AFC Thread (not for non football lovers)

[Daniel]

just wait till the scotish winter kicks in, and see if hards imports can realy hack the spl

[Brymon]

exactly nobody has mentioned the fact we have no players out with the uk! thats gotta be good for the scottish game!

[Steve Temple]

just wait till the scotish winter kicks in' date=' and see if hards imports can realy hack the spl[/quote']

What do you think a Baltic winter is like?

[ray@ladymercedes]

According to today's Scottish Sun, the dons are hopeful that they will sign Florent Sinama-Pongolle on a season long loan from Liverpool. Training with the likes of Gerrard, Morientes etc will only have made him better so I reckon he would be a good signing.

Let just hope that Alex Miller manages to sell the club to him.

[confession]

Watched a few amazing parts of the 1983 Cup Winners Cup Match the Dons vs Real Madrid on Friday, and now cant seem to find a game that AFC have played that could compete with that.... Quite disappointing.

But still Come on the Reds!!

[Daniel]

According to today's Scottish Sun' date=' the dons are hopeful that they will sign Florent Sinama-Pongolle on a season long loan from Liverpool. Training with the likes of Gerrard, Morientes etc will only have made him better so I reckon he would be a good signing.

Let just hope that Alex Miller manages to sell the club to him.[/quote']

he aint just a rookie players hes played a lot of games for liverpool but hes been injured for a long times so he might have lost his touch and some abilitys, he scored in a reserve game last week for liverpool, but acording to todays P&J liverpool wont make a decicion untill the weekend because 4 other tranfers are on going at the club.

[Time Machine]

I somehow can't see Alex Miller selling the club to anyone! What a disgrace he was! To see him on the bench with Benitez is laughable!

[Last Wrong]

I somehow can't see Alex Miller selling the club to anyone! What a disgrace he was! To see him on the bench with Benitez is laughable!

Miller was indeed a joke. I'd love to see spongolle at the Dons. He'd take the piss out of most of the defences and further highlight the gap in quality between the Scottish and English Premiership.

[Marsh]

Miller was indeed a joke. I'd love to see spongolle at the Dons. He'd take the piss out of most of the defences and further highlight the gap in quality between the Scottish and English Premiership.

Alex miller traded Billy Dodds for Robbie Winters and 800,000. the man effectively destroyed our attack and wiped out our bank balance in one move. He was a lousy manager who couldn't manage worth a fuck. And it is as funny to see him co - ordinate with the bloody Liverpool manager as it is to see Roy Aitken being consulted by O' Leary at Villa. Crazy biscuits.

Pongolle's not coming, but you'll all know that by now.

If Jimmy can't get in another forward we can all kiss the season goodbye. I'm telling you, Lovell did okay last night but missed at least 6 opportunities. I heard today not to expect Mackie back in a hurry as he is struggling to walk let along run just now. Smith is an excellent pacy winger but no centre forward. John "Budgie" Stewart is only saved the embarassment of being worst player on the books by a certain Richard Foster and Steven Craig is hated by Jimmy C so he'll never be included if he doesn't have to be. That exhausts all our striking options. We need another proven goalscorer to assist and combine with Lovell if we are to do ANYTHING this season. We are struggling to score already and it's alarmingly similar to last season.

It just didn't wash with me that we had an injury crisis either - I mean Mackie, Byrne and Hart being out at the beginning of the season hardly constitutes an injury crisis, does it? ONE forward and TWO defenders? It's hardly half your squad. I suppose, as long as we can sacrifice our most skillful, creative, tough tackling, instrumental, influential player by shifting him from his commanding role in the middle to a sweeper at the back we will continue to struggle.

And Diamond has had a bad start to the season - He should have been tidying up those little mistakes he was making last season - I don't see much of an improvement. Don't get me wrong, he's still a tremendous young defender, but he needs to improve his awareness and positioning to become the finished article.

Not trying to be negative or anything, but I can see parallels to last season forming already - Goal scoring problems, Lapses of concentration at the back, giving away soft victories to lesser teams, raising our game against the old firm one week and playing brilliantly then not carrying the momentum into the next game and playing utter tosh.

Falkirk will be a good benchmark to see how far we've come since last season - Can Aberdeen, a team pushing for third place and a good cup run who spent 450,000 in the close season comfortably defeat the newly promoted minnows Falkirk who spent next to nothing in the close season. It was games like this last season we slipped up on (Dundee scoring in a minute at Pittodrie - final score 1 - 1) (Dundee beating us at Dens Park 2 - 0) (Drawing with Caley at home) Hopefully we can see an improvement and an ability to score at home against the lesser teams in the division.

In any case, get it right up 'em boys...............

