A point in the bag after a run of defeats and not scoring may seem little, but it can only help to push a bit more confidence into the Redz and they really need it for their up-coming match against Livvy in the League Cup on Tuesday. Anybody who cares about the Dons and with the lightest of fingers on the pulse must know how important a game it is. A place in the semi-final of any competition is a financial booster and with the parlous state of Scottish football we need to grab every source of cash going. Red Army! Get your arses down to Todders on Tuesday night and do your bit to pushing the Dandies a step further towards a final.
27th November 2003 - MORE ON DUNCEDEE
Well, I'll be! It is beginning to look as though Dundee are really in the faeces! This crises 60 miles down the road must serve warning to all those fans who continually whine for bigger and better names at Pitters. Sure we all want to see better players coming through the doors but surely no one wants to see what is happening at Dundee replayed up here. On this point, the Dons board are to be credited with the recognition of their mistakes in the past and their efforts to put them right. Dundee perhaps didn't spend so recklessly when we were, but they failed to act upon the lessons learned when clubs such as ourselves, Hearts and Dunfermline started racking up large debts. Our debts still are large and we continue to lose money which is worrying. What is comforting to know however is that steps are being taken to combat this before it comes to administration. I advocated earlier that we might take advantage of Dundee's troubles and sign some of there players but I must add that we should do so only if it fits in with our budget and does not mean adding to the amount of money that the club is losing each week.
What I understand of the situation regarding Dundee is that if their principle creditors, the Bank of Scotland, do not agree to the payment schedules set out by the administrators, they can insist that DFC be wound up i.e. that they cease trading. Harsh on the fans of Dundee but then again, not harsh on those whose seats lay empty most weeks. It wasn't just money spent on players that caused this financial crisis but Dundee's need to upgrade Dens in order to stay in the top flight. That alone cost them millions. Perhaps they should just have tried to groundshare down the road, or at least at McDiarmid if they could not bring themselves to sit in tangerine seats every week. To continue to bring in the likes of Ravanelli, Caballero, Nemsadze, in the belief that it would lead to sell outs each week and have them challenging the infirm was pure fantasy by the Marr brothers whose passion for Dundee has proved compelling if utterly useless. Yes they made a profit on Caniggia and might have reasonably thought that they were entitled to something for Keechapishvilli however, they were never going to wipe out their debts with a single sale. This was probably what they were planning on when the Bonnettis tried to convince everyone that they would eventually sell Gavin Rae for £10 million. Again, sheer fantasy, as decent a player as he is, he couldn't live with the Dutch last week.
If Dundee are wound up, all results against them will be expunged. This will be good news for us in our current situation, given that we lost to them earlier in the season it will bring all those who got points from them a little closer to ourselves. Furthermore it will mean that there is no relegation this year. Although it is still early to be thinking about that possibility, it is worth pointing out. Furthermore, if ICT or QOS were to win division one, there would be no promotion either meaning that there would be an SPL league of 11 next year meaning that one team would a weekend off each week. This is probably bad news with regards to potential sponsorship agreements for the non hun/tim clubs as it will scare away long term sponsors wary of investing money in something that might not be there in the not too distant future. The financial plight of Dundee should serve as a wake up call not only to club directors across the country but to lapsed fans and even fans that buy season tickets and don't go each week. If the city wants a football club to be proud of then no matter what the financial situation of the club, the residents must turn out and support it.
Yes it is dear to go to every match, although season tickets are pretty reasonable nowadays, but if we think
of the amount of money many of us waste on frivolous expenditure every day. Things we don't really need and are
at the end of the day, a waste of money. e.g. lottery tickets, fags, central heating, crushed bat's testicle exfoliating
facial paste from the bodyshop etc... If we spent less on these sorts of things and saved it for the occasional
match ticket (IF you are not a season ticket holder) then the club would benefit and there would be more of a chance
of the club surviving in the long term. Yes, I've introduced silliness to make a point but you can see what I mean.
There are things that should come behind buying a Don's ticket on our lists of priorities. Incidentally, season
ticket
holders should not think that buying their ticket is the end of their responsibilities with regards to club finance.
