The Famous Aberdeen - Season 2022/23

[Frank Grimes]

29 minutes ago, Jacky1990 said:

East Fife (7) have scored more goals in 2021 than you guys (5).

East Fife havent played since 9th Jan, some 8 weeks ago.

Mental stat.

Thanks Jacky 

[Hedgecutter]

2 hours ago, BucksburnDandy said:

I'm sad to have to agree with you unfortunately.

The stats back up the need for change:

1 goal in 9
5 goals in 13
2 wins in 13

Brechin have 5 goals in 9 games.

No wonder Michael Paton got a 3 year contract with those Aberdeen beating level stats.

[10menwent2mow]

I've defended McInnes for long enough but I'm done now. This can no longer be considered a blip or loss of form, this is now a serious concern and I doubt there are many who think McInnes can turn this round.

Squad is horrendously unbalanced
We have one proper full back (Logan) who can't get a sniff of playing. McInnes obsession with playing three at the back to shoehorn Taylor, Consi and Hoban into the side means that we play wingers who can't defend properly (Mclennan, Kennedy, Hayes) at wing back, or defenders who can't attack properly (McCrorie) in those positions. I genuinely don't know what the formation is meant to be at the moment, other than the 3 centre halfs.

The playing of wingers at full back, means we lack natural width when attacking. The 4-2-3-1 worked in the past because we had full backs who could get forward and we had Hayes and Mcginn to play wide. We've not got in behind teams wide properly since the Utd game in January and even then, the crossing was absolute muck.

The lack of a plan B is so disturbing, playing 3 centre halfs against Hamilton at home can only be excused if Hoban and Considine are going to be encouraged to join in the attack, they weren't today. Kamberi and Hendry looked lost today. Ferguson's influence is waning and he is ineffective sitting in a deep lying midfield role without anyone who can be trusted round about him.

I don't think McInnes is capable of rethinking how he can put together a squad, the football on show is muck and we need a change before we slip back into mid table obscurity, which let's face it, is where we'd be if the rest of the league wasn't guff. The fact we still even have a chance of 3rd reflects so poorly on everyone else, not on anything we've done. We'll likely end the season with less than 60 points, regression again.

TLDR? McInnes Oooooooooot

[Irrational Behaviour]

Really like that post, 10menwent2now. 

It's the formation and the fundamentals that come with it that's causing us problems. Like you've said, we're continuing to play players out of position to accommodate it.

During the McInnes tenure, we've always been reliant on scoring goals from crossing. Something we did exceptionally well from the early days. Particularly Hayes and McGinn playing as wingers when they were given the opportunity to collect the ball in the final 3rd and attack a potentially isolated full back.  

With them playing as wing backs, and this applies to Kennedy, Mclennan etc. They receive the ball far too deep which in turns takes us longer to create an opportunity. At the moment, we're crossing the ball when the opposition are in a decent defensive shape. On top of that, if our wingers are already in an advanced position and have had to move the ball on. We then rely on Hoban, McCrorie, Considine having to make crosses and it's just not their game. 

I don't think it's our strikers that's the problem, it's our chance creation. Far too many times our final ball hits the first man, is over hit or is put into an area which is already heavily defended. 

 

 

[Don exotic]

21 minutes ago, Irrational Behaviour said:

Really like that post, 10menwent2now. 

It's the formation and the fundamentals that come with it that's causing us problems. Like you've said, we're continuing to play players out of position to accommodate it.

During the McInnes tenure, we've always been reliant on scoring goals from crossing. Something we did exceptionally well from the early days. Particularly Hayes and McGinn playing as wingers when they were given the opportunity to collect the ball in the final 3rd and attack a potentially isolated full back.  

With them playing as wing backs, and this applies to Kennedy, Mclennan etc. They receive the ball far too deep which in turns takes us longer to create an opportunity. At the moment, we're crossing the ball when the opposition are in a decent defensive shape. On top of that, if our wingers are already in an advanced position and have had to move the ball on. We then rely on Hoban, McCrorie, Considine having to make crosses and it's just not their game. 

I don't think it's our strikers that's the problem, it's our chance creation. Far too many times our final ball hits the first man, is over hit or is put into an area which is already heavily defended. 

