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Dons_1988

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Posts posted by Dons_1988

    Jimmy Thelin - Aberdeen's new Manager

    in Scottish Premiership General Chatter

    Posted

    8 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:

    I don't think hyperbole is really fair.

    Aberdeen have been bottom six two years in three. The general trend for them is poor. They've repeatedly made bad decisions, and off the pitch they have an enormous problem that their rivals don't have. Every other "big" Scottish club has hit historically poor performance when addressing stadium issues, and Aberdeen have that still to come. Maybe they buck the trend in that regard, but nothing about how the club is run suggests that'll be the case.

    Aberdeen finished ahead of us and we had to take that on the chin for a bit, which wasn't enjoyable. But I think in the long-term, we'll be seen to have had a better last decade.

    Of course I hope Aberdeen have a bad decade. It would be very funny. But it's far from purely wishful thinking, as any sober observer can see.

    Of course it’s hyperbole. The club today is a different place from when Derek mcinnes walked in the door in 2013, and that’s for the better. 

    Im not going to comment on whether hearts have had a better decade, as I really don’t know or care if that’s True, but yes hearts seem to be doing well at this moment. But you citing the last couple of seasons on-pitch performance as some sort of indicator of our long term future is silly, or to suggest we completely wasted our period of ‘success’ just isn’t true. 

    Things are poor right now on the pitch and we have to take that on the chin, but your slightly condescending ‘my opinion is correct to any sober observer’ stuff is hopeful on your part, imo. 

    0

    Jimmy Thelin - Aberdeen's new Manager

    in Scottish Premiership General Chatter

    Posted

    12 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

    I've not posted about Aberdeen for ages.

    You can engage with the post of ignore the post. What grinds the forum to a halt is poor responses along the lines of what we've seen above.

    I stand by the post, by the way. I think it's an entirely fair picture of Aberdeen's situation. I think you'll struggle to keep up with Hearts and Hibs over the next decade due to your failure to make hay while the sun shone. And I was reponding to people on here referencing your good run over us and putting it in context.

    You did have it over us for quite a while. But what do you have to show for it? Aberdeen were asleep at the wheel while Hearts and Hibs were getting stuff done.

    Except it’s an entirely hyperbolic post which doesn’t really reflect reality. 

    The club rid itself of the debt that had been hanging over us for years, attracted plenty new investment and built a training ground in that period. 

    We reached a point where performances on the pitch plateaued as we lost players and the lack of recruitment infrastructure and short term thinking on the pitch came to bite. We’ve tried to address that in the last few years (yes, at times hilariously badly) but broadly that infrastructure is moving in the right direction. I think we’ve tried to do too much too quickly and made a complete arse of a lot of it in the process. 

    I mean, I’m sure there was a club in recent times that changed the structure of their football department, introduced a new model, signed about 40 players every window, hired all sorts of managers including their director of football and got relegated in the process. I’m told that club is now miles ahead of everybody at everything. 

    This isn’t a prediction that everything works out great for us, but the work done to sort out the balance sheet and infrastructure of the club whilst performing well has allowed a platform for progression. Whether we take it or not is up for debate for now, your characterisation of us though is based in reality but laced with hyperbole and your hopes for how this plays out. 

    7

    The Famous Aberdeen - Season 2022/23

    in Scottish Premiership General Chatter

    Posted

    12 minutes ago, tarapoa said:

    I think the model the club are following is absolutely correct.

    The market for UK nationals is now so fked up due to post-Brexit quotas, that there's just little value for money.

    In the domestic market, we got definite success in the past decade in moving for standout players from the smaller-budget top flights (e.g. Shinnie, McLean, Hayes, Ferguson).

    Hearts landing Dhanda, Spittal and that Livi jobber is maybe a step down from that (Devlin level signings) - but right now the likely destination for the brightest looking prospects - McCowan, Cameron or Armstrong would likely be the English Championship.  This is almost certainly what Barron has his mind set on.

    Shopping in the nordic and eastern European markets is probably like a trip to TK Maxx.  A lot of crap to look through, but in there somewhere are a couple of gems.

    I note JT has used the African market significantly too judging by Elfsborg's current squad, so our recruitment dude will be busy with those Mali second division matches.

    I like our model but I think it requires balance. We can’t build an entire team of data led players like we have in previous windows. 

    Signing fewer of those players with a greater level of due diligence and supplementing that with a domestic market (yes brexit has changed it but McGrath and devlin are, unfortunately, two of the best signings from the summer) and loan market to ensure the squad is competitive seems to be a reasonable tweak to the current model, in my opinion. 