[Daniel]

aberdeen found it hard to get results agaist, livi , partick and inverness when they came up, so it wouldnt suprise me if falkirk took a point, this will be the first time i get to use my new season ticket because ive been away and missed the first few game, should be good.

i honestly though we'd land Pongolle but he wants to win his place back a liverpool, that just shows you how good he actually is.

[Scorge]

aberdeen found it hard to get results agaist' date=' livi ,[b']partick and inverness when they came up, so it wouldnt suprise me if falkirk took a point

The only highlight of our successful season beating the SPL drop two/three years back was cuffing you lot twice out of three goes at Pittodrie (I witnessed both of them) - our only other away win that year was at Hibs after we'd reached safety.

Feels like a stone age away.....

[Steve Temple]

Alex miller traded Billy Dodds for Robbie Winters and 800' date='000. the man effectively destroyed our attack and wiped out our bank balance in one move. He was a lousy manager who couldn't manage worth a fuck. And it is as funny to see him co - ordinate with the bloody Liverpool manager as it is to see Roy Aitken being consulted by O' Leary at Villa. Crazy biscuits.

Pongolle's not coming, but you'll all know that by now.

If Jimmy can't get in another forward we can all kiss the season goodbye. I'm telling you, Lovell did okay last night but missed at least 6 opportunities. I heard today not to expect Mackie back in a hurry as he is struggling to walk let along run just now. Smith is an excellent pacy winger but no centre forward. John "Budgie" Stewart is only saved the embarassment of being worst player on the books by a certain Richard Foster and Steven Craig is hated by Jimmy C so he'll never be included if he doesn't have to be. That exhausts all our striking options. We need another proven goalscorer to assist and combine with Lovell if we are to do ANYTHING this season. We are struggling to score already and it's alarmingly similar to last season.

It just didn't wash with me that we had an injury crisis either - I mean Mackie, Byrne and Hart being out at the beginning of the season hardly constitutes an injury crisis, does it? ONE forward and TWO defenders? It's hardly half your squad. I suppose, as long as we can sacrifice our most skillful, creative, tough tackling, instrumental, influential player by shifting him from his commanding role in the middle to a sweeper at the back we will continue to struggle.

And Diamond has had a bad start to the season - He should have been tidying up those little mistakes he was making last season - I don't see much of an improvement. Don't get me wrong, he's still a tremendous young defender, but he needs to improve his awareness and positioning to become the finished article.

Not trying to be negative or anything, but I can see parallels to last season forming already - Goal scoring problems, Lapses of concentration at the back, giving away soft victories to lesser teams, raising our game against the old firm one week and playing brilliantly then not carrying the momentum into the next game and playing utter tosh.

Falkirk will be a good benchmark to see how far we've come since last season - Can Aberdeen, a team pushing for third place and a good cup run who spent 450,000 in the close season comfortably defeat the newly promoted minnows Falkirk who spent next to nothing in the close season. It was games like this last season we slipped up on (Dundee scoring in a minute at Pittodrie - final score 1 - 1) (Dundee beating us at Dens Park 2 - 0) (Drawing with Caley at home) Hopefully we can see an improvement and an ability to score at home against the lesser teams in the division.

In any case, get it right up 'em boys...............[/quote']

I agree on most here, but not all. Firstly, it's easy to slate Alex Miller, but consider that Derek Riordan is the equivalent of what Robbie Winters was at the time, i.e the most in-form young Scottish forward. Darren Mackie is the equivalent of Billy Dodds, i.e our top scorer. Now, if Jimmy were to trade Darren Mackie and most of our tranfer budget for Derek Riordan, I wouldn't complain, and not many would

Also, I would always defend back-three system, because you don't need full-backs and wide-midfielders. Johan Cruyff would disagree, but then my record on Football Manager is better than his real-life managerial record (a lie). I was dubious about Severin last season, because I felt he slowed down the play too much in home matches, like a bad Juan Roman Riquelme, but when he's at sweeper he plays early long balls over the top for our pacy frontmen to run on to. A far more effective tactic than getting it down the flanks

[NARC]

Darren Mackie was fit enough to have a pint or two in Triple Kirks a few Saturdays back. That means he's fit enough to play Association Football

I really think we're going to struggle to make top six. Our "injury crisis" as Marsh pointed out, is laughable. It's probably a good thing, in retrospect, as it keeps two terrible players in Byrne and Hart out of the team. As I was saying to popTart, I think that the long ball to pacy frontman approach could work, but we never seem to have the right players in team for it week in week out. I don't think we can trust a Dons back three at the moment with only two solid centrebacks in Anderson and Diamond, and if we put Severin in there his influence would be missed further up the pitch where we well and truly lack attacking impetus.