 

 

The other problem is how predictable this is for the opposition. Without Hedges/wright we never play to feet through the middle. With our poor crossing in open play we would be as well drawing free kicks and hoping Mcginn can improve his crossing.

[10menwent2mow]

We are in agreement then. The other major issue with the set up is that Hamilton could have spent the whole week in front of the tactics board absolutely certain how we'd approach the game. The names may be different from time to time but Brian Rice could've bet his house (pun intended) on what we'd do and its pretty easy to nullify. Granted, we were never really tactically flexible when we were winning games with the 4-2-3-1 formation in the past, but we had the ability to blow teams away, this just doesn't exist anymore.

Hamilton could, and perhaps should, have nicked a goal yesterday, if they had, they almost certainly would've won the game. There was a time during this run (Utd at Pittodrie, even County away despite the result) when I thought we were creating chances and not taking them, there were other games where excuses could be found (the wind in the St Mirren game). Now we've regressed to not even making the Hamilton defence or goalie work particularly hard for their clean sheet.

I'm not going to lambast McInnes like some are because I think over the years he has earned the right to be respected by the Aberdeen support and will ultimately be looked back on favourably but this is far too far gone now.

[highland_mechanic]

1 hour ago, 10menwent2mow said:

We are in agreement then. The other major issue with the set up is that Hamilton could have spent the whole week in front of the tactics board absolutely certain how we'd approach the game. The names may be different from time to time but Brian Rice could've bet his house (pun intended) on what we'd do and its pretty easy to nullify. Granted, we were never really tactically flexible when we were winning games with the 4-2-3-1 formation in the past, but we had the ability to blow teams away, this just doesn't exist anymore.

Hamilton could, and perhaps should, have nicked a goal yesterday, if they had, they almost certainly would've won the game. There was a time during this run (Utd at Pittodrie, even County away despite the result) when I thought we were creating chances and not taking them, there were other games where excuses could be found (the wind in the St Mirren game). Now we've regressed to not even making the Hamilton defence or goalie work particularly hard for their clean sheet.

I'm not going to lambast McInnes like some are because I think over the years he has earned the right to be respected by the Aberdeen support and will ultimately be looked back on favourably but this is far too far gone now.

Am I right in thinking McInnes is the 3rd longest serving manager in either England or Scotland? I know Sean Dyche at Burnley has been in his job longer than Derek.

We are stale and very dull to watch. Yes it's a results business but it's also an entertainment business. I would have been interested to see what yesterday's attendance would have been in normal times.

McInnes' biggest fault to me is his rigid formation systems. He's a safety first manager and would much rather win 1-0 than 5-3. Fine if it works but at the moment we are barely looking like we will score.

His red tv interview after yesterday's match when he emphasised the importance of the clean sheet summed him up to me. It's Hamilton at home ffs.

[10menwent2mow]

There's certainly f**k all wrong with the defence, we've only conceded 6 goals in the last 10 games, keeping 6 clean sheets in that time. That should be the platform for at least 20 points from those games, we have 10. Now I'm not advocating that we should win every game 4-2 like the Hamilton one earlier in the season but the 2-1 against St Johnstone on Boxing Day was the first game since that Hamilton game where we managed to out score the opposition. The average number of goals per game in the league is 2.41, our matches average 1.94 this season, comfortably the lowest in the league, only St Mirren are anywhere near 2 a game (2.06). If we were winning every game 1-0 or were missing hat loads of chances, none of this would really matter, but we aren't. Of the 62 goals, 21 came from 4 games, (3-3,4-2,1-4,0-4) and two of them were absolute scuddings.

[tamthebam]

34 minutes ago, highland_mechanic said:

Am I right in thinking McInnes is the 3rd longest serving manager in either England or Scotland? I know Sean Dyche at Burnley has been in his job longer than Derek.

We are stale and very dull to watch. Yes it's a results business but it's also an entertainment business. I would have been interested to see what yesterday's attendance would have been in normal times.

McInnes' biggest fault to me is his rigid formation systems. He's a safety first manager and would much rather win 1-0 than 5-3. Fine if it works but at the moment we are barely looking like we will score.

His red tv interview after yesterday's match when he emphasised the importance of the clean sheet summed him up to me. It's Hamilton at home ffs.

The current 4 longest serving managers are:

Simon Weaver - Harrogate Town (2009!)

