a silver lining then?

If we didn’t have 2 of the 3 cheeks back to back I’d say it’s good Motherwell has been punted back.

14 hours ago, tlg1903 said:

And that's fair. See the extra time on the training pitch as a silver lining then?

Plus the friendly with St Johnstone to give a few players minutes (Knoester, Armstrong, Frame, Milne, Lyons, Ntelo, Mouloua and Briedl could all do with minutes).

3 hours ago, Panda said:

Plus the friendly with St Johnstone to give a few players minutes (Knoester, Armstrong, Frame, Milne, Lyons, Ntelo, Mouloua and Briedl could all do with minutes).

Would be good to see what Nutella could do through the middle for 75mins. I think he could end up playing there for the season if he bags a few more. Puts Mouloua back in the pecking order but that’s the game, you got to show up minute one.

I think I read somewhere they have 3 friendlies lined up between the Dundee & Hun games - including the farmers game.

Ok, its not the same as competitive games, but still a good chance to get minutes into legs and continue to pull the new squad together…

Edited August 20Aug 20 by The.Moog

2 minutes ago, The.Moog said:

I think I read somewhere they have 3 friendlies lined up between the Dundee & Hun games - including the farmers game.

Ok, its not the same as competitive games, but still a good chance to get minutes into legs and continue to pull the new squad together…

Yeah it was Robinson who said three, but then one of them was Keith on Tuesday which was actually an Aberdeenshire Cup game and only Marshall and Fasanya who have had first team minutes this season played.

But we are due to play St Johnstone "near the end of the week" and he said another game next week, but dunno if that's another development game or an organised friendly.

Any clarification of when St J game is?

Being meaning to post this for a few days. I had been trying to find out a bit more about Andrew Fasanyas background to no avail so ended up asking Claude AI for some help. The conversation progressed and I ended up asking it about Robinson on a whim and I found the resulting conversation really interesting. I know AI can get things wrong and you need to treat what it says with caution but I must admit I find Claude the best of them. Anyway, thought some of you might be interested.

What are your thoughts on Stephen Robinson?

Good track record on paper, and the context of the appointment tells its own story. He was brought in in March 2026 from St Mirren, where he'd delivered three cup finals including a League Cup win over Celtic, multiple top-six finishes, and two European qualifications — that came after Aberdeen sacked Jimmy Thelin, with the club sitting ninth after a wretched run including a 3-0 defeat to second-tier Dunfermline in the Scottish Cup. So he walked into a genuine rescue job, not a project being built from strength.

What stands out about his CV is the consistency of "overachieving with less" — at Motherwell he got them to third in the league and two cup finals, and he repeated a similar pattern at St Mirren. That's a useful profile for a club like Aberdeen that wants European football regularly but doesn't have Celtic/Rangers-level resources — he's shown he can punch above his budget rather than needing star names.

The honest caveat: it's still very early days at Pittodrie, so there isn't much of a body of work there yet to judge him on directly — my read is based on his history elsewhere rather than what he's actually delivered for Aberdeen so far. Given you're the one watching every week, I'd genuinely be curious how he's looked tactically and whether the squad's buying into it — that's the bit I can't tell from results and appointment write-ups alone.

I think he's done about as well as could be expected bar a very poor performance away to Dundee 2 weeks ago. It's too early to say tactically as there has been a huge overhaul in personell. We won't know what Robinsonball really looks like until the winter. I'm actually interested in what you think of his record pre Aberdeen. Dive deep if you can

That's a genuinely good question to dig into, because the pattern across both jobs is quite consistent — and so is the way it ended each time.

Motherwell (2017–2020): He inherited a club and initially played a fairly unglamorous 3-5-2, direct/long-ball approach that got results early on — firing balls long for the two forwards to win — but he then deliberately ditched the long-ball game after a Scottish Cup exit to Ross County, recruiting more technical players and evolving into possession-based, high-pressing football, often a 4-1-4-1 shifting into 4-3-3. That's a real managerial trait worth noting — he's shown he'll change his own approach when it isn't working rather than being ideologically stuck to one system. Over his tenure he took Motherwell to a Scottish Cup final and League Cup final in 2017-18, and a third-place finish in 2019-20 that secured European qualification — genuinely elite overperformance for a club of Motherwell's size, and Robinson himself compared the League Cup run to Celtic to Leicester winning the Premier League in terms of relative achievement. Football Bloody Hell + 3

But — and this matters for reading his Aberdeen tenure — that attacking, high-press style came at a real defensive cost: Motherwell conceded a lot of goals, especially in game's final 15 minutes, suggesting players couldn't sustain the physical demands. And he ultimately resigned in December 2020 after a nine-game winless run left them just above the relegation zone, admitting he felt "drained" after nearly four years and that recent signings "hadn't turned up." So there's a real pattern: strong 2-3 year upward trajectory, followed by a slump when recruitment misfires and energy dips. Football Bloody Hellbbci