I'm going to go to the Falkirk match (a rare Saturday off), and watch us piss chances against the wall....

[Marsh]

I agree on most here' date=' but not all. Firstly, it's easy to slate Alex Miller, but consider that Derek Riordan is the equivalent of what Robbie Winters was at the time, i.e the most in-form young Scottish forward. Darren Mackie is the equivalent of Billy Dodds, i.e our top scorer. Now, if Jimmy were to trade Darren Mackie and most of our tranfer budget for Derek Riordan, I wouldn't complain, and not many would

Also, I would always defend back-three system, because you don't need full-backs and wide-midfielders. Johan Cruyff would disagree, but then my record on Football Manager is better than his real-life managerial record (a lie). I was dubious about Severin last season, because I felt he slowed down the play too much in home matches, like a bad Juan Roman Riquelme, but when he's at sweeper he plays early long balls over the top for our pacy frontmen to run on to. A far more effective tactic than getting it down the flanks[/quote']

Couldn't disagree more about Winters - There's no way he was the best strilker in the league at the time - he was certainly scoring goals, but in an average United team going nowhere. It was more the 800,000 that got me anyway - even in the halcyon days of silly transfers it's impossible not to look back on that without wincing. And Dodds was a far better player at the time in comparison. It was bad business at the time, and bad business on reflection. The Riordan comparison is invalid, as he is a skilful, tricky player with great close control and a fair bit of pace. Mackie has a load of pace, bags of effort, poor control and nae first touch. Dodds was a prolific scorer with a great football brain and although he was older than Winters he still had a fair bit of pace. Winters was in a poor team, albeit scoring goals, but still had to prove he could cut it at the top. He couldn't.

You can trace Aberdeen's demise back to Alex Miller's gaffes.

If that's what you think of Seve, you are as entitled to your opinion as much as I am! I will say that he is to me the best central midefielder in Scotland right now asnd runs the show for the Dons when he plays there. Also, if you don't think we need to get it down the flanks we'll be missing out on our newly found strengths of Nicholson and Smith actually having some control over the ball, the ability to put in a decent cross and the ability to find feet on the deck with their passing.

If you want to see a back three with Seve lumping balls over the top with no presence on the flanks that's your opinion, but that's the last thing I want to see! Get it on the deck, build from the back and string some passes together. We can always go counter - attack if need be (i.e.i when trailing) and bring Mackie's pace into the equation when he is fit. Just about everyone you hear at the fitba (home & away) moans and groans when the high balls are lumped in from the back. Most defences are tall enough to deal with these nowadays and Mackie ain't the tallest striker in the SPL. Take last season when we played Dundee. they scored after a minute and we were chasing the game. We resorted to hoofing in the high balls. It was like land of the giants with Mackie against Bobby Mann and Lee Wilkie - they had every high ball for breakfast. Same happened against Caley at Pittodrie when we could only draw.

We have a bit of skill in the team now and to play to our strengths we ned to keep it on the deck and get a quick, solid passing game going. Seve, Dempsey, Nicholson, Smith, Clark, McNaughton are all more than capable of dribbling and crisp passing movements. We are still strong at the back, Russ is outstanding - I'm sure Byrne will do much better this season and Considine is doing a fine job and will learn from the others. Zander needs to take time out in training to learn some basic stuff, but he is still an damzing talent (and so young, too.) But until we get another striker in, we will continue to struggle to score and pick up wins against the weaker teams. And that means no European fitba. Again.

[Marsh]

It's probably a good thing' date=' in retrospect, as it keeps two terrible players in Byrne and Hart out of the team....[/quote']

Michael Hart - most improved player last season - he played a blinder. I just can't see how anyone who was watching the games last season could call him "terrible." Sorry, min!

Byrne will hopefully be most improved player this season, as he started to come good near the end of last season - binning abody in sight and making good runs down the left.

[ray@ladymercedes]

Darren Mackie was fit enough to have a pint or two in Triple Kirks a few Saturdays back. That means he's fit enough to play Association Football

I really think we're going to struggle to make top six. Our "injury crisis" as Marsh pointed out' date=' is laughable. It's probably a good thing, in retrospect, as it keeps two terrible players in Byrne and Hart out of the team. As I was saying to popTart, I think that the long ball to pacy frontman approach could work, but we never seem to have the right players in team for it week in week out. I don't think we can trust a Dons back three at the moment with only two solid centrebacks in Anderson and Diamond, and if we put Severin in there his influence would be missed further up the pitch where we well and truly lack attacking impetus.

I'm going to go to the Falkirk match (a rare Saturday off), and watch us piss chances against the wall....[/quote']

I didn't realise that an achilles injury could stop you from drinking.

