Rubinho Escocia

The lines won’t be parallel due to the camera’s perspective / vanishing point. However irrespective, it feels like the SFA know they’ve made a mistake in how the situation was handled and are trying to justify it - this image with retrospective lines suddenly appearing after Aberdeen’s statement feels convenient too. For me, it is really close and hard to tell if it is offside as there are so many bodies and it looks like there’s a yellow leg near Sokler (if you watch the highlights there are 8 livi players back but in that image I can only really see 7 of them). However, the lines make it look miles off and it feels like they’ve picked the player easiest to see rather than the one furthest back, to get something out quickly to divert focus from their process not being followed.

I’d have Ferguson starting over Callum McGregor but think Gilmour will play ahead of both. Ferguson’s role this summer will be from the bench but once he gets a run in the team I think he’ll stay in it.

The weird thing is when he’s talking about Miovski he quotes the data that he ran 12km in a game as evidence he’s a hard worker. Anyway, it for the best he’s gone - we may still go down but it feels less likely now he’s moved on.

He took over at Shamrock Rovers who had not won the league for c.20 years or qualified for Europe for c.10 years and with a few seasons had won the league and become the first manager to ever lead an Irish league team to the Group Stages of European competition by knocking out Partizan Belgrade. I’d argue that McInnes wouldn’t be able to get an Irish team through to the a group stages as his repeated attempts and failures at Aberdeen showed. O’Neill then took Northern Ireland to the later stages of International tournaments. I liked McInnes and appreciate he’s never been an international manager but I’d have my doubts that if he was Northern Ireland manager they’d not just be the cannon fodder they’ve been for most of my life. Both O’Neill and McInnes took over championship clubs with financial issues in danger of relegation, and to their credit both kept their clubs up. However, whilst O’Neill and McInnes both slashed the wage bill that’s where the similarities ended. O’Neills younger team were inconsistent but disappointing mid table performers whilst Mcinnes had a record breaking spell of 7 straight defeats before he was fired as Bristol City manager, with the club adrift a mess that would ultimately be relegated. People seem to quote win percentages (often with no context) so I’d also point, that McInnes win percentage at Bristol was weaker than his immediate peers, whilst O’Neills win percentage at Stoke was stronger than his immediate peers. Bristol City: Gary Jonson 40.2% Keith Millen 31.6% Derek McInnes 27.0% Steve Cotterill ?? Lee Johnson 38.7% Dean Holdon 44.2% Stoke: Paul Lambert 13.3% Gary Rowett 31.0% Nathan Jones 15.8% Michael O’Neill 38.5% Alex Neil 33.3% Stephen Schumacher 29.4%

Don’t think we’ll get O’Neill but think he’d be a great appointment and is miles ahead of the likes of Lennon and McInnes as a manager in my view. Hopefully an announcement soon and we can get over the line this season and start building for next season.

It can be both. The club is a shambles and I agree that losing 2 goals that late is a disgrace. However, I don’t think it is unreasonable to suggest Warnock is not doing a great job. Since he’s come in: - He seems to have crushed what little confidence the players had, and I’d argue the changes he made at 65mins won’t have helped convince the team he believes in them. - He seems to have no idea what formation and tactics to play, employing random selections from one week to the next. - He’s made our awful performances worse which have resulted in poor results. Hopefully we can limp over the line, but it’s hard to see how that will happen at the moment.

I believe Warnock has been relegated every time he’s managed in the top flight in a country, so not sure I agree with that - appreciate the English top flight is harder than the Scottish one but my point is, whilst he may like a scrap he’s not as good at them as you’d imagine. Anyway, Warnock has been given an almost impossible task to manage a club without the sort of material he needs, and with the players knowing he’ll be gone soon anyway. Hopefully Warnock is able to use his skills (team building etc) to complement the skills of the players to get us over the line, but it’s not going to be pretty and for me reflects poorly on those running our club.