St Mirren (2022–2026): He delivered three top-six finishes (their first in 36 years), a League Cup win over Celtic, and two European qualifications — arguably an even more remarkable overperformance given St Mirren's smaller resource base than Motherwell's. One detail worth noting from that spell: opposition managers have specifically praised his tactical setups in cup ties — a Motherwell boss called a St Mirren League Cup semi-final win "a tactical masterclass" where Robinson's team set specific pressing traps to nullify the opposition's key players. That's a good sign for the "in-game management" side of things, not just recruitment and philosophy. SPFLbbci

What this means for Aberdeen, honestly: His record says he's an excellent culture-and-recruitment manager who can transform underperforming or resource-poor clubs into consistent overachievers within 1-2 seasons, and someone tactically flexible enough to change wholesale when his first approach isn't working. The risk flag from Motherwell is that his methods seem to have a shelf-life — high energy demands, and burnout/staleness set in after 3+ years, especially when recruitment cycles turn sour. Given he's only a few months into a huge personnel overhaul at Aberdeen, that Motherwell trajectory (initial struggle → tactical reinvention → peak years) is probably the more useful comparison than St Mirren's steadier three-year rise — worth watching whether the "reinvention" phase (which you said won't be visible until winter) mirrors that Ross County moment where he tore up his own gameplan.

I don't think so. I recognise the 352 at the start as that's what he went with when he came in and just wanted to steer the club away from relegation. This season though it has been 433 mostly but he went 442 last game against Dundee and got a convincing 3-0 win.

The tricky 3rd season can get a lot of managers. I suppose can only hope he has the relative success to have the potential tricky 2rd season a thing to be conquered relevant

That's a really good structural point actually — the 3-5-2 at Aberdeen mirrors exactly how he opened at Motherwell too, both times used as the safety-first system to stop the bleeding before building something more expansive. If the 4-4-2 against Dundee was a genuine tactical shift rather than a one-off, that's consistent with his history of not being precious about system — he changes when what he's doing isn't working, which given his patterns, actually happened earlier in the Motherwell timeline than the crisis point (that was a specific reaction to a cup exit, not gradual drift).

On the "tricky third season" hope — worth being precise about the actual Motherwell timeline, because it wasn't really year three that got him, it was pushing into year four. He had two building seasons, then a genuinely strong third season (the third-place finish and Euro qualification), and it was the fourth year where the wheels came off, specifically tied to a poor transfer window rather than some inherent shelf-life on his ideas. So if that pattern holds, year three at Aberdeen (which by his statements would land around 2028-29, coinciding suspiciously with the end of his current contract) might actually be the peak rather than the danger zone — the real risk period would be a year or two beyond that, and probably hinges more on whether Aberdeen back him properly in the transfer market than on some natural expiry of his methods.

Genuinely reasonable thing to hope for given the data. The tighter question is whether Pittodrie's recruitment structure gives him what Motherwell couldn't in year four.

I would hope so, he's been well backed so far. Having Darren Mowbray back as chief scout is big as well I feel

Searched the web

Yeah, that's a genuinely significant signing, not just a nostalgic one. Mowbray was originally Aberdeen's Head of Recruitment from 2021 to 2023, and in that spell was directly responsible for Bojan Miovski, Ylber Ramadani, Duk, and Shayden Morris — all of whom the club later sold on for major profit, with Miovski alone going to Girona for £6.8m. Since he left for Southampton (where he helped them win promotion to the Premier League), Aberdeen's hit-rate on speculative signings had reportedly slowed noticeably despite continued spending.

He came back in stages — initially in an advisory/scouting capacity, before formally returning as Head of Recruitment in March 2026, the same window Robinson arrived. That timing isn't a coincidence worth glossing over — you've essentially got a manager and a recruitment chief both starting fresh at the same moment, with Mowbray specifically being someone with a proven track record of finding undervalued talent (mostly from smaller European leagues) that fits a possession/press-based identity.

Given the pattern we discussed with Motherwell — recruitment misfires being the actual trigger for his year-four collapse there — having Mowbray back plugging that specific hole feels like exactly the kind of structural support that was missing last time. If his profile-finding matches what Robinson wants tactically (and Ramadani/Miovski were technical, mobile players suited to progressive football, not the long-ball era), that's a genuinely strong alignment rather than just two separate good hires.

Thoughts on the Lutz Pfannestiel contribution to this mix?

Searched the web

He's an unusual character to lead this whole structure, but the more you dig, the more it fits together as a coherent piece rather than a random appointment.

