tarapoa

Spoke to Richard Gordon not so long back, and his preferred candidate was Tony Doc.

Cowley

Bit of a sweeping statement, as there's also plenty of folk that say the complete opposite of that and would like the club to do what it takes to get Neil (if there is any kind of possibility in doing so, which may still be a long shot).

5.30pm 'ish on a Saturday is ideal - social hours for travelling and pre-match get-togethers for a few hours - and less people have work the next day, so can make a decent day out of it. They used that timeslot for the Hibs LC semi in November and I can't recall anyone moaning about it.

What's the average term of a manager these days anyway? We've gone from one extreme to the other, but I would guess it is around two years max across the board. Therefore if we lose a manager due to the team performing well and clubs with deeper pockets wanting them, then it is preferable to having to constantly sack them and pay them off. The club structure should be able to cope with manager/head coach change, but at AFC it seems to be only our Heads of Recruitment that get the career-enhancing opportunities.

Currently manager at Aarhus - 5th in Danish league. Given those carrying out the review are German, there was always going to one option from that part of the world. Ingolfsson also has Thelin and Neil as the others on the shortlist. Is he not normally quite high in the rumour to fact ratio? If that is true, I am encouraged by those three candidates.

Murray does his best to resemble an octopus with the DTs that's just finished using a pneumatic drill every time he's come up against AFC to date. Which means he's worth a fiver to score a hat-trick a week on Saturday.

Why did FIFA/IFAB even change it? Association football existed for over a century without anyone complaining too much. Yes, there was the odd controversy, but the reality is the amount of deliberate handballs could be measured in single figure percentages. Now, unless you use gaffer tape on your arms and a run around like penguins drill in training, you risk these 'infringements' being the decisive moment in games far too often. Rather than being wined and dined in Loch Lomond a couple of weeks back, Infantino should have locked up in a warehouse in Cumbernauld and coerced into signing this law into the dustbin forever.

Craig Reid remains an Aberdeen legend. That extra qualifying round allowed 15,000 paying spectactors to watch Latvian WWE side Daugava Riga get despatched 5-0 (8-0 on agg). Those players that survived the leg-breaking challenges, then had 180 minutes under their belt, allowing them the match sharpness to help knock out Eredivisie side Groningen in the next round. I still recall walking back to the Grotemarkt after that victory and pondering travel plans to the quite stunning city of San Sebastian - as well as another 17K Pittodrie crowd (which would have been bigger but for the strange decision to put all the basques in one exit). Meanwhile news was filtering through that Motherwell had been papped out by Icelandic opposition, despite presumably having Craig Reid in there pulling the strings? Re: Saturday - at least some of the game's-gone VAR lottery decisions that seemed to be going against us far more than in our favour were evened up a bit, but won't make Well fans feel any better. Looked like Bojan was on it again, and nice to see the wasted talent that is Clarkson look like he enjoyed a game of football for the first time in a while. At least there's now four sets of twitchy sphincters re: the play-off, as there was a danger we were going to be detached the way things were going.

Red TV interviews with Leven, Barron and Clarkson all quite revealing in getting under the bonnet of just why things have gone so badly this season.

Not intended to be flippant - I just find it a daft chant when it's clear that Cormack has such an overriding influence on everything, and that there are no obvious alternatives - no Arab sheikhs or a consortium of local money men from Rubislaw Den queuing down Pittodrie Street. His investment/controlling interest gives him every right to run things as he sees fit, and he is clearly astute enough to have been hugely successful in his business life (with a lot more wealth to come on back of dental software if rumours are to be believed). However, it is evident that unless he changes his own attitude to running a football club and dealing with people within it, that him sacking other board members will be minor window dressing. "Sack the board" and "You're not fit to wear the shirt" are fairly dull and standard things for angry fans to chant anyway.

How would sacking the board work? Does Cormack sack himself?

I said similar to my mate. Dens over the years often a happy hunting ground, but I have still seen quite a few defeats there - including the era when it was Caniggia/Nemsadze vs the likes of Jamie McQuilken/Leigh Hinds. Last night was probably the most stark difference between the quality on show between both sides that I have ever witnessed in this fixture. Maybe it's doing Dundee a disservice to suggest the main reason is how bad Aberdeen were as opposed to the home side being excellent - as ever, probably a bit of both.

