The Famous Aberdeen - Season 2022/23

[Rodhull]

48 minutes ago, Yorky said:

Maybe people just don’t agree ? It is possible. McInnes had a record at the club that’s there for all to see, it’s not even close to being matched with the two managers that followed him. People can talk of his time being up, the style of football, anything really but his record still stacks up against any other manager outside the old firm.

I'm sure plenty don't, it's easy for fans of other teams who didn't watch Aberdeen regularly to say Aberdeen fans should just accept relegation form, going on long goalless streaks multiple times across multiple seasons, playing like relegation contenders for half a season two seasons in a row, all whilst playing dreadful football that got worse and worse all the time as it was clear the manager had run out of ideas.

[tarapoa]

It was the same with Jimmy until we appointed mcinnes. 
I was a huge mcinnes fan, I still like and respect him. He made a huge contribution. But I’m absolutely comfortable that we parted at the right time and everyone just needs to move forward. 

Went stale, just move forward etc etc

Being able to defend would be a start. Happy to give JG every chance, but have more faith in him doing okay with a summer clean slate, than I do in his ability to avert disaster in these next four (possibly six) games as so many of this squad have already checked out.

[Dons_1988]

20 minutes ago, tarapoa said:

Went stale, just move forward etc etc

Being able to defend would be a start. Happy to give JG every chance, but have more faith in him doing okay with a summer clean slate, than I do in his ability to avert disaster in these next four (possibly six) games as so many of this squad have already checked out.

I was complaining about our defending when things looked pretty good back in the European qualifiers and I’ve been like a broken record all season. 

I don’t particularly see the relevance to mcinnes leaving though tbh. 

[bennett]

5 hours ago, Rodhull said:

That's down to the appointment of Glass being terrible not getting rid of McInnes. The form that got McInnes sacked was just as bad as we're playing now.

It's unreal this has to be explained multiple times.

McInnes would have gotten a European place though. 

 

[tarapoa]

I was complaining about our defending when things looked pretty good back in the European qualifiers and I’ve been like a broken record all season. 
I don’t particularly see the relevance to mcinnes leaving though tbh. 

The regime change was part of the move away from having a side that’s built on a solid base, to be replaced with this open attacking philosophy c/o chairman Dave and having the ear of the twitter moaners seemingly above all others.

We have succeeded in being open I suppose - and every other manager in this league knows it, and routinely manage to pick us off when the moment inevitably presents itself.

I believe Goodwin was the right appointment, but he’s unfortunately now got this squad of soft-centred sensitive huffy petted lips to deal with against sides that will be up for a scrap.

[Yorky]

2 hours ago, Rodhull said:

I'm sure plenty don't, it's easy for fans of other teams who didn't watch Aberdeen regularly to say Aberdeen fans should just accept relegation form, going on long goalless streaks multiple times across multiple seasons, playing like relegation contenders for half a season two seasons in a row, all whilst playing dreadful football that got worse and worse all the time as it was clear the manager had run out of ideas.

It goes back to expectations. In my view the standard of football Outside of the old firm is getting worse not better, can’t remember a season as bad as this one. Would Aberdeen have finished bottom six under McInnes ? I’m not sure they would. It is of course as you say easy to comment from a distance but I still argue that his record stands up against anyone outside the old firm, might have been bad patches but everyone has that and Aberdeen always finished top four under him, he’s now turned around a Killy team.  I think it’s natural that until Aberdeen appoint a manager that’s better than him people will always look back. It’s clearly not going to be Goodwin who spent long periods at St Mirren taking stick and going on poor runs before he even signed for Aberdeen.

[DrewDon]

People who complain about the "open, attacking philosophy" and suchlike must be watching different games to me. It's probably more to do with having a pop at Cormack than anything of substance. I would be interested to see the data, but it doesn't feel like we give up that many chances given that some people seem to make out that we are playing a 0-1-9 formation - but that we do concede an awful lot of goals given the number of chances we face.

I'd imagine this is more to do with previously excellent players having downturns in form (Lewis), and poor defensive options (Gallagher has improved recently but has struggled for form, Considine - probably still our best centre-back - being injured for virtually the full season, McCrorie taking a while to settle in the position under Glass, and Bates being rubbish). 

[Thenorthernlight]

6 hours ago, Rodhull said:

That's down to the appointment of Glass being terrible not getting rid of McInnes. The form that got McInnes sacked was just as bad as we're playing now.

It's unreal this has to be explained multiple times.

Agree.
The stupidity & denseness of some is incredible. 
Cliched “careful what you wish for” nonsense.

 

[Dons_1988]

4 minutes ago, DrewDon said:

People who complain about the "open, attacking philosophy" and suchlike must be watching different games to me. It's probably more to do with having a pop at Cormack than anything of substance. I would be interested to see the data, but it doesn't feel like we give up that many chances given that some people seem to make out that we are playing a 0-1-9 formation - but that we do concede an awful lot of goals given the number of chances we face.

I'd imagine this is more to do with previously excellent players having downturns in form (Lewis), and poor defensive options (Gallagher has improved recently but has struggled for form, Considine - probably still our best centre-back - being injured for virtually the full season, McCrorie taking a while to settle in the position under Glass, and Bates being rubbish). 

We look better structurally under Goodwin from a defensive perspective I’d say. We don’t get completely bullied in midfield or played through very easily and the full backs aren’t playing nearly as high. 

Individual brain farts has still cost us (pen against Dundee United, Dundee goals, hibs goal etc) heavily. 

We really we’re open under glass. Yes we had most of the ball and didn’t concede numerous chances but the chances we conceded were gilt edged due to the areas of the pitch we lost the ball and how exposed we left ourselves. 