Sean Dyche - Burnley

Gareth Ainsworth - Wycombe Wanderers

Oor Deeks.

[betting competition]

15 minutes ago, tamthebam said:

The current 4 longest serving managers are:

Simon Weaver - Harrogate Town (2009!)

Sean Dyche - Burnley

Gareth Ainsworth - Wycombe Wanderers

Oor Deeks.

Jim McInally is the longest serving manager in Scottish football with Peterhead

[tamthebam]

1 minute ago, betting competition said:

Jim McInally is the longest serving manager in Scottish football with Peterhead

Fairy nuff. The BBC list of managers only covers the Scottish Premiership (b*****ds)

[betting competition]

I would keep McInnes till the end of the season and then make the change. We don't look in danger in finishing outside the european places (expect top 5 to get into europe). I think McInnes deserves that and to leave in a mutual agreement would be better for the club. 

I think the board have got to take a lot of blame why we have an unbalanced squad with the way things went in January although McInnes signing 3 strikers and no any wide players was disappointing.  

Shame how things are turning out although given time I think McInnes will be remember fondly by the fans. 

 

 

[10menwent2mow]

I would keep McInnes till the end of the season and then make the change. We don't look in danger in finishing outside the european places (expect top 5 to get into europe). I think McInnes deserves that and to leave in a mutual agreement would be better for the club. 
I think the board have got to take a lot of blame why we have an unbalanced squad with the way things went in January although McInnes signing 3 strikers and no any wide players was disappointing.  
Shame how things are turning out although given time I think McInnes will be remember fondly by the fans. 
 
 

I agree with most of that.

However, I don't think we needed wide players in the window, unless you mean full backs. Hedges wasnt injured until after the window closed, we recalled Ross and still had Mcginn, Mclennan, Hayes and Kennedy all capable of playing wide. Apart from no full backs, we have plenty players but the reason the squad is so imbalanced is that we have zero players capable of playing the wide defensive positions properly.

Against Hamilton at home in the past we'd have pretty much played 2 at the back. The full backs would've been overlapping/supporting the wingers and we'd have been firing crosses into the box. I'm getting sick of hearing that 'Hayes played left back/left wing back for Celtic', aye he did, but they were attacking all the time. He had to do very little defending, he can't afford to just not think about defending for us. This isn't a criticism of Hayes, but he's still a winger, so either play him as that, with no defensive responsibility, or don't bother, same goes for Kennedy/Mclennan on the other side. Amount of times Kennedy has got the ball 1 on 1 this season and he's almost forgotten what to do or thinks that he can't hit the byline because he's got defensive responsibility and can't afford to get caught that high up the pitch.

Logan, while he may be past it, is still the only full back we have, get him in the fucking team and if Ngwenya is the only proper left back we have, get him in the side as well. If that means 1 of Taylor/Consi/Hoban missing out, so be it. Same goes for the middle of the park. If 2 of McGeough/Campbell/McCrorie/Ferguson have to miss out, c'est la vie. Then it's pick 4 from Hayes/McGinn/Mclennan/Kennedy/Kamberi/Hendry/Ross/Hornby as either two wingers and a front 2 or an interchanging 3 behind a lone striker. At the moment, it's a case of put Lewis, the three centre halfs, Ferguson, McCrorie and Hayes on the team sheet and then f**k about with the rest, as long as its 3 at the back, wing backs and 2 (sometimes 3) central midfielders.

[Willie adie]

49 minutes ago, betting competition said:

I would keep McInnes till the end of the season and then make the change. We don't look in danger in finishing outside the european places (expect top 5 to get into europe). I think McInnes deserves that and to leave in a mutual agreement would be better for the club. 

I think the board have got to take a lot of blame why we have an unbalanced squad with the way things went in January although McInnes signing 3 strikers and no any wide players was disappointing.  

Shame how things are turning out although given time I think McInnes will be remember fondly by the fans. 

 

 

He will be remembered fondly for his first 5 yrs, the consolidation, the marked improvement, the next 3 yrs have been a downward spiral, and reeks of overstaying his welcome 

[DrewDon]

11 minutes ago, 10menwent2mow said:

 

 

I agree with most of that.