Fans are maybe just conditioned to shout for any old crap as a penalty. There's all kind of jostling in penalty areas at set pieces, and 95%+ of handballs are not deliberate, and in the essence of the game should be ignored (worked for 100 plus years and nobody complained too much). However, Infantino and his IFAB merry band, along with VAR have changed football forever...........and are ruining it. We have been on the receiving end of a lot of these pishy handball decisions of late, but last night it ensured the right outcome in how the general flow of the game went.

Arriving back last night, I watched Sportscene and they were convinced it was a penalty. I must admit I really struggled with that conclusion - just looked like a whole load of bodies defending a set piece, and yet another player who's arms weren't by his side penguin-style maybe with the aid of gaffer type. However, Mackenzie does have a tendency to follow-up a decent game with an awful one and/or revert to this headsgone demeanour (eg Hibs LC semi). He also contrives to give away penalties far too often - whether they're justified or not. As I get older, despite the paucity of our own performance, I can sometimes learn to appreciate the opponents and Dundee looked a really good side last night. Lots of raw enthusiasm and tenacity, but some real quality in there too in terms of what they did with the ball when they won it back, which they kept doing with ease. Plenty options and overlaps available, whereas our players just ended up being forced to shell it into no man's loan to avoid being caught in possession. Tony Doc did a right job on us there.

Robson constructed a side to be effective at 'transition'' in bigger games. Probably the main reason our European performances in particular were credible. This took no account that 75% of our fixtures are against jobbers in our league who all set up fairly similarly - but certainly designed to pick off sides with ideas above their station (or our wage level). Actually found Dundee's play last night the most impressive and enterprising of all of them - more off the cuff and a little less formulaic.

As stated previously, Knutsen has long since been replaced by Jimmy Thelin as the nordic hipsters' choice. For the naesayers he will be 'the new Skovdahl'..

I’m not sure there is any worse than these pea-hearted imposters. in all the years of going to Dens Park, I do not believe I have seen us so comprehensively outplayed there. Their manager is worth a look maybe? Mackenzie’s habit of giving away tragic penalties and our keeper trying to break the world record for diving in the opposite direction don’t help either - but that would be to discard the reality of just how poor the whole side were tonight, bar maybe a couple of flashes of attempted composure from Hoilett.

This is quite an interesting website - especially discovering that Adam Le Fondre is on 20 times the weekly wage of Connor Barron. https://salarysport.com/football/scottish-premiership/aberdeen/

Nothing random about it - there was context due to an unprovoked ‘not famous anymore’ snider by a St Mirren fan. Merely pointing out that despite being relative nonentities, your club did leave one calling card with those beyond these shores in the form of giving one Dutch superstar an evening he’s apparently never forgotten.

Not sure what it was, but all the pre-match apathy/despair from us and hearing Kilmarnock were favourites and were taking 1,500 fans up - I just had a strange good feeling that we would win comfortably. For all I will acknowledge all the good McInnes did at AB24 (and that was a hell of a lot), there was just something about this kind of fixture (with that bit of momentum, excitement, expectation - call it what you like) that he would often fall short. As for the Europe vs likely Hampden gubbing v Celtic - I hear you. I would always take Europe, and actually love the early qualifiers in the summer and the chance to get on Bert Kassies' site and work out the permutations. Again coming back to Del, he won't give you a Connahs Quay type trainwreck, but will find a glass ceiling in QR3 in a tie you "could have won but for small margins". Our dream of playing Hearts in the final and completely wrecking their bonanza still lives on. Granted it's unlikely, especially with Shinnie hitting the self-destruct button with Beaton when he really didn't need to. However, on this occasion, Celtic maybe isn't the draw from hell that it generally is at other times.

Celtic in semi - at least we get the “end” with all the decent boozers then. Possibly overshadowed by other events, but anyone else a tad disappointed by the sheer stupidity of our captain (after such a fine performance) in getting himself suspended for this? Yes, Beaton is somewhere verging between incompetent and corrupt and made a ludicrous decision - but Shinnie surely knew he was a yellow away from suspension and yet still ran half the pitch to confront him. I could have understood a daft youngster doing that, but nae someone of his experience. Feels like deja vu with regards to Scottish Cup semis and surely now an emergency loan deal for Chidi Nwakali is imminent.

Finished below Sevco - which only tinpot clubs were doing around that time.

Knutsen as the hipsters' choice is old hat - everyone in the groovy gang is Team Jimmy Thelin now.