Background: Genuinely one of football's most eccentric CVs — he was the first professional to play in all six FIFA confederations across 25 clubs in 13 countries as a "global goalie," and along the way was jailed for 101 days in Singapore on match-fixing charges he was later cleared of. The "stole a penguin" tabloid line is a real anecdote too, so he arrived at Pittodrie with genuine colour to his story. But behind the novelty, the actual sporting-director track record is solid rather than gimmicky: two seasons at Fortuna Düsseldorf that delivered their best Bundesliga finish in nearly three decades, then five years building St Louis City's academy and infrastructure from scratch, culminating in a Western Conference title.

The one real red flag: his St Louis City exit wasn't clean — fans and local media accused him of misaligning the head coach's tactical philosophy with the roster he'd built, and of contradicting his own public statements when parting ways with Mellberg after a short, unsuccessful spell. That's worth flagging directly against what you're hoping for at Aberdeen — it suggests a genuine risk around manager/recruitment misalignment, which is exactly the failure mode that got Robinson in his fourth year at Motherwell too. If that pattern repeated at Aberdeen, it'd compound rather than offset the existing risk.

Why it fits your Robinson/Mowbray read, though: He arrived first (November 2025, appointed under the outgoing Thelin regime), and it was Pfannenstiel who then brought in both Robinson and Mowbray in March — so he's the architect of the current setup, not a bolt-on to something Robinson built himself. He's been explicit that alignment between sporting director and manager on transfer targets is non-negotiable for him — no signing a player one side doesn't want just because the other likes them — which reads directly like a lesson learned from the St Louis City breakdown. If he's actually applying that stated principle here rather than just saying it, it directly targets the exact failure mode that ended his last job.

So the honest read: it's a three-person structure (Pfannenstiel, Robinson, Mowbray) that on paper is unusually well-suited to avoiding each other's known weak points — Robinson's risk is recruitment misfires in year 3-4, Mowbray's whole track record is finding value signings that fit a system, and Pfannenstiel's stated post-St-Louis lesson is exactly "don't let manager and recruitment drift apart." Whether that's genuine self-awareness or just the right talking points remains to be seen, but it's a more coherent bet than most fanbases get to make.

41 minutes ago, tlg1903 said:

Being meaning to post this for a few days. I had been trying to find out a bit more about Andrew Fasanyas background to no avail so ended up asking Claude AI for some help. The conversation progressed and I ended up asking it about Robinson on a whim and I found the resulting conversation really interesting. I know AI can get things wrong and you need to treat what it says with caution but I must admit I find Claude the best of them. Anyway, thought some of you might be interested.

What are your thoughts on Stephen Robinson?

Good track record on paper, and the context of the appointment tells its own story. He was brought in in March 2026 from St Mirren, where he'd delivered three cup finals including a League Cup win over Celtic, multiple top-six finishes, and two European qualifications — that came after Aberdeen sacked Jimmy Thelin, with the club sitting ninth after a wretched run including a 3-0 defeat to second-tier Dunfermline in the Scottish Cup. So he walked into a genuine rescue job, not a project being built from strength.

What stands out about his CV is the consistency of "overachieving with less" — at Motherwell he got them to third in the league and two cup finals, and he repeated a similar pattern at St Mirren. That's a useful profile for a club like Aberdeen that wants European football regularly but doesn't have Celtic/Rangers-level resources — he's shown he can punch above his budget rather than needing star names.

The honest caveat: it's still very early days at Pittodrie, so there isn't much of a body of work there yet to judge him on directly — my read is based on his history elsewhere rather than what he's actually delivered for Aberdeen so far. Given you're the one watching every week, I'd genuinely be curious how he's looked tactically and whether the squad's buying into it — that's the bit I can't tell from results and appointment write-ups alone.

I think he's done about as well as could be expected bar a very poor performance away to Dundee 2 weeks ago. It's too early to say tactically as there has been a huge overhaul in personell. We won't know what Robinsonball really looks like until the winter. I'm actually interested in what you think of his record pre Aberdeen. Dive deep if you can

That's a genuinely good question to dig into, because the pattern across both jobs is quite consistent — and so is the way it ended each time.

