The losers attempt to lose yet another home game on Saturday at 3 pm at Pittodrie.

I fancy a routine 3-0 away win for the Buddies.

Well, well, well. Didn’t see that coming at HT. Did anyone?

Moloua MOTM. Made all the difference. Bonnie goal and opened them up a few times just with a clever flick or quick pass.

Needs to be the first name on the teamsheet from now on.

I thought the CH’s were solid enough, Armstrong was decent when he came on, everyone else though - meh at best.

3 points is 3 points though so full credit for that, but you just cannot trust this lot or have the faintest idea what you’re going to get half to half let alone week to week…

Edited October 17Oct 17 by The.Moog

54 minutes ago, Radiored said:

YAAASSSS! ..... 3-1 .... title race is on 😄

Steady on, min.

The title is gone for this season, but we're winning the lot in our 125th anniversary season.

Fortunate St Mirren didn't have the cojones to really take advantage. Müller made at least four big saves in the first half just to ensure we went in at 1-1.

We started 4-4-2. It then went 4-5-1. I'm not sure what it was meant to be towards the end - Yogane and Gyamfi both looked out of position.

Mouloua was interesting. Played just to the left of a central three essentially and drove forward, which meant St Mirren didn't know who was meant to pick him up.

Still, all a bit haphazard tbh. Penalty and a bit of Mouloua magic won us the game, but big improvement needed.

This might be an unpopular opinion but fuck it here goes

I think some of this criticism from our support directed towards Yogane is completely OTT.

To me, he came on for the second half today and did all the right things, happy to take his man on, got himself into the right positions.

If that's the positives, the downside is his lack of composure and over hitting the final ball.

To me there are similarities between him and the early days of Shady Mo.

If it ends up with the same outcome of POTY award and a Scottish Cup winners medal, that'll do for me

Just back. Good result, but not a brilliant performance. A very frustrating first half. Brilliant strike from Lyons, who seemed incredibly reluctant to shoot, despite them standing aside for thirty seconds. Otherwise, he was terrible. A midfielder with zero composure and inability to spot a pass, nowhere near good enough for us. Ronan exceptionally frustrating too. Aremu probably our best player, and the actual balance of the three was fine, just the ability. A better manager would spot this, and would also have spotted their quick switch right and overload, which happened three times before they eventually scored. Staggering that word hadn't got to Guinness-Walker that he needed to push wide and man mark the winger. In-game changes aren't his forte.

The half time changes, moving to a 4-4-2, were good. It took five minutes to settle, and it was a little risky having Armstrong only alongside Aremu, but it worked. Nisbet a waste of a shirt without a striker alongside him, and the change of shape brought him into it. Mouloua coming on just brought quality on top of the work rate that Olusanya was offering. Yogane is fairly rotten. He has zero pace, but he's also suffering from a severe lack of confidence. He needs a loan in January, and we need to get in a proper winger. Smith was fairly pap too, and doesn't look like a winger either. He could really benefit from a very attacking fullback going beyond him. Cadden was actually not bad in the second half, and Guinness-Walker improved too.

Mayo and Knoester were fine at the back, and Muller good. I'm a bit concerned by Knoester in a two, but he was good today. Mayo is much better in a two than a three.

I'm still no closer to knowing our best 11, but neither is Robinson. We've got shite wingers, don't create enough with a back three, and our captain can't play as a lone striker.

Cracking goal to get us on our way, but what a shitshow for the rest of the half.

St Mirren should never be allowed to pass the ball around like they did at times, a better team would have buried us.

We're a far better team with Armstrong in it. Can't play him every week, but needs more minutes.

We look far more composed when he is on the pitch and he links our play better.

