The Famous Aberdeen - Season 2022/23

[coprolite]

54 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Thats not what I'm saying, at all.

You can be crippled by fear and continuously back McInnes and his inability to turn you into a genuine 3rd force, believing that sacking him can only make you worse, or you can roll the dice.

We are currently third in the league though. Last time we rolled the dice we got McGhee. If that's not enough to give anyone the fear then i don't know what is. 

We beat Motherwell with a makeshift team last year with Leigh and some boy from brisl city in midfield. If that's the benchmark then we're ok. 

We played shite. It happens. Slightly more than it should but we haven't been playing like shite much. 

[DrewDon]

2 hours ago, Bob Mahelp said:

Every single club in Scotland, and I include the OF here, would love to have Ferguson and McCrorie.....a player McInnes laughably snatched from der *** and who will make us millions in a few years.....in central midfield. 

Rangers would "love to have McCrorie" in central midfield? Rangers let McCrorie go to us. 

[afc_blockhead]

8 hours ago, Killiefan said:

Behave, you’re cover players are well above the wage bracket provincial clubs can afford 

All relative.  Take 6 or 7 starters from Man City/Spurs/Chelsea etc and they often drop in performances and look disjointed too.

[afc_blockhead]

7 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Yes.

I'm not claiming Davidson is a better manager, or will even be a success for us, but the football under TW had become an absolute slog to watch, and it often felt like the whole idea was simply to counter our opponents plans. Under Davidson we've got a style, got a set up, and we're genuinely good to watch.

One of those things where you're so afraid to move away from a long term, successful, manager you'll just accept the guff they're serving up, as you're half under the impression its either guff and success, or failure, when that's not necessarily the case.

Here in lies the fickel nature of fans.

Plenty of St Johnstone fans on here (including when we last beat you) spent weeks saying that your team was just hoofing crosses in the box aimlessly and maybe Davidson was the wrong appointment/the style was shite. I saw  those sort of comments from plenty of your fans.

Next time you are on a shit run (which will happen as it does to us all) i can guarantee you and your fellow fans will be questioning your own manager and his tactics / ability to to the job.

Dont delude yourself while on a decent run results wise that twisting rather than sticking has worked. Wright often had you top 6 . If Davidson fails to do that your allusion to being successful and playing better football at the same time will be totally untrue.

[Irrational Behaviour]

Coincidentally, it was about this time last year where we went on one awful run. We played Hibs away on the 7th Dec 2019 and lost 3-0. Including said game, we only managed to take 19 points from a possible 42 before covid occured. 

There have only been a few games this season where I thought we played quite well. As mentioned before, when Watkins was our focal point, we just looked a far better team.

On the contrary, we don't score many goals, I think out of our 8 wins, only 3 of those have seen us win by a margin of more than 1 goal.  Takeaway Ferguson's pens, we'd be pretty average. 

For the wage bill and squad size we have, we should be doing far better. 

 

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

1 hour ago, Irrational Behaviour said:

Coincidentally, it was about this time last year where we went on one awful run. We played Hibs away on the 7th Dec 2019 and lost 3-0. Including said game, we only managed to take 19 points from a possible 42 before covid occured. 

There have only been a few games this season where I thought we played quite well. As mentioned before, when Watkins was our focal point, we just looked a far better team.

On the contrary, we don't score many goals, I think out of our 8 wins, only 3 of those have seen us win by a margin of more than 1 goal.  Takeaway Ferguson's pens, we'd be pretty average. 

For the wage bill and squad size we have, we should be doing far better. 

 

I think we're actually where we should be, going by wage bills alone. We pay marginally more than Hibs, who are below us, and up until this season were on a par with Hearts, who somehow managed to have a complete disaster last year. 

We are where we're meant to be, and aside from a couple of seasons where Motherwell out-performed everyone, we've been very consistent in the league for years now.

We've also reached countless semi-finals and finals, and that's the aspect where McInnes falls short. There were golden opportunities to be had in the period where Rangers were 2 leagues below and Celtic were rubbish under Deilia. Other teams took advantage of that, we didn't. 

Squad size, well I think it's time to dump players who carry a wage and offer nothing. Ojo, Leigh, Main, Logan, Hernandez, Edmondson, and Devlin are all players that seem unable to cope with the step up that we've taken this season. We can't dump them all, but when we do play them we under-perform so badly the club has a right to ask what they're doing there.