Motherwell (2017–2020): He inherited a club and initially played a fairly unglamorous 3-5-2, direct/long-ball approach that got results early on — firing balls long for the two forwards to win — but he then deliberately ditched the long-ball game after a Scottish Cup exit to Ross County, recruiting more technical players and evolving into possession-based, high-pressing football, often a 4-1-4-1 shifting into 4-3-3. That's a real managerial trait worth noting — he's shown he'll change his own approach when it isn't working rather than being ideologically stuck to one system. Over his tenure he took Motherwell to a Scottish Cup final and League Cup final in 2017-18, and a third-place finish in 2019-20 that secured European qualification — genuinely elite overperformance for a club of Motherwell's size, and Robinson himself compared the League Cup run to Celtic to Leicester winning the Premier League in terms of relative achievement. Football Bloody Hell + 3

But — and this matters for reading his Aberdeen tenure — that attacking, high-press style came at a real defensive cost: Motherwell conceded a lot of goals, especially in game's final 15 minutes, suggesting players couldn't sustain the physical demands. And he ultimately resigned in December 2020 after a nine-game winless run left them just above the relegation zone, admitting he felt "drained" after nearly four years and that recent signings "hadn't turned up." So there's a real pattern: strong 2-3 year upward trajectory, followed by a slump when recruitment misfires and energy dips. Football Bloody Hellbbci

St Mirren (2022–2026): He delivered three top-six finishes (their first in 36 years), a League Cup win over Celtic, and two European qualifications — arguably an even more remarkable overperformance given St Mirren's smaller resource base than Motherwell's. One detail worth noting from that spell: opposition managers have specifically praised his tactical setups in cup ties — a Motherwell boss called a St Mirren League Cup semi-final win "a tactical masterclass" where Robinson's team set specific pressing traps to nullify the opposition's key players. That's a good sign for the "in-game management" side of things, not just recruitment and philosophy. SPFLbbci

What this means for Aberdeen, honestly: His record says he's an excellent culture-and-recruitment manager who can transform underperforming or resource-poor clubs into consistent overachievers within 1-2 seasons, and someone tactically flexible enough to change wholesale when his first approach isn't working. The risk flag from Motherwell is that his methods seem to have a shelf-life — high energy demands, and burnout/staleness set in after 3+ years, especially when recruitment cycles turn sour. Given he's only a few months into a huge personnel overhaul at Aberdeen, that Motherwell trajectory (initial struggle → tactical reinvention → peak years) is probably the more useful comparison than St Mirren's steadier three-year rise — worth watching whether the "reinvention" phase (which you said won't be visible until winter) mirrors that Ross County moment where he tore up his own gameplan.

I don't think so. I recognise the 352 at the start as that's what he went with when he came in and just wanted to steer the club away from relegation. This season though it has been 433 mostly but he went 442 last game against Dundee and got a convincing 3-0 win.

The tricky 3rd season can get a lot of managers. I suppose can only hope he has the relative success to have the potential tricky 2rd season a thing to be conquered relevant

That's a really good structural point actually — the 3-5-2 at Aberdeen mirrors exactly how he opened at Motherwell too, both times used as the safety-first system to stop the bleeding before building something more expansive. If the 4-4-2 against Dundee was a genuine tactical shift rather than a one-off, that's consistent with his history of not being precious about system — he changes when what he's doing isn't working, which given his patterns, actually happened earlier in the Motherwell timeline than the crisis point (that was a specific reaction to a cup exit, not gradual drift).

On the "tricky third season" hope — worth being precise about the actual Motherwell timeline, because it wasn't really year three that got him, it was pushing into year four. He had two building seasons, then a genuinely strong third season (the third-place finish and Euro qualification), and it was the fourth year where the wheels came off, specifically tied to a poor transfer window rather than some inherent shelf-life on his ideas. So if that pattern holds, year three at Aberdeen (which by his statements would land around 2028-29, coinciding suspiciously with the end of his current contract) might actually be the peak rather than the danger zone — the real risk period would be a year or two beyond that, and probably hinges more on whether Aberdeen back him properly in the transfer market than on some natural expiry of his methods.

Genuinely reasonable thing to hope for given the data. The tighter question is whether Pittodrie's recruitment structure gives him what Motherwell couldn't in year four.

I would hope so, he's been well backed so far. Having Darren Mowbray back as chief scout is big as well I feel

Searched the web

Yeah, that's a genuinely significant signing, not just a nostalgic one. Mowbray was originally Aberdeen's Head of Recruitment from 2021 to 2023, and in that spell was directly responsible for Bojan Miovski, Ylber Ramadani, Duk, and Shayden Morris — all of whom the club later sold on for major profit, with Miovski alone going to Girona for £6.8m. Since he left for Southampton (where he helped them win promotion to the Premier League), Aberdeen's hit-rate on speculative signings had reportedly slowed noticeably despite continued spending.

He came back in stages — initially in an advisory/scouting capacity, before formally returning as Head of Recruitment in March 2026, the same window Robinson arrived. That timing isn't a coincidence worth glossing over — you've essentially got a manager and a recruitment chief both starting fresh at the same moment, with Mowbray specifically being someone with a proven track record of finding undervalued talent (mostly from smaller European leagues) that fits a possession/press-based identity.

Given the pattern we discussed with Motherwell — recruitment misfires being the actual trigger for his year-four collapse there — having Mowbray back plugging that specific hole feels like exactly the kind of structural support that was missing last time. If his profile-finding matches what Robinson wants tactically (and Ramadani/Miovski were technical, mobile players suited to progressive football, not the long-ball era), that's a genuinely strong alignment rather than just two separate good hires.