It remains your duty to
actually turn up each and every home match to pay £1.10 for a cup of weak, cheap tea and 60p for an out of
date mars bar and to buy a programme and of course TRF.
It could very well be that in the months to come Dundee join us in the basement struggle with Thistle. Let's hope by then we are departing from that particular scene and that Dundee are made to pay for their recklessness and profligacy.
Captain Sweaty
23rd November 2003 - It was the Godfather who said " Your enemies always grow strong from what you
leave behind" or words to that effect. Steve Paterson and the Dons board should keep this in mind if as a
result of their looming administration, Dundee are forced to clear out some of their players. There are some there
who would add to the squad providing we could afford to keep them. To this end it is vital that all efforts are
made to off load those who are taking up valuable space on the wage bill at Piiters in time for the January sales.
SP has warned already that there is less to choose from at this time than in the summer. However, the financial
chickens that are
coming home to roost at Dens may lay some golden eggs for us and or others. If SP can get shot of D'Jaffo and any
one else he thinks is worth punting in January (Lee Hinds) it would free up some space for a striker or attacking
midfielder. Perhaps the board could make available that £300K that they were willing to throw at Falkirk
for Lee Miller in order to take in Caballero or Sara, if they were available.
With regards to Dundee, I have little sympathy with their predicament. Although they were unlucky to get next to nowt for Keechapishvilli (money which they must now return to the huns) they speculated hugely on expensive big money players and got little in return from the fans. Their home attendances did not rise sufficiently to cover the costs involved and although they reached a cup final, this on its own was not enough to justify the outrageouse percentage of their turnover that they were spending on wages. 154% last time I looked. They did not learn from the mistakes that clubs such as ourselves made in the 1990s when we over-speculated. At least at the time, we speculated on players because we had a financial backer, in the form of SKY. The Sky deal has long since gone and Dundee continued to spend silly money on wages. Even in Giovanni DiStefano is paying Ravanelli's wages, an organisation the size of Dundee, with little prospect for greater regular incomes cannot expect to survive when it is paying out more money on wages alone than it is taking in. The fact that they have a tax bill of £700-800K shows what a financial state they are in. Before any debt or backed wages can be payed, the tax bill must be settled. Thus when trading resumes in January, Dundee should be in a poor enough state for the likes of us to take advantage provided we put ourselves in a position to benefit from their financial crisis. That means funnelling all available resources towards SP's warchest. Beating Dundee at home would also be beneficial as it might help convince potential targets that we are a team worth joining. We benefitted from Motherwell's administration by signing Eric Deloumeaux. Given the amount of money we have spent on certain players in the past 5 years, the £50K we doled out for him will go down as one of Skovdahl's best bits of business. We will not be alone in seeking to pick the meat off the Dundee bones but in terms of the SPL few have as great a need as ourselves to strengthen our squad which is lacking in physical strength and creativity.
Captain Sweaty.
Because the numbers were split its hard to say how many were actually there, but the bar upstairs was loupin and there was a good sized press of bodies downstairs too. The club had said that it needed 500 to break even on the event so they should now be encouraged to try it again and strive for bigger numbers. The view of the big screens was good, despite the pillars that are strewn about the concourse, but it was a good thing that two screens were used as it would have been a struggle for everybody to see only one. If the Dandies had grabbed a goal the place would have exploded in joy, sadly it went the other way.
As to the game itself, we were doing okay till Diamond was unjustifiably sent off, but by that time Willie Young had built up a good head of biased steam with phony corners and dubious free kicks going to the huns who really were huffing and puffing to little effect. The extra man told in the end though but a three goal margin flattered the govan gorgons. The Redz should take a little bit of encouragement from this match because yet again they obviously put in the effort and their commitment was clear. Now they need to start turning those elements into points. The season is wearing on and we are a lot worse off point-wise than we were at this stage last year. More stops need to be pulled out but only people who want us to fail - like Partick Thistle, Dundee United and the local doomsayers - will say that it is not possible.