However, I don't think we needed wide players in the window, unless you mean full backs. Hedges wasnt injured until after the window closed, we recalled Ross and still had Mcginn, Mclennan, Hayes and Kennedy all capable of playing wide. Apart from no full backs, we have plenty players but the reason the squad is so imbalanced is that we have zero players capable of playing the wide defensive positions properly.

Against Hamilton at home in the past we'd have pretty much played 2 at the back. The full backs would've been overlapping/supporting the wingers and we'd have been firing crosses into the box. I'm getting sick of hearing that 'Hayes played left back/left wing back for Celtic', aye he did, but they were attacking all the time. He had to do very little defending, he can't afford to just not think about defending for us. This isn't a criticism of Hayes, but he's still a winger, so either play him as that, with no defensive responsibility, or don't bother, same goes for Kennedy/Mclennan on the other side. Amount of times Kennedy has got the ball 1 on 1 this season and he's almost forgotten what to do or thinks that he can't hit the byline because he's got defensive responsibility and can't afford to get caught that high up the pitch.

Logan, while he may be past it, is still the only full back we have, get him in the fucking team and if Ngwenya is the only proper left back we have, get him in the side as well. If that means 1 of Taylor/Consi/Hoban missing out, so be it. Same goes for the middle of the park. If 2 of McGeough/Campbell/McCrorie/Ferguson have to miss out, c'est la vie. Then it's pick 4 from Hayes/McGinn/Mclennan/Kennedy/Kamberi/Hendry/Ross/Hornby as either two wingers and a front 2 or an interchanging 3 behind a lone striker. At the moment, it's a case of put Lewis, the three centre halfs, Ferguson, McCrorie and Hayes on the team sheet and then f**k about with the rest, as long as its 3 at the back, wing backs and 2 (sometimes 3) central midfielders.

 

Even when McInnes played Hayes as a 'proper' winger in the past, he still had plenty of defensive responsibilities and he has always been a capable and willing defender for an attacking player. Earlier in the season, wing-back looked like a good fit for him at this stage in his career and it allowed him to have an influence in all thirds of the pitch.

If we are playing with a back four, which I think we should be with the players available to us at the moment, I think I'd rather have McCrorie at right-back than Logan - it's not ideal, but we know for sure that Logan is past it now and has to be moved on at the end of the season, and McCrorie should at least have the engine to get up and down the flank properly.

We do have a very unbalanced squad, unfortunately, and McInnes has to take a significant portion of the blame for that.

[Bogbrush1903]

3 hours ago, betting competition said:

I would keep McInnes till the end of the season and then make the change. We don't look in danger in finishing outside the european places (expect top 5 to get into europe). I think McInnes deserves that and to leave in a mutual agreement would be better for the club. 

I think the board have got to take a lot of blame why we have an unbalanced squad with the way things went in January although McInnes signing 3 strikers and no any wide players was disappointing.  

Shame how things are turning out although given time I think McInnes will be remember fondly by the fans. 

 

 

The season ends on May 15th, the players then go on holidays until the beginning of June, and we should join Second Qualifying Round for the UEFA Conference League in July. That is a short turn around time for the new manager to assess his squad, make his changes and get his ideas across in readiness for the first game of the season.

You're correct, it looks stick on that we'll finish 4th. We don't seem capable of challenging Hibs and Livingston now don't seem capable of challenging us. I suppose there's the Cup but there is a chance that the Scottish Cup  could be the last straw that breaks the camel's back rather than offering him one last chance of redemption for this season's shitshow.

Therefore, why wait until the end of the season? Are we going to allow sentimentality hamper our chances for next season?

Now is the time to say thank you and we wish you luck in your future endeavours...

Edited March 7, 2021 by Bogbrush1903

[Leith Green]

1 minute ago, Bogbrush1903 said:

Now is the time to say thank you and we wish you luck in your future endeavours.

No board in their right mind would be sacking McInnes right now with only half a dozen games left.

He has the team in 4th, fairly out of sight of 5th, still the possibility of 3rd - do you seriously think that results will get better under the youth team manager (or whoever would take his spot til summer) ?

[Dons_1988]

I wish this wretched season would just end to be honest.

[betting competition]

6 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

I wish this wretched season would just end to be honest.

Still got the Scottish cup to play for 

[10menwent2mow]

Still got the Scottish cup to play for 

Aye, we'll win the cup and he'll get a 5 year deal.