Thoughts on the Lutz Pfannestiel contribution to this mix?

Searched the web

He's an unusual character to lead this whole structure, but the more you dig, the more it fits together as a coherent piece rather than a random appointment.

Background: Genuinely one of football's most eccentric CVs — he was the first professional to play in all six FIFA confederations across 25 clubs in 13 countries as a "global goalie," and along the way was jailed for 101 days in Singapore on match-fixing charges he was later cleared of. The "stole a penguin" tabloid line is a real anecdote too, so he arrived at Pittodrie with genuine colour to his story. But behind the novelty, the actual sporting-director track record is solid rather than gimmicky: two seasons at Fortuna Düsseldorf that delivered their best Bundesliga finish in nearly three decades, then five years building St Louis City's academy and infrastructure from scratch, culminating in a Western Conference title.

The one real red flag: his St Louis City exit wasn't clean — fans and local media accused him of misaligning the head coach's tactical philosophy with the roster he'd built, and of contradicting his own public statements when parting ways with Mellberg after a short, unsuccessful spell. That's worth flagging directly against what you're hoping for at Aberdeen — it suggests a genuine risk around manager/recruitment misalignment, which is exactly the failure mode that got Robinson in his fourth year at Motherwell too. If that pattern repeated at Aberdeen, it'd compound rather than offset the existing risk.

Why it fits your Robinson/Mowbray read, though: He arrived first (November 2025, appointed under the outgoing Thelin regime), and it was Pfannenstiel who then brought in both Robinson and Mowbray in March — so he's the architect of the current setup, not a bolt-on to something Robinson built himself. He's been explicit that alignment between sporting director and manager on transfer targets is non-negotiable for him — no signing a player one side doesn't want just because the other likes them — which reads directly like a lesson learned from the St Louis City breakdown. If he's actually applying that stated principle here rather than just saying it, it directly targets the exact failure mode that ended his last job.

So the honest read: it's a three-person structure (Pfannenstiel, Robinson, Mowbray) that on paper is unusually well-suited to avoiding each other's known weak points — Robinson's risk is recruitment misfires in year 3-4, Mowbray's whole track record is finding value signings that fit a system, and Pfannenstiel's stated post-St-Louis lesson is exactly "don't let manager and recruitment drift apart." Whether that's genuine self-awareness or just the right talking points remains to be seen, but it's a more coherent bet than most fanbases get to make.

Been meaning to ask for a while. Could we get a down-vote button?

11 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Been meaning to ask for a while. Could we get a down-vote button?

No 😂

1 hour ago, tlg1903 said:

Being meaning to post this for a few days. I had been trying to find out a bit more about Andrew Fasanyas background to no avail so ended up asking Claude AI for some help. The conversation progressed and I ended up asking it about Robinson on a whim and I found the resulting conversation really interesting. I know AI can get things wrong and you need to treat what it says with caution but I must admit I find Claude the best of them. Anyway, thought some of you might be interested.

What are your thoughts on Stephen Robinson?

Good track record on paper, and the context of the appointment tells its own story. He was brought in in March 2026 from St Mirren, where he'd delivered three cup finals including a League Cup win over Celtic, multiple top-six finishes, and two European qualifications — that came after Aberdeen sacked Jimmy Thelin, with the club sitting ninth after a wretched run including a 3-0 defeat to second-tier Dunfermline in the Scottish Cup. So he walked into a genuine rescue job, not a project being built from strength.

What stands out about his CV is the consistency of "overachieving with less" — at Motherwell he got them to third in the league and two cup finals, and he repeated a similar pattern at St Mirren. That's a useful profile for a club like Aberdeen that wants European football regularly but doesn't have Celtic/Rangers-level resources — he's shown he can punch above his budget rather than needing star names.

The honest caveat: it's still very early days at Pittodrie, so there isn't much of a body of work there yet to judge him on directly — my read is based on his history elsewhere rather than what he's actually delivered for Aberdeen so far. Given you're the one watching every week, I'd genuinely be curious how he's looked tactically and whether the squad's buying into it — that's the bit I can't tell from results and appointment write-ups alone.

I think he's done about as well as could be expected bar a very poor performance away to Dundee 2 weeks ago. It's too early to say tactically as there has been a huge overhaul in personell. We won't know what Robinsonball really looks like until the winter. I'm actually interested in what you think of his record pre Aberdeen. Dive deep if you can

That's a genuinely good question to dig into, because the pattern across both jobs is quite consistent — and so is the way it ended each time.