20th November 2003 - OUCH!As an Aberdeen fan the initial shock of a
6-0 hammering now has little effect. For a long time now I have realised that a gulf in class, physique, and mental
toughness exists between the players from Pittodrie and those from kraphead. Before the match yesterday, I didn't
believe that the gap between Scotland's national team and that of the Netherlands was as wide. How wrong was I?!
Sure, I knew prior to the match that those Dutch strikers of note that were not even included in the squad, Hasselbaink,
Mols, R. de Boer, and Bergkamp would still walk into any Scotland team. But I believed, especially on the back
of Saturday's showing that Scotland could at least compete. Again, how wrong was I?! There were mitigating factors
available to us for explaining the fact that this match would end in defeat. First of all, it was away from home
in a large, intimidating arenA that few of the squad had experienced before. But the size of the crowd shouldn't
have counted for 6 goals. Secondly, we were denied the service of two of our most experienced and effective spoilers,
Dailly and Lambert. The protection that either one of these players offers the back line was never so clearly missed
than at the first goal when McCann's attempted challenge of Schneider saw
the Dutchman side step the Southampton winger and run unchallenged (McCann made no effort to atone for his error)
for 25 yards or so before picking his spot. Schneider, had he been a more famous name, would surely have regarded
the quality of McCann's challenge as an insult to his abilities and reputation.
Mitigating factors aside, we can concentrate on the deficiencies in the team that were so apparent last night. Douglas was at fault for one of the first half headed goals. If he hurries, he might just get to the edge of the 6 yard box in time for the next visit to the ArenA. Apart from the handbags incident early on before it looked like becoming a massacre, (or maybe a mascara?) fairy ferguson showed all of the passion and interest in playing for Scotland that many non-hun commentators have suspected he had all along. Talk about a conflict of interests for the lad. Lee Wilkie and Steven Pressly looked overawed by the occasion. Both failed to mark effectively if at all at set pieces and were responsible for at least three goals. Most goals scored in football are a result of poor defending of some sort. Some can be put down to good fortune and some to bad fortune and some to brilliance. Ruud van Nistelrooy's chip fell under the latter category. The Dutch were good and had better, more exciting players, each capable of creativity, invention, and improvisation. Their need to employ this latter characteristic was however, sadly absent. Rarely did the Scottish midfield find the energy to close down or to anticipate passes. Scotland currently has two players capable of great technique and invention.
McFadden and Fletcher are still young and require more experienced leaders to be on their side. However they
need leaders who's technical ability is not so vastly inferrior to their own. Paul Dickov ran about and plowed
a lonely furrow up front but never looked likely to beat anyone one on one. And that was without having to face
Jaap Stam again. McFadden and Fletcher's heads perhaps
understandably dropped again when they saw what they were up against. Can anyone in the Scotland set up honestly
come out and say that Scotland would not have faired better had Scott Booth, a player of better technical ability
than Dickov, and with 5 years experience of Dutch football (Never having lost at the ArenA) and the best scoring
record of any Scottish forward in recent years, started up front? Does the sun reflect so brightly off of the shiny
bits in the granite that no one from the Scotland set up can see the skills of the likes of Booth? Now that preparation
for the next WC campaign is the priority, Scotland must find answers to the problems of a defensive central midfielder
and goalscorers. No way should a fit Kenny Miller ever play second fiddle to Steve Crawford or Paul Dickov. Vogt's
hands are tied by what is available to him around the country and in the English leagues. However, he does himself
or his adopted country no favours by blatantly ignoring certain players on the advice of his Largs mafia assistants
and old farm reserve coaches past and present.
Let us hope that unlike the Dons this sort of humping by better quality opposition will be a one off. We have produced
creditable displays against the world cup runners up. Let us hope that the progress demonstrated there and in the
first match against the Dutch is not wasted by stubborness and refusal to admit mistakes both tactical and in recruitment.
Captain Sweaty.
Even with the poor form the Dons have been showing so far, there are (as usual) not enough tickets for the Red Army who want to go to the game, so the idea of providing live coverage at Pittodrie via beamback is a good one. A few hundred Rudolphs in the concourse at the Beach End should generate a hell of an atmosphere, especially if the game goes well and even if it doesn't, if we take a leaf from the Tartan Army hand book, we'll make the most of it anyhow.