Missed the first goal as train was late and had to be shown a clip of the goal to believe that a player as poor as Lyons had manage to get a shot on target. He was on my list of players that had to come off at half time. Ronan is probably the summer signing I am most disappointed in. Really thought he would be a player that would provide us with something different. At the moment has looked a complete waste of a jersey. Guinness Walker really struggled defensively in the first half and could easily have joined Ronan and Lyons in getting the hook at half time. We were really lucky to get in level at half time. Armstrong coming on and change of shape definitely helped us. Whilst I don’t think Yogane was any good (to slow and ponderous on the ball. Crosses had no accuracy or pace.) his presence alone stopped St Mirren exploiting Guinness Walker’s defensive frailties and denied them some space. We were better in the second half and deserved the win however it should be remembered that a shite St Mirren side, who took a real doing last week, gave us the run around for a huge spell in the first half. They could easily had the game win by half time. This was not us turning the corner today. To end on a positive Mouloua beginning to look like he could be another Miovski and also signs that he and Nisbet could for a good partnership.

2 hours ago, BigAl said:

This might be an unpopular opinion but fuck it here goes

I think some of this criticism from our support directed towards Yogane is completely OTT.

To me, he came on for the second half today and did all the right things, happy to take his man on, got himself into the right positions.

If that's the positives, the downside is his lack of composure and over hitting the final ball.

To me there are similarities between him and the early days of Shady Mo.

If it ends up with the same outcome of POTY award and a Scottish Cup winners medal, that'll do for me

Agree he got in good positions but he seems to have no clue how to exploit them- he has zero pace unlike Shady Mo who could get past a player but final ball was poor. He looks lazy and although probably works harder than j give him credit for just takes too many touches

Maybe an extended run in the team would do him the world if good but okayed a couple of league cup games and never really kicked on

Mouloua a big positive for me. I really like the look of this guy. A win is a win but that first half was dreadful. Good bit better in second half but really papering over the cracks. That must be the biggest saints support I've ever seen up from Paisley. Were their tickets a tenner?

1 hour ago, GASC1980 said:

Mouloua a big positive for me. I really like the look of this guy. A win is a win but that first half was dreadful. Good bit better in second half but really papering over the cracks. That must be the biggest saints support I've ever seen up from Paisley. Were their tickets a tenner?

Probably, aye. If memory serves away tickets have to be sold at the same price as the cheapest home ticket

One thing I will say is this time last season we likely would have lost that game by a couple.

Seen a few people mention papering over the cracks and my take on that is it's probably too early with this 15 new players squad in it to even know if there are any cracks. I would suggest the building is still settling and cracks haven't had a chance to appear yet though the building has clearly had a few wobbles since construction that could lead to some sizeable cracks to continue the analogy. The incontrovertible truth is that it takes time for a new squad to gel and we won't really start getting a proper feel for what Robinson ball looks like with this squad until the end of December/start of January. Whether Robinson gets that long still remains the more significant question than what we look like if he does right now though and the only thing that will buy him that time is results.

I personally think it's very harsh (other opinions are available incidentally) that so many of the support have decided they want him gone already given the mess he inherited and the sizeable turnover in squad which was totally unavoidable. The delay in appointing him really didn't help matters especially when there had been plenty of more exotic names linked prior and a mixed bag start to the season has done nothing to appease. Looking around social media you see plenty of fans who give a vibe of being happy when we don't do well just so they can say they were right about Robinson all along and people like that just don't help at all.

Things I am not saying here before someone goes off on one.
1. I wanted Robinson as manager. I didn't and was pretty deflated when it happened. The die is cast though and he will have my support until I'm sure getting rid of him is the right move. Far from convinced of that yet.
2. I think Robinson is doing a good job. I don't know if he is yet, on this point time will tell which is kinda my point overall. He could be doing a very good job behind the scenes for all we know and good times are not far away. Equally he could be doing awful and we will fall apart before xmas and he will be fired. That the players seem to increasingly like him is a good sign though so I suspect at least he's not doing awful and having the players onside when you are under pressure is half the battle.
3. I agree with everything he's done so far. E.g the treatment of Frame and Devlin is equal parts baffling and infuriating quite frankly and I've yet to see Cadden or OBI2 put in a performance that made me grateful they are in ahead of them. If they want gone as the rumour was about Frame then why is he still here? It would have not been difficult to find a club to take him, even if just on loan until January. Also, there does also seem to be a 'just find something that works' approach about his team and tactical selections both last and this season but he wouldn't be the first nor the last manager to do that, and sometimes it works too. Certainly seemed to for Mcinnes at der hun.

