The Famous Aberdeen - Season 2022/23

[Don exotic]

8 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

I've just watched Barry Robson post match, He's in trouble.

He needs to stay out of the press and work hard with the players in the background. With so many new players it was always going to be a challenge, but he urgently needs to find the team and formation that’s going to work in the league.

[Thenorthernlight]

8 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

I've just watched Barry Robson post match, He's in trouble.

Are you referring to his post match REDTV interview? 

[Dons_1988]

46 minutes ago, Don exotic said:

He needs to stay out of the press and work hard with the players in the background. With so many new players it was always going to be a challenge, but he urgently needs to find the team and formation that’s going to work in the league.

I agree with the thrust of your point, but I’m not sure he can stay out the press. He is pretty much obligated to speak before and after games. I’d imagine most managers don’t particularly want to do it. 

[Suspect Device]

Hearts tickets sold out already.

[lubo_blaha]

8 minutes ago, Suspect Device said:

Hearts tickets sold out already.

Didn’t even reach 350 loyalty points. Madness

[kingjoey]

57 minutes ago, Suspect Device said:

Hearts tickets sold out already.

F*ck's sake, I'd forgotten they went on sale today.

[tarapoa]

Just looking at the "It's No Excuse, But The Players Were Tired" Sundays ahead of us.

Not sure whether it's better just to have the likes of Celtic away and get them out of the road.  We really don't want to be squandering too many points against last season's bottom six in our current predicament, and already looks a concern that two of these matches are against St Johnstone.

 

[Don exotic]

6 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

I agree with the thrust of your point, but I’m not sure he can stay out the press. He is pretty much obligated to speak before and after games. I’d imagine most managers don’t particularly want to do it. 

He can go with a brief “we aren’t yet playing at the level we aim for. We will continue to work hard to get the players working as an effective team.” He can repeat this until it’s no longer true.

A bit like last seasons “we aren’t getting ahead of ourselves” message.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Don exotic
Typo

[Moorie]

5 hours ago, tarapoa said:

Just looking at the "It's No Excuse, But The Players Were Tired" Sundays ahead of us.

Not sure whether it's better just to have the likes of Celtic away and get them out of the road.  We really don't want to be squandering too many points against last season's bottom six in our current predicament, and already looks a concern that two of these matches are against St Johnstone.

 

The tiredness is a lazy excuses we are just out of August and only played 2 euro games. Remember us starting right at the beginning of July in Europe 6 games we played and looked sharper once the games lead into the league campaign.

 

[Dons_1988]

58 minutes ago, Moorie said:

The tiredness is a lazy excuses we are just out of August and only played 2 euro games. Remember us starting right at the beginning of July in Europe 6 games we played and looked sharper once the games lead into the league campaign.

 

It is a lazy excuse but he can’t be honest because the truth is the summer window did not go to plan. We either missed targets completely, signed players too late in the day to get them up to speed or they aren’t good enough.

You can trace that back to January and ending the season with 8 loan players. We left ourselves too much to do and we’re paying the price. 

He’s got to just get on and deal with it though, just start getting points on the board Barry. 

[kingjoey]

Given it's the international break here's my take on players that weren't with us in the second half of last season.

Nicky Devlin - overall looks fine, but please play him at right back or right wing back. 

Richard Jensen - not played much but looks ok. However his decision making under pressure questionable as in the lead up to yesterday's second goal he had to head the ball out for a corner rather back into the middle of the box.

Jamie McGrath - looks ok and should be an asset.

James McGarry - again looks fine and should be ok for us.

Rhys Williams - where are you?

Ester Sokler - not enough time on the pitch for an opinion. 

Dante Polvara - I don't know what he does on the pitch to justify his place. 

Vincente Besuijen - I like Vinnie but why is he still here?

Or Dadya - no idea why he's here.

Ross Doohan - we need to have a back up keeper.

Slobodan Rubezic - I'm really sorry Ruby, but he has been a total liability since he came here. He has done a few things right but overall he's a total bombscare with minus pace. Should not be in our defence. 

Pape Gueye - he looked ok when he came on yesterday, but too early to tell.

[Thenorthernlight]

4 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

Given it's the international break here's my take on players that weren't with us in the second half of last season.

Nicky Devlin - overall looks fine, but please play him at right back or right wing back. 

Richard Jensen - not played much but looks ok. However his decision making under pressure questionable as in the lead up to yesterday's second goal he had to head the ball out for a corner rather back into the middle of the box.

Jamie McGrath - looks ok and should be an asset.

James McGarry - again looks fine and should be ok for us.

Rhys Williams - where are you?

Ester Sokler - not enough time on the pitch for an opinion. 

Dante Polvara - I don't know what he does on the pitch to justify his place. 

Vincente Besuijen - I like Vinnie but why is he still here?

Or Dadya - no idea why he's here.

Ross Doohan - we need to have a back up keeper.