Motherwell (2017–2020): He inherited a club and initially played a fairly unglamorous 3-5-2, direct/long-ball approach that got results early on — firing balls long for the two forwards to win — but he then deliberately ditched the long-ball game after a Scottish Cup exit to Ross County, recruiting more technical players and evolving into possession-based, high-pressing football, often a 4-1-4-1 shifting into 4-3-3. That's a real managerial trait worth noting — he's shown he'll change his own approach when it isn't working rather than being ideologically stuck to one system. Over his tenure he took Motherwell to a Scottish Cup final and League Cup final in 2017-18, and a third-place finish in 2019-20 that secured European qualification — genuinely elite overperformance for a club of Motherwell's size, and Robinson himself compared the League Cup run to Celtic to Leicester winning the Premier League in terms of relative achievement. Football Bloody Hell + 3

But — and this matters for reading his Aberdeen tenure — that attacking, high-press style came at a real defensive cost: Motherwell conceded a lot of goals, especially in game's final 15 minutes, suggesting players couldn't sustain the physical demands. And he ultimately resigned in December 2020 after a nine-game winless run left them just above the relegation zone, admitting he felt "drained" after nearly four years and that recent signings "hadn't turned up." So there's a real pattern: strong 2-3 year upward trajectory, followed by a slump when recruitment misfires and energy dips. Football Bloody Hellbbci

St Mirren (2022–2026): He delivered three top-six finishes (their first in 36 years), a League Cup win over Celtic, and two European qualifications — arguably an even more remarkable overperformance given St Mirren's smaller resource base than Motherwell's. One detail worth noting from that spell: opposition managers have specifically praised his tactical setups in cup ties — a Motherwell boss called a St Mirren League Cup semi-final win "a tactical masterclass" where Robinson's team set specific pressing traps to nullify the opposition's key players. That's a good sign for the "in-game management" side of things, not just recruitment and philosophy. SPFLbbci

What this means for Aberdeen, honestly: His record says he's an excellent culture-and-recruitment manager who can transform underperforming or resource-poor clubs into consistent overachievers within 1-2 seasons, and someone tactically flexible enough to change wholesale when his first approach isn't working. The risk flag from Motherwell is that his methods seem to have a shelf-life — high energy demands, and burnout/staleness set in after 3+ years, especially when recruitment cycles turn sour. Given he's only a few months into a huge personnel overhaul at Aberdeen, that Motherwell trajectory (initial struggle → tactical reinvention → peak years) is probably the more useful comparison than St Mirren's steadier three-year rise — worth watching whether the "reinvention" phase (which you said won't be visible until winter) mirrors that Ross County moment where he tore up his own gameplan.

I don't think so. I recognise the 352 at the start as that's what he went with when he came in and just wanted to steer the club away from relegation. This season though it has been 433 mostly but he went 442 last game against Dundee and got a convincing 3-0 win.

The tricky 3rd season can get a lot of managers. I suppose can only hope he has the relative success to have the potential tricky 2rd season a thing to be conquered relevant

That's a really good structural point actually — the 3-5-2 at Aberdeen mirrors exactly how he opened at Motherwell too, both times used as the safety-first system to stop the bleeding before building something more expansive. If the 4-4-2 against Dundee was a genuine tactical shift rather than a one-off, that's consistent with his history of not being precious about system — he changes when what he's doing isn't working, which given his patterns, actually happened earlier in the Motherwell timeline than the crisis point (that was a specific reaction to a cup exit, not gradual drift).

On the "tricky third season" hope — worth being precise about the actual Motherwell timeline, because it wasn't really year three that got him, it was pushing into year four. He had two building seasons, then a genuinely strong third season (the third-place finish and Euro qualification), and it was the fourth year where the wheels came off, specifically tied to a poor transfer window rather than some inherent shelf-life on his ideas. So if that pattern holds, year three at Aberdeen (which by his statements would land around 2028-29, coinciding suspiciously with the end of his current contract) might actually be the peak rather than the danger zone — the real risk period would be a year or two beyond that, and probably hinges more on whether Aberdeen back him properly in the transfer market than on some natural expiry of his methods.

Genuinely reasonable thing to hope for given the data. The tighter question is whether Pittodrie's recruitment structure gives him what Motherwell couldn't in year four.

I would hope so, he's been well backed so far. Having Darren Mowbray back as chief scout is big as well I feel

Searched the web

Yeah, that's a genuinely significant signing, not just a nostalgic one. Mowbray was originally Aberdeen's Head of Recruitment from 2021 to 2023, and in that spell was directly responsible for Bojan Miovski, Ylber Ramadani, Duk, and Shayden Morris — all of whom the club later sold on for major profit, with Miovski alone going to Girona for £6.8m. Since he left for Southampton (where he helped them win promotion to the Premier League), Aberdeen's hit-rate on speculative signings had reportedly slowed noticeably despite continued spending.

