So, Friday really is a big one. Win this and who knows what will happen.  Deek clearly has the players fired up but I hope they don't get overawed by what will in all likelihood be an even more fiery home crowd than normal.  We've sold out our allocation, so they'll be plenty of support and let's hope we can see a performance like we did at the start of the season!

 

Will actually be in Aberdeen for the game, typical really that they're away when i'm there but hey ho.

 

I'd be tempted to change nothing in terms of line-up because if Shinnie is played at left back, the rest of the team generally pick themselves.  wonder if he'll go for Flood or Storie though.

 

In / out: Out

Pre matcher: ED's place

Match: The stag

Post matcher: Hopefully celebrating and manage to not miss the last train...

Prediction: 2-1 Dons, Church and Hayes

McGinn was far from the worst offender yesterday, yes he should have converted two of those chances but he was getting into these positions that church wasn't. I think it was bobby who mentioned it that it seems to have changed the way we've set up. Church did fuck all after scoring and constant crosses in were just being swept up. The game was there to be won yesterday and we failed to capitalise on it. Massively disappointing. Hearts tactics shouldn't have surprised us, but we looked like a rabbit in headlights after they equalised. Poor. Very poor.

Jesus, glad I didn't come on here last night. Fucking melt down. We got beaten by the team in third place at their ground - it really wasn't beyond the realms of possibility. Given that the goals came from two stupid errors, and we created several very good chances, it's not as disastrous as some are making out. We've not spent the amount of money that can guarantee us beating every other team in the league - it's unrealistic to expect so - we need to rely on luck, and 0 errors. The difference between our performance last night and the one earlier in the season was two converted chances. If we'd been 2 or 3 up in that first 20 minutes we'd have walked it. It was a very fine line.

 

The goals were very bad. The first was classic Brown. I still don't believe he's an improvement on Langfield, he's pish, but we all knew that as did McInnes. I think it was a gamble worth taking, which hasn't paid off (although not getting more outfield cover was very poor - Souttar for example would have been an obvious signing). The second was entirely avoidable, and absolutely wouldn't have happened to Hearts. Their players would have been screaming at the ref to stop the game and their centre half would have been rolling about like he'd been shot. Taylor was injured, and our players should have the nouse to get that game stopped (look at their player going down to waste time when Souttar was off). What the fuck Shinnie was doing going over to help him when the ball was in play, I've no idea. It perfectly highlighted the difference between Jack and Flood for me too. Flood was so unaware of what was going on around him because he was staring at the ball and getting dragged toward it. Jack would have looked up, realised his defender was down and dropped in to cover, he wouldn't have made a challenge, but slowed the play down and allowed players to get back in. As it was, Reynolds was left with a 50-50 split-second choice and in the end probably made the wrong decision to go with the winger rather than stay central. Finally, a better keeper would have noticed that no one was tracking Juanma, that he was going to get a free header and so would have hedged their bets by being a few yards off their line in order to be right in Juanma's face when he got the header. Brown was clinging to his post. He had to gamble.

 

We lost our shape a bit after that second goal, and we never looked like getting back in it. But it was a game we definitely could have won had luck gone with us. There is plenty of evidence in other games of us getting lucky and getting the win, we're just not good enough (read: don't spend enough money) to be able to win games with that many individual errors. The tims can afford a few mistakes in games. We only had one usable attacking sub on the bench yesterday.

 

Disagree that Brown was a gamble. He was a know quantity after his piss poor performances last season. Management made a very poor/lazy decision not to replace him last summer.

McGinn was far from the worst offender yesterday, yes he should have converted two of those chances but he was getting into these positions that church wasn't. I think it was bobby who mentioned it that it seems to have changed the way we've set up. Church did fuck all after scoring and constant crosses in were just being swept up. The game was there to be won yesterday and we failed to capitalise on it. Massively disappointing. Hearts tactics shouldn't have surprised us, but we looked like a rabbit in headlights after they equalised. Poor. Very poor.

 

Rooney in place of Church and we win that game comfortably.

Disagree that Brown was a gamble. He was a know quantity after his piss poor performances last season. Management made a very poor/lazy decision not to replace him last summer.