Slobodan Rubezic - I'm really sorry Ruby, but he has been a total liability since he came here. He has done a few things right but overall he's a total bombscare with minus pace. Should not be in our defence. 

Pape Gueye - he looked ok when he came on yesterday, but too early to tell.

More importantly, the verdict on the manager, his tactics etc?

[tarapoa]

Poor Slobba's getting it from all angles.

He is raw, but I remain hopeful there's something there. Maybe just trying too hard to adapt to a new environment/culture - or has some Serbian agent managed to flog us defective goods here?

I don't think Robson has helped the defence though.  Last season he was at pains to tell us that all good teams are built from a solid base, and despite the good results and outcome, there were murmurs from some supporters of being back to the days of McInnes pragmatism.

This season, he has self-admittedly gone man for man at the back in some games, using his 'basketball game' comparison on occasions.  Maybe Slobba is actually a basketball player?

As a consequence any side with pace is ripping us apart at will on the counter.  Hibs are not great, but they do have Youan and Boyle who are both lightning.  Has the Atlanta 'philosophy' school given Barry and Steve a tap on the shoulder on how they're expected to play this season? This is starting to resemble the previous two experiments where every run-of-the mill jobber manager in our league rubs their hand on how simple it is to overcome us tactically.

[RandomGuy.]

3 minutes ago, tarapoa said:

Poor Slobba's getting it from all angles.

He is raw, but I remain hopeful there's something there. Maybe just trying too hard to adapt to a new environment/culture

And shape. His former team were virtually always a back 4. Hes possibly finding himself 1v1 with wingers more than before due to that.

[kingjoey]

I hate being harsh on any if our players, but you'd have to be blind to see how bad overall Rubezic has been. I know he's young and it's a new league, culture etc, but leave him out for a spell then and get him up to speed. Our defence has been a nightmare in the air in almost every match, look at Hibs second goal as a guide. And the lack of urgency in our entire defence at Hibs first goal, particularly Angus MacDonald, was criminal.

[kingjoey]

15 minutes ago, Thenorthernlight said:

More importantly, the verdict on the manager, his tactics etc?

I was giving my take on players who weren't with us in the second half of last season. Feel free to give your take on the manager, his tactics etc. 

[DrewDon]

The thing that concerns me most about Rubezic is his clumsiness. I suppose the most obvious example is the Hacken penalty from midweek, but I can think of an example from more or less every game he has played for us so far. There are almost certainly some VAR officials who would have sent the referee to the monitor for the Youan foul yesterday. Even at St Mirren, moments after he was booked he took a needlessly heavy touch on halfway and frantically dived into a challenge that could easily have seen him off. It's one thing being combative, but it's actually more concerning when it seems to be a lack of control or coordination rather than deliberately going out to be a b*****d.

Saying that, playing on the right of a three clearly isn't his bag at all. He isn't quick enough or nearly good enough on the ball to do that. I think I remember Robson saying after the Livingston game that one of the reasons he liked Rubezic was that he was good with the ball at his feet, and it's safe to say I haven't seen that so far. 

[Thenorthernlight]

23 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

I was giving my take on players who weren't with us in the second half of last season. Feel free to give your take on the manager, his tactics etc. 

I had reservations right from when he was appointed to be honest. 
To be fair, he pretty much forced the Board to give him the job on the back of 7 consecutive wins.

But, as good as it was from where we were, the football was pretty grim. 
We rode our luck too in that run. 
You do get away with long ball football IF you’re winning the majority of your games

But the same kind of football is now not winning games. 
Is it 2 wins in 11 or 12?  
That’s unacceptable.  
Maybe teams & managers have sussed him out?

The tactics he employs are now not working. 
He doesn’t seem willing to change it. 

Playing 3 at the back when we KNOW teams are playing 3 up front, so we’re going man for man at the back, is suicidal.  
Playing Rubezic on the right of a back 3, exposing his chronic lack of pace, is naivety, probably stupidity. Basic stuff.

His post match interviews are just a litany of nonsensical excuses. Tiredness, heat, the grass, etc. 

We’ve invested about £2.5m in new players & I don’t think he’s the man to be in charge of that rebuild.

NB - Agree with your assessment of the new recruits. 

 

 

[Bogbrush1903]

On 03/09/2023 at 23:26, Busta Nut said:

I've just watched Barry Robson post match, He's in trouble.

I also watched his post match interview on Sportscene and thought that he isn't long for this job. It was actually painful to watch.

And, stating the obvious now, but I really don't think upcoming visits to Snake Mountain and Frankfurt is what he needs coming up.

I just read an interesting shout for next manager if or when the axe falls on Robson....Per-Mathias Høgmo experienced, successful and maybe attainable.

 

[GTG_03]

Quote

 

I agree about Robson, his interviews don't make sense. Before the game at the weekend he was saying how we were in a good place. The commentators were laughing about it afterwards.

He'll be gone by Xmas at the latest but I'll be surprised if he sees out the month tbh. Basic stuff on the pitch he's continually getting wrong.