He came back in stages — initially in an advisory/scouting capacity, before formally returning as Head of Recruitment in March 2026, the same window Robinson arrived. That timing isn't a coincidence worth glossing over — you've essentially got a manager and a recruitment chief both starting fresh at the same moment, with Mowbray specifically being someone with a proven track record of finding undervalued talent (mostly from smaller European leagues) that fits a possession/press-based identity.

Given the pattern we discussed with Motherwell — recruitment misfires being the actual trigger for his year-four collapse there — having Mowbray back plugging that specific hole feels like exactly the kind of structural support that was missing last time. If his profile-finding matches what Robinson wants tactically (and Ramadani/Miovski were technical, mobile players suited to progressive football, not the long-ball era), that's a genuinely strong alignment rather than just two separate good hires.

Thoughts on the Lutz Pfannestiel contribution to this mix?

Searched the web

He's an unusual character to lead this whole structure, but the more you dig, the more it fits together as a coherent piece rather than a random appointment.

Background: Genuinely one of football's most eccentric CVs — he was the first professional to play in all six FIFA confederations across 25 clubs in 13 countries as a "global goalie," and along the way was jailed for 101 days in Singapore on match-fixing charges he was later cleared of. The "stole a penguin" tabloid line is a real anecdote too, so he arrived at Pittodrie with genuine colour to his story. But behind the novelty, the actual sporting-director track record is solid rather than gimmicky: two seasons at Fortuna Düsseldorf that delivered their best Bundesliga finish in nearly three decades, then five years building St Louis City's academy and infrastructure from scratch, culminating in a Western Conference title.

The one real red flag: his St Louis City exit wasn't clean — fans and local media accused him of misaligning the head coach's tactical philosophy with the roster he'd built, and of contradicting his own public statements when parting ways with Mellberg after a short, unsuccessful spell. That's worth flagging directly against what you're hoping for at Aberdeen — it suggests a genuine risk around manager/recruitment misalignment, which is exactly the failure mode that got Robinson in his fourth year at Motherwell too. If that pattern repeated at Aberdeen, it'd compound rather than offset the existing risk.

Why it fits your Robinson/Mowbray read, though: He arrived first (November 2025, appointed under the outgoing Thelin regime), and it was Pfannenstiel who then brought in both Robinson and Mowbray in March — so he's the architect of the current setup, not a bolt-on to something Robinson built himself. He's been explicit that alignment between sporting director and manager on transfer targets is non-negotiable for him — no signing a player one side doesn't want just because the other likes them — which reads directly like a lesson learned from the St Louis City breakdown. If he's actually applying that stated principle here rather than just saying it, it directly targets the exact failure mode that ended his last job.

So the honest read: it's a three-person structure (Pfannenstiel, Robinson, Mowbray) that on paper is unusually well-suited to avoiding each other's known weak points — Robinson's risk is recruitment misfires in year 3-4, Mowbray's whole track record is finding value signings that fit a system, and Pfannenstiel's stated post-St-Louis lesson is exactly "don't let manager and recruitment drift apart." Whether that's genuine self-awareness or just the right talking points remains to be seen, but it's a more coherent bet than most fanbases get to make.

Well done for doing the heavy lifting @tlg1903 I read this on the bus home from an afternoon at the fringe and my biggest take is it could all work out grand but we should defo not keep Robinson for more than 3 seasons 😉

1 hour ago, RicoS321 said:

Been meaning to ask for a while. Could we get a down-vote button?

A Ricos whining again button maybe 😘

48 minutes ago, Goldie03 said:

Well done for doing the heavy lifting @tlg1903 I read this on the bus home from an afternoon at the fringe and my biggest take is it could all work out grand but we should defo not keep Robinson for more than 3 seasons 😉

I found it quite an interesting take. Ai loves putting positive spins on things so you always have to take it with a wee pinch of salt but I do find Claude the least spin doctory.

59 minutes ago, Goldie03 said:

Well done for doing the heavy lifting @tlg1903 I read this on the bus home from an afternoon at the fringe and my biggest take is it could all work out grand but we should defo not keep Robinson for more than 3 seasons 😉

What did you go see at the Fringe incidently?

1 hour ago, tlg1903 said:

What did you go see at the Fringe incidently?

I saw cabaret, comedy & theatre today have been to 16 shows got 4 more to go 😂

I've seen two brilliant footie plays - one about gaelic football in Northern Ireland and one about John White who was a spurs player that got stuck by lightning in the 1960s.

Nice. I've not been to the Fringe since before the plague

Is 'at boy Claude not worth a look?

Sorry like, but this is what AI sys in answer to "Has neoliberalism worked?"