[Emilio Largo]

The Gers in the Champions league. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can't call us a pile of piss Mr Trainor or Mr Spears.

[Daniel]

I really think we're going to struggle to make top six. Our "injury crisis" as Marsh pointed out' date=' is laughable. It's probably a good thing, in retrospect, as it keeps two terrible players in Byrne and Hart out of the team. [/quote']

i think aberdeen will come in at 4th, smith and nicholson make a big differents to the sguad and heikenen was the only key plyer we lost over th e summer so it should be a stronger team, and with a lovell and mackie and hopfully another good striker we should equal most teams scoring records.

[NARC]

I didn't realise that an achilles injury could stop you from drinking.

He managed to dodge autograph hunters with Joaquin-esque dainty footwork, so he's fit

[get lost]

The Gers in the Champions league. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can't call us a pile of piss Mr Trainor or Mr Spears.

Have you seen the draw, you are out already.

[Skull Commander]

Darren Mackie was fit enough to have a pint or two in Triple Kirks a few Saturdays back. That means he's fit enough to play Association Football

....

Using that logic i should be in the aberdeen squad!!

[Johnny Mac]

Byrne will hopefully be most improved player this season' date=' as he started to come good near the end of last season - binning abody in sight and making good runs down the left.[/quote']

You obviously weren't at the Berwick game on Tuesday.

He's shite.

Possibly one of the worst players i've ever seen pull on a dons shirt. He makes Jamie Mcallister look like a footballing god (something I thought i'd never say).

[Steve Temple]

If that's what you think of Seve' date=' you are as entitled to your opinion as much as I am! I will say that he is to me the best central midefielder in Scotland right now asnd runs the show for the Dons when he plays there. Also, if you don't think we need to get it down the flanks we'll be missing out on our newly found strengths of Nicholson and Smith actually having some control over the ball, the ability to put in a decent cross and the ability to find feet on the deck with their passing.

If you want to see a back three with Seve lumping balls over the top with no presence on the flanks that's your opinion, but that's the last thing I want to see! Get it on the deck, build from the back and string some passes together. We can always go counter - attack if need be (i.e.i when trailing) and bring Mackie's pace into the equation when he is fit. Just about everyone you hear at the fitba (home & away) moans and groans when the high balls are lumped in from the back. Most defences are tall enough to deal with these nowadays and Mackie ain't the tallest striker in the SPL. Take last season when we played Dundee. they scored after a minute and we were chasing the game. We resorted to hoofing in the high balls. It was like land of the giants with Mackie against Bobby Mann and Lee Wilkie - they had every high ball for breakfast. Same happened against Caley at Pittodrie when we could only draw.

We have a bit of skill in the team now and to play to our strengths we ned to keep it on the deck and get a quick, solid passing game going. Seve, Dempsey, Nicholson, Smith, Clark, McNaughton are all more than capable of dribbling and crisp passing movements. We are still strong at the back, Russ is outstanding - I'm sure Byrne will do much better this season and Considine is doing a fine job and will learn from the others. Zander needs to take time out in training to learn some basic stuff, but he is still an damzing talent (and so young, too.) But until we get another striker in, we will continue to struggle to score and pick up wins against the weaker teams. And that means no European fitba. Again.[/quote']

What you get when you have Seve at the back is: he easily takes a ball off the oppposition forward when they are on the attack, then he plays it early OVER THE TOP of the defence, not down their throats. Actually, that might be better for away matches when the opposition defence is on the half-way line. Remember Michel Platini said that defence is the first line of attack, and when Severin plays at sweeper his defensive and attacking potential is akin to that of Franz Beckenbauer

Your point about Mackie struggling against big defenders on high balls applies to crosses as well. Severin is about the only player capable of winning a header. Is he meant to spray the ball out wide and then get on the cross?

As you say, all of our midfielders are capable of passing incisively, and Jamie Winer certainly has a shot on him, so we won't miss those aspects of Seve's play in midfield. What we would miss is his tackling, but hopefully Winter will improve his own

I can't help but feel if Heikkenen, McGuire and Whelan were added to the current squad, it would be the perfect squad. But that was impossible, I guess

[Marsh]

You obviously weren't at the Berwick game on Tuesday.

He's shite.

Possibly one of the worst players i've ever seen pull on a dons shirt. He makes Jamie Mcallister look like a footballing god (something I thought i'd never say).

I was. He never played that great but he will improve. Like I say, hopefully he will be this seasons Michael Hart (ie most improved)

And he's light years better than Stewart and Foster. They make McAllister look the business.

[Guest DustyDeviada]

The Gers in the Champions league. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can't call us a pile of piss Mr Trainor or Mr Spears.

Will be interesting to see how they do against Bratsilava or whatever they're called.