I said it with thelin, and said it earlier with Robinson, I think by Xmas we can start to see if Robinson is doing a good job. He needs two, ideally three windows at least to build a squad.

We started back 4, then back 3, now 4 again yesterday. Chopping and changing doesn’t help but incorporating 15 new players takes time. The play of smith and yogane is a huge factor in our formation, if they aren’t productive and reliable there’s no point in playing with wingers. Robinson wanted 4 wingers, we got 2, and then eventually mahou, but it’s not really enough to rely on a formation with wingers. Their play is the main factor in going to a back 3 with wing backs.

Defensively we are much better and that’s progress. Third least goals conceded so far in the league, and that is a positive step. You fix the defense first, that’s the foundation. Individually all of our defenders have flaws, but we are better. Muller isn’t an ‘attractive’ keeper, mitov looked the part much more, but while they have different strengths, muller is at least as effective.

Ronan and the wingers have failed season to date, the main reason we aren’t scoring enough. That’s our creative three positions that aren’t producing. That’s not really on Robinson, they just aren’t very good, hence the change of formation. Yes Ronan was coached by Robinson at st mirren, but he’s maybe regressed since then, injuries and he’s very clearly bulked up, can effect your movement health and play. Up top mouloua and nisbet will score if given chances. If you add an in prime mcginn and Hayes to this lot I think we’d be a very different team. You may even see more from cadden and NGW if they had legit wingers ahead of them to combine with.

I think lyons afeez and even briedl maybe (debatable) are good enough to do the heavy lifting in midfield. If you ask afeez and lyons to add goals and assists to their game they’ll fail. It’s a huge if, but get two legit wingers in the Jan window, I think we’d see more from this team, and then maybe more fairly judge Robinson???

Edited October 18Oct 18 by OrlandoDon

3 hours ago, tlg1903 said:

Seen a few people mention papering over the cracks and my take on that is it's probably too early with this 15 new players squad in it to even know if there are any cracks. I would suggest the building is still settling and cracks haven't had a chance to appear yet though the building has clearly had a few wobbles since construction that could lead to some sizeable cracks to continue the analogy.

3 hours ago, tlg1903 said:

I personally think it's very harsh (other opinions are available incidentally) that so many of the support have decided they want him gone already given the mess he inherited and the sizeable turnover in squad which was totally unavoidable.

I'm not really in a "Robinson must go" camp, mainly because I don't think the uncertainty of us now trying to find a manager two weeks out from a semi-final would help us.

However, each week I get less convinced by him and yesterday hasn't done anything to help those concerns either.

I'm not sure I agree with your line "last season we would have lost that", as we could very easily have lost it yesterday had St Mirren been at full strength and had a striker. If we play like that most weeks we won't win most of them. We got away with one yesterday.

I also think Robinson has had long enough. He took charge in March, had a transfer window, a league cup group stage to work on his tactics, had nine games from then until the international break, then three more weeks to work on the tactics, followed by two favourable home games.

And yet, I really struggle to see any improvement. And I think Robinson is still scratching his head how he should set the team up, and the players aren't quite sure what they're supposed to do either.

Defence better? Apparently so. I don't think we've been tested yet - apart from Parkhead where we did concede a few. Let's see how Ibrox, Tynecastle and Hampden go. If we gave a better team that possession yesterday we could have shipped a few, and Müller was certainly called into action a few times.

Tannadice will be interesting. Haven't won there I think since Barry Robson was manager.

5 hours ago, tlg1903 said:

One thing I will say is this time last season we likely would have lost that game by a couple.

