The Famous Aberdeen - Season 2022/23

[Bogbrush1903]

3 hours ago, Rodhull said:

Strange days when an Aberdeen fan has a huff because we never said enough nice things about Rangers.

Strange days when an Aberdeen fan is calling Sevco by the name of Oldco...

[Game of throw-ins]

Not everybody bought the idea that Qarabag were the best team we would play this season.  I disagreed on the relevant thread at the time, the obvious point being that both of the OF were ranked significantly higher.  Qarabag's performance may or may not have been the best against us at Pittodrie this season, but I always thought the rankings were much more persuasive evidence than a subjective response to a one-off performance against a naive Aberdeen side.  In particular we never got the chance to find out how they would perform against a team who could actually defend.

[Bogbrush1903]

3 hours ago, Suspect Device said:

 

 

Surely all Dons fans have a touch of the Mrs Doyles. We are more misery hunters than gloryhunters. Never happier than when we've got something to moan about.

Well, I think we've reason to moan given the paucity of success in the last 30 years...but a lot of the chaps on here seem detached from reality...or maybe they just strive greenie acceptance and don't express their true opinions. It's true that we shouldn't only express negative views but some on here never seem to think nothing is negative at all about Aberdeen, that everything we do is entirely logical even if it is the complete opposite of what they were saying a couple of days previously. I find that odd.

[Bogbrush1903]

18 minutes ago, Game of throw-ins said:

Not everybody bought the idea that Qarabag were the best team we would play this season.  I disagreed on the relevant thread at the time, the obvious point being that both of the OF were ranked significantly higher.  Qarabag's performance may or may not have been the best against us at Pittodrie this season, but I always thought the rankings were much more persuasive evidence than a subjective response to a one-off performance against a naive Aberdeen side.  In particular we never got the chance to find out how they would perform against a team who could actually defend.

This was similar to my thoughts too...and then I compared that performance to our performances in the two Glass matches against Sevco and felt frustrated at the Qarabag performance. I felt it was a missed opportunity. In fact, the whole season has been a missed opportunity. I'm sure we had a better squad that we've showed this season.

I mean we were good enough to beat the future Europa League finalists on their own patch had we not had that intervention from the referee. It sometimes feels to me when I read this forum that we, as a support, are too ready to accept mediocrity or even worse to the extent that we find excuses to explain failure.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Bogbrush1903

[Dons_1988]

Aye, no one has criticised Aberdeen at all on this thread. 

FFS 

[Bogbrush1903]

5 hours ago, highland_mechanic said:

We've drawn twice with Rangers this season so what's your point caller?

 

Exactly, my point is that we were capable of giving Qarabag a far sterner test. I felt that the opinion that Qarabag just played too well against us that we couldn't do much about it was unjustified.

[Bogbrush1903]

5 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

Aye, no one has criticised Aberdeen at all on this thread. 

FFS 

"but a lot of the chaps" not everyone so don't make things up. No wonder you didn't use the quote function...

Edited May 6, 2022 by Bogbrush1903

[Dons_1988]

Just now, Bogbrush1903 said:

"but a lot of the chaps" not everyone so don't make things up

Ok then, who hasn’t criticised the club 

[Rodhull]

Just now, Bogbrush1903 said:

"but a lot of the chaps" not everyone so don't make things up

Who's not been critical about Aberdeen this season in the thread?

Moaning for moaning sake without suggesting anything practical or different achieves nothing and doesn't give someone moral superiority over other fans.

Saying things like the board is full of yes men is fair enough but unless someone actually has inside information on the people concerned how are most fans supposed to know either way? It's one of those things that's easy to say but impossible to know whether it's true or not. Similar to saying players aren't trying or lack passion etc.

[Bogbrush1903]

1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said:

Ok then, who hasn’t criticised the club 

Again your own interpretation of my post is worng, I said "but a lot of the chaps on here seem detached from reality...or maybe they just strive greenie acceptance and don't express their true opinions" but at no point did I say that there are posters that have never criticised the club...but there are some who rarely criticise they club.  I won't bother naming them, they know who they are themselves.

[Dons_1988]

2 minutes ago, Bogbrush1903 said:

Again your own interpretation of my post is worng, I said "but a lot of the chaps on here seem detached from reality...or maybe they just strive greenie acceptance and don't express their true opinions" but at no point did I say that there are posters that have never criticised the club...but there are some who rarely criticise they club.  I won't bother naming them, they know who they are themselves.

“some on here never seem to think nothing is negative at all about Aberdeen, that everything we do is entirely logical”

You left this out of quoting your post. Apologies if this was misinterpreted as you saying no one criticised the club, I’m sure you’ll understand my confusion. 

Amidst all that, there is of course many legitimate criticisms of how we’re being run just now, which have been aired many times on this thread. But to be honest, predicting doom because we appointed a non exec director makes people switch off because it really comes across as moaning for the sake of it. 

[Game of throw-ins]

1 hour ago, Bogbrush1903 said:

 I'm sure we had a better squad that we've showed this season.