I’m sure we got Bojan ‘cheap’ as his Hungarian club sacked their awful manager (who had rejected an bid from La Liga for Bojan) and replaced him with a manager who somehow made everyone worse and led the team to relegation. Really hope lightening doesn’t strike twice as he deserves to leave on a high and get a good move. Oh and I don’t think we’ll get relegated unless Warnock alienates the players, Terry Butcher or Derek Adams style, but I’m definitely more worried about who’s below us rather than above us after the past few weeks.

Warnock summed it up for me in that interview with ‘it’s not my type of team’. I think that’s true and it’s why appointing him even short term was questionable. Hopefully Bojan drags us over the line and we avoid relegation but we’re a real mess.

Warnock is what he is - On the plus side he’s managed lots of games, he’s liked by players and the media and will act as a distraction whilst wider things at the club are looked at. On the down side he’s a man that despite managing lots of games, he’s won no major trophies, been relegated every time he’s managed in a top league, implements no long term style of play and usually gets fired a few years in the job. Given he’s only here for a short while to raise the spirits of the squad, I don’t think it’s the end of the world and think we’ll finish mid-table. The wider issue is what we do going forward as whilst this season seems to have been written off by most as a laugh, there’s a mess to sort. Players out of contract like Barron have no real idea what the club is trying to do. We’ve a Director of football who doesn’t seem to be involved in appointing a manager, a CEO who seems to be good at Twitter but thinks someone with 40 years experience of not doing what the club is trying to, is a good appointment. Assuming we avoid relegation, Warnock will leave on his own terms with my thanks but I hope there’s more leaving with him, and I’d be stunned if our highly paid consultants haven’t realised that needs to happen too by now.

Fair to say he wouldn’t have been my choice but now he’s here c’mon Warnock!

Fair enough. On Kombouare, as before I’m not wedded to him and I’d expect the club to be looking across the market. However the reasons someone like him would interest me are: - He’s won cups in his managerial career and I want Aberdeen to win things. - He’s get a reputation for developing youth and playing attractive football, which I think Aberdeen should be doing. On his win percentages I’d accept they don’t look great recently but I’d add the following context: - His recent jobs have seen him take charge of teams at the bottom of the French top league. He’s kept those teams up but doesn’t have great win % as a consequence. If he’d got relegated I suspect he’d have better numbers as his typically got promoted when not in the top league. -When in charge of clubs who were not in real relegation trouble when he took charge he’s got more decent win percentages. - He maybe draws too much for longer term roles against his peers which lowers his win percentage but also lowers his lose percentage. Not losing in part links to why he’s had some success in cups. I accepts he’s far from perfect, but I put his name out there as it’s easy to criticise and not offer an alternate and I didn’t want to do that. For me that sort of appointing shows some logic, which I struggle to see with some of the other suggestions.

The club include a strategic report in the annual accounts - here’s a link to the one published at the end of last year. https://d12bijpmbcc9cc.cloudfront.net/aberdeen2022/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/18075200/Annual-Report-2023.pdf Appreciate there are unconfirmed rumours of getting consultants in, but I’d assume that is going to focus on how to deliver the strategy as opposed to what it should be. However, apologies if I’ve been under a rock and missed the official confirmation of the review and it’s stated aims. Anyway, appreciate you’ve a different view and I hope Warnock works out if he’s appointed, as there’s still things to achieve in the next 4 months.

Are you able to articulate why you think that, or if you’re a fan of Warnock’s why you think his track record aligns with the clubs strategy?

Ha, fair enough. I’m not wedded to Kombouare but was looking for someone available and experienced in delivering what the club is trying achieve, saw his name mentioned in the past and thought why not. Appreciate, someone who has won multiple cups and mostly managed in the top flight in France may be out of our reach, but a chance to manage a club who should be towards the top of a league again may have appealed. Anyway, as per the first part of my previous post, I don’t see Warnock’s track record as particularly impressive. I suspect if you ask most people, the first thing that came to mind about Warnock it would be him swearing, or some silly story as opposed to one of his teams playing amazing football or winning anything, and I think there’s a good reason for that.