We hear that the idea was put forward by a prominent member of the Granite City Supporters Club and that's a big pat on the back for him. It's a shame that beer can't be on the agenda come Saturday, that would have helped make it a cracking way to spend an afternoon. Still, if the experiment is a success, maybe that problem can be sorted out for future games. TRF will have a spy on hand to see how the event goes, and whilst it isn't the same as being at the game, at least it avoids all the hassle of traveling and braving the hostility of the city of culture.
club was ever likely to take in from media revenues. The club has to try and live with these mistakes however sacking the board when there is no obvious replacement or keen buyer in sight would not help matters. It wouldn't bring more TV money, it wouldn't get more people through the gates.
Milne has said he will step down if a suitable replacement can be found. By suitable replacement we have to assume someone who can attract more investment to the club or someone who is willing to plow in a substantial amount of their own fortune. The obvious way out for Aberdeen is to sell Pittodrie and move into a council owned stadium. The sale of Pitters for flats would be a sad day but
at least the club would survive. The debt as it stands would probably be cleared unless property prices took a huge dive. Parts of the stadium could be auctioned off to fans wanting a slice of memorabilia which would also raise a few pennies. The new stadium would not suck money from the club in the same way as Pitters is doing now. Rumour has it that safety checks are carried out and certificates issued on the RDS on a weekly basis because of fears of subsidence. Rumour also has it that Sir Ian (potentially Scotland's first Billionaire) Wood of Wood Group is a Dons fan. Surely he could be coaxed onto the board. However, rumour also has it that he doesn't get on with Ian Donald and wouldn't sit on the same board despite the fact that there is a rumour about them owning houses on the same street in Aberdeen's leafy west end. Whether these rumours are true or not, they should at least be investigated with the view to doing something with such information were any of it true. This Rumour chap sounds like a pretty interesting if notorious fellow.
Anyway, by the time any of this is established or by the time the Dons move to a new stadium and clear their debts, the situation on the pitch could be a whole lot worse. Last year we defended pretty well but ulitmately struggled because we could not score goals. This season we are still struggling to score with any regularity and the defence has hit a patch of poor form. Bobby Mann may be at the peak age for a footballer but is he really what we need to spend our prescious pennies on? He would lend the team more physical presence which is one of the things that I have been arguing for however, I don't necessarily think that we need it at centre half. We finished fourth under Ebbe with Anderson, McGuire, McNaughton, McAllister, Rutkiewicz, and Whyte. None of whom are monsters but most of whom are capable defenders. Our lack of physical presence is most noticable when we play the tims. Our best results against them in recent seasons (Two 1-1s at Pitters, the win at Pitters and the 0-1 away loss) came when we had a balance of physical presence and pace throughout the team. Although Mann has experience of beating the tims, he is probably less mobile than what we
have and could end up delaying the development of young Diamond. On the other hand he could help with his development on the training ground. It is a gamble. I'm sure Mann would be capable enough against the teams outwith the old farm and he seems keen to come south, however, with the striking problems that we have, D'jaffo still to be offloaded, Hinds not setting anything alight, Mackie's progress seemingly coming to a halt and then regressing, Michie away bettering himself (we hope) and Booth and Zdrilic never fit to play in the same team, SP would be better advised to sign a striker. Yes we lack physical presence and experience at the back. However, Anderson and McGuire have more top flight years behind them than Mann. I'm sure Mann could be effective but we need chaps who can put the ball in the opposition net. I don't know if SP will stick with Diamond for the huns match or if he will reinstate McGuire. Diamond seems fresher and better in the air but McGuire has played at iprix before and doesn't suffer huns lightly.
Getting back to the AGM, I agree with SP in that he doesn't need to be jumping around like a "Neep" on the touchline during matches. That is DS's job. Paterson needs to assess what is going well and what isn't during the game so at half time and full time he can communicate more effectively with the players what needs to be done to better themselves individually and as a team. Yes there are times when a manager needs to bawl out a player but this should happen in the dressing room where he can deliver a well constructed rant or a well aimed teacup out of sight of the press. Ebbe realised that there was little point in ranting and raving on the touchline. That's why when he did occasionally get excited (eg when Dow scored against Hibs in the cup semi) it was all the more fun to watch on video replay. If the team can show the same level of commitment against the huns as they did against hearts, avoiding a sending off though) then there is no reason why we can't take something from the game. The huns aren't playing their best stuff at the moment and are slightly depleted by injury.