I've been a huge critic of the way the club has been run since Cormack took charge, but I agree that this season we actually had a very decent squad, probably player for player the 3rd best in the league.  With a little bit of tweaking and pragmatism we should easily have been top 4.

Our problem was the expansive football remit Glass was given, which turned defending into an afterthought and made pragmatism a bad word.

This was perfectly illustrated last week, when we had a lot of good to very good performances but could easily have conceded 2 or 3 goals to the worst side in the league, because we currently have no competent central defenders.

Many will disagree but for me Ash Taylor is the perfect illustration of the problem.  A very effective stopper at SPL level, dominates in the air, doesn't get bullied physically, plenty of drive, too daft to be nervy or crushed by a mistake, a goal threat at the other end - but a limited footballer and hate figure for the fans who think we're just the right managerial appointment away from stroking the ball about like Manchester City.   He wouldn't have been expensive and we should at least have tried to keep him here as cover.  But we had fancy ideas about the silky football we were going to play and Taylor didn't fit the bill.

Don't get me wrong, in a lucky season we'd have options good enough to keep Taylor out of the side.  McKenna, Reynolds and Devlin at their best were all significantly better players.  All the same, our confidence that we could easily replace him with better on our wages always looked foolishly optimistic. I'm 100% convinced if we'd held onto Taylor we'd have been top 6 at a the very least. 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Game of throw-ins

[DrewDon]

There is clearly some middle ground between thinking we can play like Manchester City and what we were churning out in the dying embers of McInnes' tenure.

[kingjoey]

12 hours ago, Bogbrush1903 said:

I thought the general assumption on here was that Qarabag was the best team we'll play all season? Last night seems to have blown that nonsense out of the water.

Who has been better than Qarabag that we’ve played this season? Certainly not bloody Rangers.

[kingjoey]

10 hours ago, Suspect Device said:

 

 

Surely all Dons fans have a touch of the Mrs Doyles. We are more misery hunters than gloryhunters. Never happier than when we've got something to moan about.

You should have just named @Jacksgranda.

[kingjoey]

4 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

Ok then, who hasn’t criticised the club 

Even I’ve been a bit critical at times. No really, I have.

[Dons_1988]

17 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

Even I’ve been a bit critical at times. No really, I have.

[Bogbrush1903]

5 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

“some on here never seem to think nothing is negative at all about Aberdeen, that everything we do is entirely logical”

You left this out of quoting your post. Apologies if this was misinterpreted as you saying no one criticised the club, I’m sure you’ll understand my confusion. 

Amidst all that, there is of course many legitimate criticisms of how we’re being run just now, which have been aired many times on this thread. But to be honest, predicting doom because we appointed a non exec director makes people switch off because it really comes across as moaning for the sake of it. 

My apologies, obviously that is incorrect, everyone has been critical at some point.

[Bogbrush1903]

5 hours ago, Rodhull said:

Who's not been critical about Aberdeen this season in the thread?

Moaning for moaning sake without suggesting anything practical or different achieves nothing and doesn't give someone moral superiority over other fans.

Saying things like the board is full of yes men is fair enough but unless someone actually has inside information on the people concerned how are most fans supposed to know either way? It's one of those things that's easy to say but impossible to know whether it's true or not. Similar to saying players aren't trying or lack passion etc.

I understand the irritation when there's just constant negativity.

My negativity did have a foundation in positivity though. On hearing that those lot had reached the Europa League final it was frustrating to think, that certainly in two of the three games (I didn't see any of the Goodwin match against them) that they weren't much better than us.

It made me feel that we could've got so much more from this squad this season than we did.

Unfortunately, Willie Garner took the brunt of my flak just because I read this morning him being quoted as saying on the website that he had mostly been in contact with Cormack.

Believe or not, I had been quite positive about Garner's appointment yesterday on my Whats App group chat and wondered if he could be a candidate for Director of Football.

[Bogbrush1903]

5 hours ago, Game of throw-ins said:

 

Many will disagree but for me Ash Taylor is the perfect illustration of the problem.  A very effective stopper at SPL level, dominates in the air, doesn't get bullied physically, plenty of drive, too daft to be nervy or crushed by a mistake, a goal threat at the other end - but a limited footballer and hate figure for the fans who think we're just the right managerial appointment away from stroking the ball about like Manchester City.   He wouldn't have been expensive and we should at least have tried to keep him here as cover.  But we had fancy ideas about the silky football we were going to play and Taylor didn't fit the bill.

 

Generally speaking, Taylor did well for us and even the lapses of concentration were reducing by the time we released him.

However, he's gone and we must get more from the players we have now.

I think Bates & Gallagher are a hopeless combination but those are the players we have and Goodwin needs to find a way of improving them and building their confidence as a partnership.

Every season we discuss about clearing the deadwood but completely obliterating the squad every summer isn't going work.

We need to get back to having the nucleus of a settled squad and making a few tweaks here and there.

And I suppose that's where we as supporters need to try and be more patient. A few bad games in a row doesn't necessarily make a bad player just like a few good games doesn't make a star