Dean Campbell needs loaned out to learn how to influence a game. 

To those Aberdeen fans (and others) who are desperate to see McInnes gone, you're going to be waiting a while. It's hard for a manager who's been at a club for 7 years to constantly keep on re-inventing sides that challenge......while the football hasn't always been great, in general McInnes has managed it. 

He'll be here for a while yet. 

[Frank Grimes]

He’ll be off when his contract runs out in 2022, I reckon

Some fans also seem to forget we are paying McInnes an eye watering wage and the club have backed him with piles of cash at every transfer window 

The missed opportunities starting with the Scottish Cup in 2014 ironically are hurting him more now than it did at the time. If he had bagged even one more trophy then people would probably be cutting him a lot more slack.

The LC win in ‘14 looks more like a fluke as the years go on

 

[Green Day]

27 minutes ago, Frank Grimes said:

He’ll be off when his contract runs out in 2022, I reckon

Some fans also seem to forget we are paying McInnes an eye watering wage and the club have backed him with piles of cash at every transfer window 

The missed opportunities starting with the Scottish Cup in 2014 ironically are hurting him more now than it did at the time. If he had bagged even one more trophy then people would probably be cutting him a lot more slack.

The LC win in ‘14 looks more like a fluke as the years go on

 

I have no idea what transfer fees etc Aberdeen have been paying, but you are certainly paying salaries a fair bit above everyone else bar Rangers and Celtic.

@Bob Mahelpsuggests your salaries are above marginally Hibs, but the last time someone did an assessment of salaries it was about £25k pa, so at least 10% more I would say?

It is tricky when it gets to winning stuff though -  Rangers and Celtic are not paying 10% more than our tier - Their average salaries are 2, 3, 4 x what we pay, so winning something against that backdrop is very difficult.

Think yourselves lucky, some Hibs das foam at the mouth if we dont play brazilian football on a san marino salary bill.........................

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

In my Dons supporting lifetime the only managers I can think of who have come in an instantly improved the club from the level they were at previously are Fergie (who actually took over a great team), Alex Smith, Jimmy Calderwood and Derek McInnes. 

McInnes also has a better winning record than any AFC manager in history aside from Fergie, which is pretty remarkable given that he's been in charge of more games than any other manager since Davie Halliday in the early 50's. 

From May 2009 to April 2013, we only won 40 of 147 games. Then McInnes came in and we've won 180 of 337, with only 89 losses. That record in itself deserves respect. 

His achilles heel (like Calderwood) has been the cups. As Hibs, Saints (x2), Ross County, ICT, Killie et al proved, there were trophies to be had in a period where Rangers were missing and Celtic were awful. 

We seemed to be cursed with bad draws, bad luck and one off bad performances, and then Celtic appointed Rogers and nobody has won a shit since. 

There's also a case to be made for the 2014-2015 season, where we were top of the league in January then dropped away , and the next season where a failure to gamble and invest in the transfer window cost us the chance to actually win the league. 

I suppose the question is, given McInnes's record, would anyone have done better or will do better in the future ? I don't know....someone could come in and get luck in the Scottish cup where Celtic and Rangers slip up early, and we win it out of nowhere, but in terms of overall consistency and league performance, it's hard to see how anyone would have done/do better. It's not me saying that, it's history and statistics. 

[big al]

10 hours ago, DrewDon said:

Rangers would "love to have McCrorie" in central midfield? Rangers let McCrorie go to us. 

To be honest, Ferguson wouldn’t get a game in their midfield either.

[tarapoa]

19 hours ago, ken es said:

However i believe the strain is starting to show and i can sense it in his interviews,gone is the feel good factor the relaxed smile and instead he has become defensive .

Incidentally, I got the invite for the AberDNA Q&A on Tuesday, and notice McInnes isn't even doing it this year. It's Neil Simpson and Scott Wright.

Much as I could listen to Simmy all night - one of the 'money can't buy experiences' that persuaded me to part cash for Black & Gold and then DNA Premium was a fairly open and candid forum with the manager and Doc. 

The earlier ones were very good (2 hours with a comp pie/drink at HT) , but In recent times, it was filtered down to one hour with Dave McDermid censoring all the questions before asking them - now seemingly McInnes isn't even bothering with it (albeit it's virtual this time).