Times are bad but it could be worse, we could be Partick. They will start winning however. So will we. We need to make sure we start first.
Captain Sweaty (When writing for TRF)
Captain Sweary (When the Dons lose)
Captain Sweetie (When starring in long running BBC sitcom about fashionable London ladies) (Never actually happened)
Captain Swankie (When I earn lots of money) (May never happen) Captain Swotty (When I get my Masters) (Nov 28th) Captain Sw..... (When I can't think of another relevant word starting with Sw) (Just happened)
There was an up side to this game, though, in fact several. First and foremost the team showed some bollocks and really worked hard and aggressively. That in turn lifted the fans to the kind of efforts we enjoyed in the relegation struggle of '95. It just goes to prove that if the players show the effort and commitment, the Red Army will back them all the way. Let's hope that the message has finally got through and that we'll see much more of the fighting qualities of Aberdeen shining through. Other plusses were the outstanding showing from Zander Diamond who looked exactly the kind of player we all knew him to be. Morrison had a great game as well and if they both keep up that kind of form they should be fixtures in the first team for a long time to come.
It's a big IF, but if the Dandies play that way every week, they will soon leave their troubles behind them because the point will start to accumulate, confidence will grow and we'll start to get back to the kind of AFC that we want to see. The players must realise that the potential is there, but that it is down to them to keep on putting out for the fans, only they can do it, so in the time honoured phrase, COME ON YOU REDZ!!!!
6th November 2003 - Bloody hell! TRF’s only gone and got itself in the bad books – and on the back page
– of the Evening Express. For those of you who haven’t seen it (perhaps you live too far away from Aberdeen for
24 pages a day attacking the City Council to be of interest, or maybe you just choose to buy proper newspapers),
what’s put a bee in the EE’s bonnet is TRF’s sett in Centenary Way, which bears the legend ‘SACK THE BOARD! THE
RED FINAL’.
For some peculiar reason the spin the EE has chosen to put on this is that the board deserve criticism for allowing
this to happen. It’s not hard to figure out why they’ve put such a slant on things, in the context of the recent
AFC-EE fallout over all these childish surveys. The sett, after all, has been down for weeks and weeks, and the
EE knew about it long before it was even laid, so why choose to send novice joined-up writer and catalogue model
Andrew Moir down with a photographer NOW…?
TRF doesn’t feel the need to justify the sett, freedom of speech and all that, least of all to the EE. But it doesn’t
take much in the way of brainpower to figure out that there was a very high joke quotient behind it. The brass
at Pittodrie were perfectly aware of that when they agreed to put the sett down in the first place (not a decision
they took lightly). If nothing else the addition of the exclamation mark makes that obvious – as the EE sub-editors
would have spotted if they’d passed Standard Grade English. But the application of even the slightest logic forbids
anyone from taking this seriously. For one thing, one particular member of the board can still be found outside
Pittodrie on match days – not too far from the sett in question – selling The Red Final. For another, Centenary
Way is intended as a lasting monument, so when AFC comes to celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2103 the stone will
still be around. Even the most optimistic cryogenic scientist would struggle to mount an argument for the present
board still being in place 100 years down the line for pete’s sake. It was merely an amusing, fanzine-type sentiment,
and the fact that it forms part of an official club display increases the all-important mischief factor. As AFC
press officer Dave McDermid pointed out, it’s what you expect from a fanzine.
It was not unnoticed at TRF Towers that the Evening Express fable quoted "one angry supporter who refused
to be named". Come on guys! TRF knows just about enough about the way journalists operate for such a statement
to set off huge alarm bells. It is common knowledge that whenever you see quoted a source such as that, or "an
eye-witness", "a neighbour", "a local resident" (they always ask not to be named) what
it really means is "we just made this up for the sake of a story, couldn’t find anybody who would actually
say it so we’ll put this down and nobody can sue us for quoting them on something they never actually said".