 

I can only imagine that the cost to get rid would be such that it would eat into the budget for a replacement and leave us with that little we couldn't actually get a keeper that would improve the team.

 

I fully expect that to be resolved this summer.

Rooney in place of Church and we win that game comfortably.

 

Agreed. Just doesn't offer enough. Yes he's scored a goal here and there but frankly, you put a tree trunk in those positions and it'll score those goals. The DG point is an interesting one, I think we would have done the trick, though that's easy enough to say when we've not had him for a few months.

Rooney in place of Church and we win that game comfortably.

 

Rooney did very little in the cup game at Tynecastle. I doubt he would have done much better than Church last night.

 

What that Hearts defence don't like is a smaller striker with quick movement. That's why they struggle against Leigh Griffiths and Jason Cummings, why Niall McGinn was able to get so many chances last night (unfortunately couldn't take them) and why our best performance against Hearts this season was when David Goodwillie was up front.

Rooney did very little in the cup game at Tynecastle. I doubt he would have done much better than Church last night.

 

What that Hearts defence don't like is a smaller striker with quick movement. That's why they struggle against Leigh Griffiths and Jason Cummings, why Niall McGinn was able to get so many chances last night (unfortunately couldn't take them) and why our best performance against Hearts this season was when David Goodwillie was up front.

 

Rooney got no service in the cup game. On Friday night we got plenty of decent balls into the box in the first half and created decent chances which Rooney would have taken.

A minor point but are we not 3 points worse off than we were at this time last year

Yep and the goal difference is worse too

Yon tic are also 3 points worse off but have the same goal difference

 

Last season the dons only managed 4 points from possible 15 after the split. 

Yep and the goal difference is worse too

Yon tic are also 3 points worse off but have the same goal difference

 

Last season the dons only managed 4 points from possible 15 after the split. 

 

I'm sure I read somewhere that McInnes wasn't that fussed after we weren't challenging anymore and chose to play more youth. It's not something I really recall though

 

We can't afford to do that this time or we'll end up third

Very frustrating result in the terms of the first half performance we put in against Hamilton to then throwing it out the window a few days later against Hearts, we have no consistency at all.

 

Think is I honestly think given our squad we were good enough to win this league but we have really just let ourselves down by not raising the performance bar at times. Celtic for me are probably at the weakest they have been for quite some time and they were there for the taking this season.

 

If we had been a little sharper in transfer dealings could we have done better, maybe. I still think we came out of the January window weaker than we entered it but who gets the finger pointed at for that, McInnes, the board??

 

I have said previously that I have a lot of respect for Stewart Milne for using his own money to keep the club a float over the year but this season with the club debt free and with a real genuine chance to challenge for the League would it really have killed the multi millionaire Mr Milne to reach in to his own pocket and give McInnes some cash to really bolster the squad.  I certainly dont think so. What would £500k and a few years wages do to Mr Milnes back balance, would it even scratch it?

 

Maybe what I have said is a tad harsh but it is just my frustrations venting out a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have said previously that I have a lot of respect for Stewart Milne for using his own money to keep the club a float over the year...

 

Source?

WHY OH WHY do we play the high ball against Hearts?!?!?!? It just doesn't work! You would've thought after the first 20 balls up to their defence that were easily cleared away we would have got service to our two men out wide. We were destroying them in the first 15 minutes by playing the ball up the wings. Johnny and Niall hardly touched the ball out wide after 25 minutes (I know McGinn missed some sitters in the box). Poor tactics by the team and McInnes. It was exactly the same in the cup match.

WHY OH WHY do we play the high ball against Hearts?!?!?!? It just doesn't work! You would've thought after the first 20 balls up to their defence that were easily cleared away we would have got service to our two men out wide. We were destroying them in the first 15 minutes by playing the ball up the wings. Johnny and Niall hardly touched the ball out wide after 25 minutes (I know McGinn missed some sitters in the box). Poor tactics by the team and McInnes. It was exactly the same in the cup match.

 

It's the same things we've been saying throughout his reign, no plan B. I like McInnes and he's clearly the best we've had in my time as an Dons supporter, but I wish he would learn from his mistakes.