Seen a few people mention papering over the cracks and my take on that is it's probably too early with this 15 new players squad in it to even know if there are any cracks. I would suggest the building is still settling and cracks haven't had a chance to appear yet though the building has clearly had a few wobbles since construction that could lead to some sizeable cracks to continue the analogy. The incontrovertible truth is that it takes time for a new squad to gel and we won't really start getting a proper feel for what Robinson ball looks like with this squad until the end of December/start of January. Whether Robinson gets that long still remains the more significant question than what we look like if he does right now though and the only thing that will buy him that time is results.

I personally think it's very harsh (other opinions are available incidentally) that so many of the support have decided they want him gone already given the mess he inherited and the sizeable turnover in squad which was totally unavoidable. The delay in appointing him really didn't help matters especially when there had been plenty of more exotic names linked prior and a mixed bag start to the season has done nothing to appease. Looking around social media you see plenty of fans who give a vibe of being happy when we don't do well just so they can say they were right about Robinson all along and people like that just don't help at all.

Things I am not saying here before someone goes off on one.
1. I wanted Robinson as manager. I didn't and was pretty deflated when it happened. The die is cast though and he will have my support until I'm sure getting rid of him is the right move. Far from convinced of that yet.
2. I think Robinson is doing a good job. I don't know if he is yet, on this point time will tell which is kinda my point overall. He could be doing a very good job behind the scenes for all we know and good times are not far away. Equally he could be doing awful and we will fall apart before xmas and he will be fired. That the players seem to increasingly like him is a good sign though so I suspect at least he's not doing awful and having the players onside when you are under pressure is half the battle.
3. I agree with everything he's done so far. E.g the treatment of Frame and Devlin is equal parts baffling and infuriating quite frankly and I've yet to see Cadden or OBI2 put in a performance that made me grateful they are in ahead of them. If they want gone as the rumour was about Frame then why is he still here? It would have not been difficult to find a club to take him, even if just on loan until January. Also, there does also seem to be a 'just find something that works' approach about his team and tactical selections both last and this season but he wouldn't be the first nor the last manager to do that, and sometimes it works too. Certainly seemed to for Mcinnes at der hun.

In the heat of the moment I have a tendency to knee jerk, but this is a well balanced and thought through post.

Keep up the good work @tlg1903

4 hours ago, Panda said:

I'm not sure I agree with your line "last season we would have lost that", as we could very easily have lost it yesterday had St Mirren been at full strength and had a striker. If we play like that most weeks we won't win most of them. We got away with one yesterday.

2 things I would say there. 1. whether we could easily have lost yesterday or not bears no relation to we defo would have lost it this time last year. We were as wide open as St Mirren were yesterday playing with half the confidence and whilst we might have scored I have no doubt we would have lost by a couple personally. I think it's a bit harsh to say we got away with one. We got away with one in the first half to not go into the break trailing but the same changes would have been made if we hadn't and St Mirren still would have been wide open, they are not a team that can park the bus at the moment. It's easy to argue it would have still been one way traffic second half.

4 hours ago, Panda said:

I also think Robinson has had long enough. He took charge in March, had a transfer window, a league cup group stage to work on his tactics, had nine games from then until the international break, then three more weeks to work on the tactics, followed by two favourable home games.

1 transfer window where a full first team and half a bench have been turned over. That's pretty extreme by any measure if you ask me and despite taking over in March in a lot of ways he was back to square one in the summer as a result. He had a league cup group stage he HAD to qualify from after a very short pre season. It's defo better than playing friendly's but only as long as you win and the manager is not going to be experimenting a lot when playing these games as he's on a hiding to nothing if Aberdeen don't win them all. Probably 2 weeks worth of pitch time as players will have been given a week off most likely.

4 hours ago, Panda said:

And yet, I really struggle to see any improvement. And I think Robinson is still scratching his head how he should set the team up, and the players aren't quite sure what they're supposed to do either.

Defence better? Apparently so. I don't think we've been tested yet - apart from Parkhead where we did concede a few. Let's see how Ibrox, Tynecastle and Hampden go. If we gave a better team that possession yesterday we could have shipped a few, and Müller was certainly called into action a few times.

