Remember and do your predictors folks

 

Score http://www.thedandies.co.uk/messageboard/index.php?topic=6078.0

Guess the crowd http://www.thedandies.co.uk/messageboard/index.php?topic=6076.0

BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/sportscotland/predictor/index.shtml

 

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/856931

 

Tomorrow’s Dons game at Celtic has taken on a whole new significance – but Neil Simpson isn’t fazed

 

Hard work. Two words which will today take on extra significance at Pittodrie as the Aberdeen first team arrives for work on the eve of the biggest game of the season to date.

 

Tomorrow, Jimmy Calderwood sends his team out to face Celtic at Parkhead in what could prove a pivotal moment in the campaign.

 

After three consecutive defeats, victory against the odds over the SPL champions would stem the wave of criticism and turn the tide back in the manager’s favour.

 

Defeat would set up a home match against Hibs next weekend which would provide the sternest examination of Calderwood’s character.

 

For those who work within the confines of Pittodrie, there is no secret surrounding the solution to the current troubles.

 

Neil Simpson, an assistant director of the club’s youth academy, has backed the current crop of players to make amends for the disappointment of recent weeks by producing a positive performance against Celtic tomorrow.

 

Simpson said: “It is easy to be critical. We all want our team to do well because we are all supporters, but there also has to be an appreciation that there are no easy games in Scottish football.

 

“The only way forward is to get back on the training ground, roll up the sleeves and work through this difficult period to build up a series of results.

 

“There was nothing between Aberdeen and Dundee United at the weekend and Hamilton won by just a single goal the week before.

 

“That is typical of the SPL, where the dividing line between success and failure is so thin.

 

“Outside of the Old Firm there really is little between any of the teams.

 

“It is all about which team is the most solid and can get the first goal.

 

“It just needs somebody to spark something for us, to break the bad run and get a win on the board.

 

“I am sure the players will battle on and come through the other side.â€

 

Calderwood’s new recruits have had swift introductions to life as an Aberdeen player and the pressure the role brings.

 

Simpson believes the summer additions have already shown they are capable of shouldering the burden, but has called for patience as the new side settles. He remembered the early days of some of his fellow Gothenburg Greats.

 

He said: “It took Peter Weir a season to settle. Mark McGhee had a terrible first year at the club and I can remember Gordon Strachan being absolutely blasted by Billy McNeill just after he arrived. We can learn from that.

 

“The difference now is you do not always get the time in the modern game to ride out the transitional periods. We always expect players to slot right in, but it is bound to take time for a new team to gel.

 

“It is no different from any company taking in new staff and everyone has to get to know one another before you get the best out of them.

 

“The difference with the players I mentioned in the 1980s is they were coming into a team with a lot of experience already in it. We have a very youthful team at Aberdeen at the moment and the experience will build as they all play more games.â€

Word for word, it was this:

 

Did you send that in to the Beeb?  Or are the Beeb reading this forum? 

 

The Beeb must be reading this forum, I've never sent anything to them and don't even watch their results service.

They demanded a response and got it. Now Aberdeen have to maintain it.

 

If we had played the way we did against Rangers and Celtic so far we would easily be in 3rd position, how can the team be so Jekyll and Hyde? Which one will turn up on Saturday? Fuck knows!

 

The best side lost as Reds go down

Dons show pride and passion as Hoops get rub of the green

 

By Charlie Allan 

 

Published: 29/09/2008

 

WELL done to the Dons for restoring pride with a performance full of passion, character and attacking football.

 

Celtic boss Gordon Strachan clearly disagrees, but the better team lost.

 

It’s the best display I’ve seen from a Dons side at Celtic Park for a long time, probably since the days when Strachan was showing a bit more class in an Aberdeen shirt as a player.

 

If they could play like they did against the champions every week, they would be ripping the rest of the SPL clubs to bits. 

 

The Dons even overcame the loss of injured skipper Scott Severin and an early goal to deliver the sort of display that must have had the hearts of their small, noisy, band of fans bursting with pride.

 

I won’t have been the only one fearing the worst when Celtic took the lead after only 14 minutes.

 

Mark Kerr seemed to have snuffed out the danger posed when Georgios Samaras made a great run forward into the Dons area but then got in tangle with team-mate Richard Foster.

 

The ball broke to Scott Brown and he laid the ball off for Jan VENNEGOOR OF HESSELINK to net with a left foot shot from 10 yards.

 

The Dons almost replied instantly when Zander Diamond’s header was cleared off the Celtic line by Marc Crosas and Lee Miller somehow fired a close range effort over the bar.

 

Severin’s injury looked as if it would be a blow, but his replacement, Charlie Mulgrew, was sensational.

 

The Dons missed a couple of other chances and Jamie Langfield made good saves from Samaras and Nakamura before Mulgrew took centre stage.

 

The Dons’ equaliser is one for the football purists.

 

A series of quick passes down the right ended with Miller knocking the ball to Mackie who then picked out the overlapping Jared Hodgkiss.

 

The young Englishman’s perfectly flighted cross was helped on by Miller, and MULGREW was at the back post to batter a 10-yard volley home.

 

MULGREW followed that with a sensational 30-yard curling free-kick that clipped the inside of Artur Boruc’s left post on the way into the net.

 

Strachan, to his credit, then went 4-3-3 and the Hoops were saved in the latter stages by substitutes Aiden McGeady and Scott McDonald.

 

The equaliser came when McGeady’s excellent cross from the right reached McDONALD at the back post and he nodded the ball home from close range.

 

The Hoops pinched the points when Mulgrew and Foster dithered on the ball out on the left.

 

McGeady collected it and his cross was bundled in at the front post by VENNEGOOR OF HESSELINK, despite Diamond’s gallant efforts to keep it out.

 

The Dons could have made it 3-3 deep in injury time when Sone Aluko’s fine pass sent Mackie clear through the middle, but Boruc came out to narrow the angle and forced the striker to poke his shot from the edge of the area wide of the keeper’s left post.

 

It was a cruel end to a game that Aberdeen deserved more from.

 

Better team lost  :lolabove:

Just watched the highlights of the match, the play leading up to our first was fantastic, some of the best football i've seen us play in a long time!

Just watched the highlights of the match, the play leading up to our first was fantastic, some of the best football i've seen us play in a long time!

 

Just watched them too, what was our top stiker doing with that hook over the bar at the start of the game 

Just watched them too, what was our top stiker doing with that hook over the bar at the start of the game 

 

I thought there should of been a pen for a foul on Mackie in that. Mackie's chance at the end was unfortunate, if the ball spun the other way it would of went in i think. When theres the screenshot of the fans when we equalised im in it