Neoliberalism has delivered significant global market integration and wealth generation, but critics and major institutions increasingly argue that it has failed to secure broad-based prosperity, leading instead to severe inequality and economic instability.

I could churn out words on any subject you want but I cost more than AI.

nae sure what thread to post this on, so just sticking it on here.
Interesting interview up on Red TV with the penguin thief where he talks quite positively on Robinson and the cultural change he has brought since his arrival.

Also makes a comment or two about individual ego's in the dressing room have gone and Robinson has the players thinking as a team and not just thinung about themselves.

Wonder who he is referring to when he said players and not just a player.
One that springs to mind straight away for me was the fkn Swedish prim-donna Karlsson. Who do we think some of the others are that the penguin might have been referring to

Almost certainly correlates with those who have left or are due to leave.

On 13/03/2026 at 00:00, Mentorred said:

Was impressed with his first team meeting 

I'm beginning to think this might be AI...

I didn't want Robinson as manager. I wanted Robert Klauß (our loss is some Slovakian club's gain - he's won his last three games 6-0, 5-1 and 13-0).

However, I'm not a "sack the manager after 18 games" kind of guy. And I don't think Robinson is a bad manager, but I do worry he's a limited manager, and the early signs are this is a limited team.

I don't think top four is realistic. I'm not sure we have it in us to be top five. We may have a fight on our hands just to be in the top six.

We have had no momentum from the League Cup group stage, mainly because we've yet to play well in any of the four league games.

Robinson was asked if he is getting closer to realising what his strongest XI is. He mumbled something about foreign players not yet knowing the league.

Listen pal, stop the excuses. Find a way to get Armstrong and Smith into the starting line-up and into their best positions. If it was Klauß, he'd play a 4-2-2-2, and we wouldn't have to worry about having no wingers.

If we had waited for Horneland, he'd have a 4-2-3-1 that morphed into a 4-1-3-2.

But, we didn't. We appointed Robinson, and he needs to give this Aberdeen team an identify that is more than 'works hard but doesn't create anything' and playing Olusanya in every game.

2 hours ago, Panda said:

I didn't want Robinson as manager. I wanted Robert Klauß (our loss is some Slovakian club's gain - he's won his last three games 6-0, 5-1 and 13-0).

However, I'm not a "sack the manager after 18 games" kind of guy. And I don't think Robinson is a bad manager, but I do worry he's a limited manager, and the early signs are this is a limited team.

I don't think top four is realistic. I'm not sure we have it in us to be top five. We may have a fight on our hands just to be in the top six.

We have had no momentum from the League Cup group stage, mainly because we've yet to play well in any of the four league games.

Robinson was asked if he is getting closer to realising what his strongest XI is. He mumbled something about foreign players not yet knowing the league.

Listen pal, stop the excuses. Find a way to get Armstrong and Smith into the starting line-up and into their best positions. If it was Klauß, he'd play a 4-2-2-2, and we wouldn't have to worry about having no wingers.

If we had waited for Horneland, he'd have a 4-2-3-1 that morphed into a 4-1-3-2.

But, we didn't. We appointed Robinson, and he needs to give this Aberdeen team an identify that is more than 'works hard but doesn't create anything' and playing Olusanya in every game.

I'm not one for sacking managers either, but I would happily make an exception with Robinson.

Just don't see it ending well and nothing to do with the last two games.

It just doesn't feel right.

It's not on him though. I blame it on the clowns running our club.

6 hours ago, Panda said:

I didn't want Robinson as manager. I wanted Robert Klauß (our loss is some Slovakian club's gain - he's won his last three games 6-0, 5-1 and 13-0).

However, I'm not a "sack the manager after 18 games" kind of guy. And I don't think Robinson is a bad manager, but I do worry he's a limited manager, and the early signs are this is a limited team.

I don't think top four is realistic. I'm not sure we have it in us to be top five. We may have a fight on our hands just to be in the top six.

We have had no momentum from the League Cup group stage, mainly because we've yet to play well in any of the four league games.

Robinson was asked if he is getting closer to realising what his strongest XI is. He mumbled something about foreign players not yet knowing the league.

Listen pal, stop the excuses. Find a way to get Armstrong and Smith into the starting line-up and into their best positions. If it was Klauß, he'd play a 4-2-2-2, and we wouldn't have to worry about having no wingers.

If we had waited for Horneland, he'd have a 4-2-3-1 that morphed into a 4-1-3-2.

But, we didn't. We appointed Robinson, and he needs to give this Aberdeen team an identify that is more than 'works hard but doesn't create anything' and playing Olusanya in every game.

He says Smith isn't nearly fit enough for a full game - which is quite the statement and/or situation.

11 minutes ago, wee toon red said:

He says Smith isn't nearly fit enough for a full game - which is quite the statement and/or situation.

He still looks fitter than Yogane who has started most games