[Alert Mongoose]

Unless you can persuade McInnes to come back you're going down. 

[DrewDon]

Just now, Dons_1988 said:

We look better structurally under Goodwin from a defensive perspective I’d say. We don’t get completely bullied in midfield or played through very easily and the full backs aren’t playing nearly as high. 

Individual brain farts has still cost us (pen against Dundee United, Dundee goals, hibs goal etc) heavily. 

We really we’re open under glass. Yes we had most of the ball and didn’t concede numerous chances but the chances we conceded were gilt edged due to the areas of the pitch we lost the ball and how exposed we left ourselves. 

Yeah, that's probably fair enough. The full-backs essentially played as wing-backs under Glass and were so pivotal to what he wanted to do, and when it was Ramsay and Mackenzie, although both good young players, they are both inexperienced and occasionally naive defensively which could leave us exposed. You then had Brown as the deepest midfielder, who perhaps wasn't as big an issue as was made out by some at the time, but didn't always have the athleticism to cover in the gaps that would be left in transition. Or if we lost the ball in our own half and the full-backs were in a position to receive the ball up the park, as would be expected in that system, we were vulnerable to being picked off.  

Goodwin has made us more rigid and less fluid, but there are still major question marks over the personnel. Our centre-backs struggling with the fundamentals, regardless of other factors at play, has been a big issue pretty much all season. 

[tarapoa]

Agree.
The stupidity & denseness of some is incredible. 
Cliched “careful what you wish for” nonsense.
 

I think ‘going stale’ and ‘eyebleeding’ were the cliches that ended up contributing to where we are now.

“Be careful what you wish for”, one year on, has proven to be absolutely accurate - whether you feel it’s a cliche or not.

[coprolite]

15 minutes ago, Thenorthernlight said:

Agree.
The stupidity & denseness of some is incredible. 
Cliched “careful what you wish for” nonsense.

 

To my mind, separating the two is more stupid and dense.  

[Bogbrush1903]

3 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

We were not abysmal in Lisbon ffs 

We were playing against team bereft of match practice and we failed to give them the run-about. We sat in, lost an early goal and allowed the tempo to be played at snail's pace for the rest of the game. Even the failed Scottish policy of 'keeping in the game and then having a go in the last fifteen minutes' wasn't present. We managed one shot on target.

Sporting went onto win the Portuguese league but a week later they would get thumped 1-4 at home by LASK (3rd in the Austrian league) and who themselves would be knocked out in the next round.

We had match fitness advantage, an empty stadium, their preparations disrupted by Covid but we didn't lay a glove on them.

So, in my view, a wasted opportunity. Abysmal might be too harsh a term but an unsatisfactory performance even taking into account the standard of the opposition.

[Bogbrush1903]

49 minutes ago, Yorky said:

It goes back to expectations. In my view the standard of football Outside of the old firm is getting worse not better, can’t remember a season as bad as this one. Would Aberdeen have finished bottom six under McInnes ? I’m not sure they would. It is of course as you say easy to comment from a distance but I still argue that his record stands up against anyone outside the old firm, might have been bad patches but everyone has that and Aberdeen always finished top four under him, he’s now turned around a Killy team.  I think it’s natural that until Aberdeen appoint a manager that’s better than him people will always look back. It’s clearly not going to be Goodwin who spent long periods at St Mirren taking stick and going on poor runs before he even signed for Aberdeen.

With McInnes winning the Championship and Aberdeen losing again, it's inevitable that people will cast their eyes back favorably to the McInnes era. 

With relation to Killie, McInnes was allowed to bring in a lot of players in January and managed to fend off a part-time team. He won, it's an achievement of sorts but not manager of the year stuff.

The fact is that our decline started during the McInnes reign and continues to this day. It was he who wanted big Declan for instance, so we would have had that useless lump coming anyway. Although, hopefully he would've been wiser that to partner him with the even worse Bates. 

There could be an argument to say that we would've been more stable under Milne-McInnes; however, Cormack-McInnes wasn't going to work because the spiv wants to be top dog.

Unfortunately, the common denominator to our problems has been the increasing influence of Dave Cormack. We can only hope he's learning from his mistakes although the unnecessary rush to appoint Goodwin, and the £75 million stadium chatter last week suggests not.  

[Guest]

I'm going on a small sample size here of two starts and a second half against Livi but Jack MacKenzie was really impressive in those appearances. I'm surprised he hasn't become first choice left back.

Edited April 24, 2022 by FreedomFarter

[DrewDon]

13 minutes ago, FreedomFarter said:

I'm going on a small sample size here of two starts and a second half against Livi but Jack MacKenzie was really impressive in those appearances. I'm surprised he hasn't become first choice left back.

He started the season as our first choice left-back, but he got an injury at the beginning of October and struggled for form after he returned. Hayes played there post-Christmas and has, for the most part, been one of our better players in 2022. Mackenzie was good yesterday though and could get a run between now and the end of the season. He isn't as good as Ramsay, but he is a determined defender and does show a willingness to drive forward with the ball and create overloads in the final third where possible. 

[tarapoa]

I just hope Goodwin can get us back to debating whether we could have done more against Sporting Lisbon away.

[highland_mechanic]

Do I think we wouldn't have lost so many games so easily if McInnes was still manager? - Yes

Am I wishing he was still Aberdeen manager? - No

His time was up. The most important thing was to replace him with an experienced manager with a reputation of playing entertaining, attacking football. 

Sadly our chairman chose an inexperienced and out of his depth manager and it has left us in a situation where if we get relegated we will have brought it on ourselves

[Rodhull]

2 hours ago, bennett said:

McInnes would have gotten a European place though. 

 

If you say so. We'll never know but going by the performances that got him sacked I don't see it.