    1

    The Famous Aberdeen - Season 2022/23

    in Scottish Premiership General Chatter

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, DukDukGoose said:

    I'd imagine there was a gentlemans agreement in place with Bojan when we were turning down big offers last summer.

    He's more than done his time as far as I am concerned.

    Yeah agreed he will be away and he’s earned that. It’s all in the model. 

    I haven’t given it nearly enough thought to go through each position tbh but my hope would be that we don’t once again try and revamp everything in one window. 

    would be good if we could prioritise 3-5 key positions and focus on getting those right now, then identifying young players we’ve earmarked for development and from then you look at shorter term options through loan deals or more mundane spfl signings. We then develop on it during subsequent windows. 

    As a quick run through, I’d say the spine of the team - keeper, centre half and centre midfield (with a particular focus on bringing the right balance to it) are the top priorities, then An attacking option that provides more width and pace, then maybe fullback/striker.

    If we have a good window on the spine of the team then I’m happy to accept sticking with some mediocre players like devlin etc in the shorter term if needed.

     

    5

    What's the most "Tin Pot" thing you've seen in the SPFL

    in Scottish Premiership General Chatter

    Posted

    1 hour ago, kingjoey said:

    I like Hampden, and I like going there to see Aberdeen and Scotland. Interesting on Saturday though getting our food pre match. Turnstiles opened at 11.00 and we were in about 11.30. Up to a not busy counter and asked for a hot dog, Hampden pies are shite, and a bovril. I could see the puzzlement on the girl's face. I said "bovril" three times and she eventually went away and came back with a wee Glaswegian lassie who showed her what a bovril was. Then she wandered about with the cup for about 30 seconds and came back to me. "No hot water. Will be 5 minutes." My friend was at the other end of the counter and when he asked a different person for his bovril she came back with a bottle of water. Obviously not a single second's training, and no hot water 30 minutes after gates open. Then the bloody screens went off after 10 minutes of the game for the remainder of the first half, so no idea how long had gone or was left. Not great. Apart from the game, which was magnificent. 

    You can’t blame them for thinking no one would be mad enough to be in at 11.30 so hadn’t switched the hot water on. 

    2

    The Famous Aberdeen - Season 2022/23

    in Scottish Premiership General Chatter

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, Rodhull said:

    Leven being looked at down south. Would be a little surprising. He's steadied the ship a bit but not like it's been an amazing turnaround under him or anything.

     

    :lol: That would be mad. With all respect to him, and I mean it because he’s done well in difficult circumstances, other than Saturday we’ve still largely been garbage. We’ve just steadied things a bit and stopped the bleeding. 

    1

    The Terrible Journalism & Tom English Thread

    in Scottish Premiership General Chatter

    Posted

    19 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

    Do some of you think there's a moral high ground that can be achieved by not watching English football? Where are the lines in the sand?

    I won't watch Celtic or Rangers.

    Don’t be so trivial. 

    There is clearly a moral scale here - someone who watches the top end of the premier league should be stripped of a vote in general elections, whilst someone who samples English non league football when available as well as being keenly interested in continental football should be fast tracked to high public office. 

    2

    Jimmy Thelin - Aberdeen's new Manager

    in Scottish Premiership General Chatter

    Posted

    Fair points but worth noting the consultants remit wasn’t just to appoint a manager. 

    It was a recognition that the entire football strategy that cormack had a vision for in the last few years had been implemented terribly. 

    Jimmy thelin may or may not be a good manager but they need all the component parts to be functioning properly for him to be a success. The head of recruitment has been a revolving door from day 1, Steven Gunn has been a director of football in name only, the strategy in appointing a manager has changed with pretty much every appointment. 

    These are all things that need to be more joined up and that’s essentially what the consultants are helping with, the hiring of a manager being one part of that. 

     

    8

    Chasing VAR out of Scotland

    in Scottish Premiership General Chatter

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Swello said:

    Aye - it's been quite interesting/depressing to see so many zealots replying to "this is ruining the fun" type of points with "offside is offside". Once again, I'm convinced it's folk that don't actually go to games who generally hold these views. 

    There seems to be a constituency of non-attending fans who get their main pleasure from transfer chat, contrived controversy and VAR decisions - who seem to have no conception of what it's actually like to be there to witness the sort of stuff that Coventry were doing yesterday (or even what Aberdeen almost did on Saturday). These are the folk that shite talk radio, clickbait drivel and pundits arguing with each other are aimed at.

    Yeah, I think it’s interesting that the pages and pages of arguing in our Match thread from Saturday is predominantly from people who (I presume) weren’t at the game. I was there and that will certainly not be my memory of it. 

    1
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