I’ll name the "angry supporter" right now. It was Andrew Moir. And he wasn’t really angry. Probably not
a supporter either. Do you want to know how many angry supporters there really are out there? Well the chat page
of the official club website, normally a forum for conspiracist Dandies to grind all sorts of axes, contains two
– a whole two – threads about this topic, both posted AFTER the EE story went to print, and both of the general
thrust ‘och it’s quite funny really, isn’t it?’.
But not content with outright lying, the EE decided to be a bit daring and put a subtext underneath their fairytale.
"Furious fans have slammed the club for allowing a granite sett criticising the Dons board to be placed alongside
others paying tribute to the club… ‘I spent a lot of money on a sett to give to my son for a Christmas present
last year and I think this message detracts from the overall value of what was a good idea’ (that’s the angry supporter
again)". The obvious implication of all this is: for heaven’s sake people, if you’re thinking of giving AFC
£75 for one of these stones, think again! You don’t want to be associated with tyranny like this do you?
That’s utterly reprehensible. Aberdeen Football Club plc is in a dire financial position, and turnover has dropped
over the last year. AFC needs to make the best of every revenue source it can and Centenary Way is a novel, innovative,
creative and inclusive way of doing that. TRF is 100% behind Centenary Way and would encourage anyone who is even
considering buying a sett to get down to the ticket office, pick up a leaflet and support your club. Charlie Allan
gained a lot of publicity from his ‘Pieman Gains A Stone’ sett (scripted, alas, by someone else) – TRF presumes
that he is not so outraged that he has contacted the club to have it dug up and his money refunded. Grow up for
fuck’s sake. If the EE are that up-in-arms, let’s see them redress the balance and spend the income on 215 copies
of their rag (they sell over 150,000 a day, remember) on a sett of their own saying ‘BACK THE BOARD! THE EVENING
EXPRESS’.
The bizarre thing is that the two tabloid nationals who picked up the EE’s non-story, the sun and the daily record,
actually reported it considerably better – peppering the reports with phrases like ‘tongue in cheek’ so their hard-of-thinking
readers wouldn’t be left in any doubt. Indeed they seemed to carry it as one of their light-hearted stories and
certainly didn’t suggest that the board was wrong to ratify the sett or that it had caused unrest among the fans.
Aberdeen FC deserves CREDIT for having the sense of humour and rationality to see TRF’s sett for what it is. Imagine,
for a moment, that it had been another way, and they had banned it – what coverage then for the kill-joys down
Pittodrie way? Where the press are concerned they cannot win.
P-O M!
3rd November 2003 - Review
Now that a third of the pre-split season is over and each team has been played once it is clear to see that
the Dons squad is in need of more surgery. As has been said by many in the media, both local and national, the
problem can't always lie with the manager. Some of our recent managers have gone on to respectable positions in
the game and some actually did achieve things of note during their time at the Dons. What is the problem? Why do
we keep losing games that we should win? To attempt to answer these general questions perhaps we should look at
the players involved individually.
Preece: A decent goalkeeper. Agile, mobile can stop shots (Although not at parkhead). Perhaps not as commanding
of his box as he should be but this isn't the major problem so far this season.
McNaughton: Great pace, good skill on the ball. Needs to develop shooting and rediscover the willingness
to run at defenders like he did two seasons ago.
Muirhead: Has he been promoted too soon? Who are the alternatives he may reply. Good willingness to attack
but still relatively raw in terms of experience. Needs to work on tricks and shooting.
Anderson: Nice guy. Too nice. He is a good footballer who has been at the club long enough to learn from
some good centre halves. Needs to be more vocal and aggressive.
McGuire: Aggressive enough but suffers lapses of concentration which have hurt us this season. Lack of physical
presence means he will always be up against it when taking on experienced, physical strikers.
Deloumeaux: Perhaps the most technically gifted player at the club. Currently his skills are wasted in defence
where his lack of pace on the break is a disadvantage. Would be better in Heikkinens role, sitting in front of
the back 3/4 directing traffic and taking potshots at goal. Increased work rate would help too.