Tannadice will be interesting. Haven't won there I think since Barry Robson was manager.

The improvement I see is we are harder to beat but that's not to say I think we are hard to beat. Our stats are better than they were after playing 9 last season, we haven't lost 6 of them with many of them being favourable fixtures, have scored 10 instead of 6 and conceded 10 instead of 11. Hardly setting the heather alight figures and with no european distraction either but still movement in the right direction from where we were.

Tannadice will be a big test all things considered, would be a huge win for Robinson if he could get it and a crushing defeat should we lose.

3 hours ago, tlg1903 said:

whether we could easily have lost yesterday or not bears no relation to we defo would have lost it this time last year. We were as wide open as St Mirren were yesterday playing with half the confidence and whilst we might have scored I have no doubt we would have lost by a couple personally.

On 18 October last year, we beat St Mirren 1-0 away from home. We limited them to one shot on target in that game.

My point being, I don't think we've somehow got more about us this season that we're able to win games we couldn't last year. Robinson threw that line out when we beat Hearts then went quiet the following week when we lost to Dundee.

Sometimes we get a bit of fortune. I think us getting the penalty was that (it was a penalty, but a silly challenge that if the St Mirren defender doesn't make then Yogane probably does little else with the chance).

Would we have gone on to win it anyway, maybe. But Thelin might have won it too...

3 hours ago, tlg1903 said:

I think it's a bit harsh to say we got away with one. We got away with one in the first half to not go into the break trailing but the same changes would have been made if we hadn't and St Mirren still would have been wide open, they are not a team that can park the bus at the moment. It's easy to argue it would have still been one way traffic second half.

I thought we were very fortunate to be level at the break. We didn't turn around a deficit v St Johnstone the previous week, so I can't say with great confidence we'd have done it v St Mirren.

3 hours ago, tlg1903 said:

1 transfer window where a full first team and half a bench have been turned over. That's pretty extreme by any measure if you ask me and despite taking over in March in a lot of ways he was back to square one in the summer as a result. He

The improvement I see is we are harder to beat but that's not to say I think we are hard to beat. Our stats are better than they were after playing 9 last season, we haven't lost 6 of them with many of them being favourable fixtures, have scored 10 instead of 6 and conceded 10 instead of 11. Hardly setting the heather alight figures and with no european distraction either but still movement in the right direction from where we were.

Our main problem hasn't been the turnover of players though. It's been a manager seemingly at a loss what to do with his team, and a glaring lack of game plan.

Last season, we went in undercooked, and made a lot of signings late on. We did correct both those errors this season so it's little surprise the stats show a slightly better start.

But, from the start of October until mid-December, we did only lose one league game out of 10 - a loss to Hibs days after getting the runaround in Greece. So we're really at the stage now where we should start to see something from this team.

We have Rangers twice in Glasgow between now and December, and granted we're big underdogs in both, but those apart it's

Dundee United (a)

Falkirk (h)

Hibs (h)

Kilmarnock (a)

Dundee (h)

That is a very winnable set of fixtures. We're past the excuses stage now.

Never seen that coming. It was a shit performance to be honest but the three points very much needed (although not deserved) but every team needs to be able win ugly when things are not as they should be. So well done for that.
Mouloua looks lively and I also think we have a decent player and goal scorer in him. Playing him in a two up front formation alongside Nisbet sit he way we should be setting up, so let's hope we go with this.

It is rather concerning that we only had 35% possession at home to one of the worst form teams in the league. any half decent outfit would have beaten us, I am pretty sure of that. But hey ho three points is three points and very much needed so well done for that.
Fk sake Robinson get these lads into Cormack park this morning and introduce them to the basics, and football for dummies.
Fk sake min tell them when they get the ball look for someone in the same colour of shirt as them and give the ball to him (it is nae fukin rocket science)
That on Saturday was some of the worst passing I have ever.