 

Edited November 29, 2020 by tarapoa

[Frank Grimes]

Celtic out the cup 

Another potential missed opportunity 

Don’t ever dare consider someone could manage the Club more effectively though 

 

[BucksburnDandy]

We can't afford to get rid of McInnes on his wages. However he should be under severe pressure at the moment - his team have underperformed badly in the last month and with Celtic going out, a massive missed opportunity in the League Cup.

Couple that with finishing behind Motherwell and Kilmarnock in the last two seasons and it is difficult to argue that he has underperformed. The football has gone backwards since Watkins got injured and the results have followed performances in going backwards.

McInnes won't be sacked but the support should not accept performances that we have witnessed in the last month, 30 minutes v Hibs aside.

[coprolite]

6 hours ago, Green Day said:

I have no idea what transfer fees etc Aberdeen have been paying, but you are certainly paying salaries a fair bit above everyone else bar Rangers and Celtic.

@Bob Mahelpsuggests your salaries are above marginally Hibs, but the last time someone did an assessment of salaries it was about £25k pa, so at least 10% more I would say?

It is tricky when it gets to winning stuff though -  Rangers and Celtic are not paying 10% more than our tier - Their average salaries are 2, 3, 4 x what we pay, so winning something against that backdrop is very difficult.

Think yourselves lucky, some Hibs das foam at the mouth if we dont play brazilian football on a san marino salary bill.........................

It's a mixed blessing. We outbid you for Ojo. 

[RussellAnderson]

its been a shite month, but we were looking good beforehand. McInnes big problem has been a failure to recognise the fact that the system we were playing only worked due to the specific playes we had.

You need two special midfielders to get away with playing a 2 in this league. McCrorie and Ferguson could essentially do the job of three players, Ojo and Leigh/Campbell cannot. 

The front three of hedges Watkins and Wright were so dynamic and interchangeable up top. You can put one "big man" in there, but two just isolates the creative option and starves us of movement and pressing ability. So many of our goals came from winning the ball high up the park. Cosgrove and Main/Edmundson together dont offer that, so we let teams  come onto us and when we win it back we have to play through 9 or 10 players who are banked up against us. 

Kennedy and particularly hayes were perfect wing backs in that system, because they have the engine to get up and down, the ability to break through the lines and offer an overlapping option to the forwards, and can cross well from deep. Without hayes in particular, our left flank has been both vulnerable AND toothless. 

Weve looked fine with one or two of these options  out, but with the squad so decimated by injury/covid, McInnes needed to identify that a different, simpler shape was required. Back to basics stuff to get us through the matches, particularly yesterdays. he didnt do that and weve paid for it. Im actually angrier today after Celtic got papped out. 

Another issue has been a failure to get a tune from hernandez and integrate him properly into the team. Theoretically he should be perfect for the RWB role, but something is wrong there. Im hesitant to blame the player because when he has played, hes actually looked alright. McInnes could do with wising up,  or at least providing some sort of explanation to the fans who could do with seeing some return from the 800k weve spent.

having said all that, you wont catch me calling for his head. Im not old enough to know any better. As Bob says, history (Fergie aside) tells us that much better probably isnt possible. Someone without McInnes baggage could come in and get lucky, but equally McInnes could get lucky in the Scottish this season. Celtic could get knocked out by someone else, and we can beat Rangers on our day on a big occasion (albiet this is as good as this Rangers have ever been). I dont see an outstanding candidate out there, and I still dont see another non-OF club in Scotland  who I would trade the last five years with, nor trade squads/managers with now. 

Im not #McInnesIN nor #McInnesOUT,  I am #WISEUPMcInnes

Confident that we can at least get Fergie and  McCrorie back soon and we will look quite a bit better. The timing of that Covid case was rotten. 

[Irrational Behaviour]

McInnes to Sunderland 

[low-life]

Are Ferguson and McCrorie available for next weeks game?

[Frank Grimes]

6 minutes ago, low-life said:

Are Ferguson and McCrorie available for next weeks game?

I think so 

[low-life]

3 minutes ago, Frank Grimes said:

I think so 

Cheers

[Baldie1980]

who though

Celtic out the cup 
Another potential missed opportunity 
Don’t ever dare consider someone could manage the Club more effectively though