Tosh: At points this season and end of last had me thinking of regreting my initial criticism of his signing.
Always puts in a good shift and has come up with the odd goal. However, he lacks the quality to be able to control
a game. Often seems incapable of invention or improvisation. A very direct but ultimately limited player. His work
rate will suffice for the time being. Not a suitable replacement for Dn Young though.
Sheerin: After a bright start, some neat tricks and a few goals he had us thinking he was the steal of the
decade. This season though, he has been found out. His lack of pace limits his attacking capabilities and he hasn't
looked the goal threat we thought he would be. Lack of pace also affects his defensive duties, ie closing down
and recovering from missed challenges.
Heikkinen: Again, a decent player. Strong in the tackle and puts in a good shift. Has been relatively consistent.
Has neither lost us or won us any games.
Booth: Movement and ability on the ball are something that has been lacking at the club since Jess left.
Same old story, needs to keep fit and healthy in order to provide a regular goal threat.
Zdrilic: Similar story as Booth, needs to feature regularly and start scoring again like he did at the beginning
of the season. Good all-rounder a bit more effort off the ball wouldn't go a-miss.
Reserves:
Clark: Paterson says he can still be trained. Skillful on the ball, plenty of pace but perhaps not defensively
sound enough to be a wingback.
Mackie: Pace not a problem: Physique, confidence, decisionmaking, crossing, all big problems that he needs
to solve sooner rather than later. Future will depend on whether he puts some meat on those bones. Pace alone is
not enough. No qualms about his commitment and effort though.
Hinds: Just not good enough. Has had ample opportunities to impress. Thought he might come good after the
end of last season. However 2 of those 3 goals were result of huge defensive blunders. Lack of cutting edge about
him.
Rutkiewicz: Must be doing something seriously wrong not to get any minutes at all so far. Perhaps Paterson
would be better advised to throw him on upfront in the last 10 mins when we need a goal.
Bird: Same as Rutkiewicz. After training with the likes of Okocha and Djorkaeff you would think he had something
to offer. Even at this early stage.
Tiernan: Many were surprised to see him and not O'Donoghue survive Ebbe's final cut. Doesn't score or create
enough to be an attacking midfielder, not strong or intimidating enough to be considered a ball winner. Effective
enough at getting the ball from A to B but that isn't enough on its own to improve the team.
Hart: Better at centre half or full back. Who knows? Has good days and bad days. Needs to develop a consistancy
and aggression that will force one of the other defenders out. Again, perhaps to slender to be a truely effective
centre half.
McQuilken: We were promised constant raids deep into enemy territory down the left flank. They haven't materialised.
The £60,000 spent here would have been better spent sending Bisconti's kids to that special French school
for a year. Defensively no better that McAllister who had an understanding with the other defenders already and
was developing physically and skillfully from the hidings he used to take from kanchelskis and Moravcik. In the
games earlier this season, McQuilken disappeared for long spells and added little spark going forward.
Esson: Permanantly unfit or injured. Kris Robertson may end up staying longer than he thinks. Hutton looks
promising but like Peat, it is too early yet.
That is the bare bones of the bare bones squad we have. I know they want to win but they are lacking in aggression
and physique all over the park. Other teams have young squads that are small in number yet still manage to do themselves
justice. All the aggressive and physically strong players that have been at the club recently have been allowed
to leave. Bisconti, Dadi, Young brothers. For all their limitations that we pointed out at the time, they were
willing and able to mix it with bigger and faster players. The current Dons squad has pace aplenty. Probably more
than any team outwith the old firm. What it is lacking is strength and aggression. As a captain
Anderson is cool and level headed but he needs to quickly develop a mean streak and be prepared to bollock his
fellow players in public when they are not doing their jobs. We need an injection of strength and character in
certain departments otherwise visiting teams are going to continue to find Pittodrie a happy hunting ground.
Sweaty's verdict: Steaks all around for the next three months. Breakfast lunch and dinner. Fillets of baby beef
on a sunday.
Captain Sweaty.