Mcinnes

[Norwegian Red]

"We sacked him and has gone on to bigger and better things whilst we have gone further backwards."

 

Take it from me - although a Dolman Season ticket holder - I am Scottish, and watch a bit of SPFL, City would beat every team in that league ( except Celtic) 9 times out of 10.

 

The standard is dreadful, as for Aberdeen being a bigger club, yeah they won some stuff, and the highlight was a Cup Winners Cup v Real Madrid in Gothenburg, those days are long, long gone. If you are interested, take a look at the Aberdeen team that won that cup, most of them went on to play in Div 1 down here ( as it was then, EPL now ) and SAF was the manager.Don' t misunderstand, I am pleased for McInnes, and pleased that a club, apart from the "ugly sisters" won a trophy, but being in Div 1 is a better place to be.

How many times out of 10 would we beat Celtic, then??

[Eco]

How many times out of 10 would we beat Celtic, then??

Exactly, we couldn't even beat Rangers who are two leagues below Celtic

[Davros]

Apart from the 2 Glasgow clubs who are massive massive clubs the Scottish league is weak as **** and most teams in the English leagues would spank their Scottish counterparts. Anyone who believe anything else is smoking crack.

[Norwegian Red]

Exactly, we couldn't even beat Rangers who are two leagues below Celtic

Didn't quite mean it like that, Eco. Scottish Red was tantalisingly ambivalent on our chances with Celtic. But you've got a point there. I reckon we would be competitive with all up there, except the auld firm

[BS34Red]

We can only ever dream of playing Real Madrid in a friendly, Aberdeen beat them in a euro final. That's the difference.

[ballwinningcentrehalf]

I don't think anyone is suggesting most Scottish sides wouldn't struggle against a lot of lower league English clubs, so I'm not sure why people are continuously rehashing this boring point.

Let's stick City in the SPFL, cope with the financial constrictions Scottish sides do, and THEN try and compete with them.

[Norwegian Red]

We can only ever dream of playing Real Madrid in a friendly, Aberdeen beat them in a euro final. That's the difference.

My dreams can stretch to way more than that, really they can

[Robin1988]

I don't think anyone is suggesting most Scottish sides wouldn't struggle against a lot of lower league English clubs, so I'm not sure why people are continuously rehashing this boring point.

...Or why it devalues McInnes being the first man in decades to bring silverware to Pittodrie.

[Panda]

Aberdeen fan here. Been reading with interest your views on Derek McInnes and Scottish football.

 

When McInnes got the job the fans were very split, and there was a lot of anger at the appointment. He was average at St Johnstone, obviously got sacked at you guys, and he wasn't first choice with us by any means.

 

However, he currently has the highest win rate of any Aberdeen manager (including Fergie), has just won the League Cup (our first cup win in 19 years) and next weekend we're in the Scottish Cup semi-finals. What a debut season!

 

I think in fairness he did come in when we were slightly on the up, as Craig Brown had steadied the ship after the mess Mark McGhee left us in. We had a solid backbone of good players and with no money to pay transfer fees a lot of Scottish clubs started investing heavily in their youth system a few years ago, and we're all starting to see the benefit of that. McInnes has actually said his budget at Bristol City, despite your financial problems at the time, was still higher than the one he has at Aberdeen now.

 

McInnes still did a good bit of tinkering with the squad in summer. Not every decision has been great (Calvin Zola is a carthorse for starters) but our starting XI is probably the best we've had for over 15 years so little wonder we're doing well. Was surprised to read (can't remember if it was this thread or another) that someone suggested the training wasn't good at Bristol under McInnes - one of the biggest things he's done up here is make us the fittest team in the league. We tend to score an incredible amount of late goals.

 

Obviously, that wasn't the case at Bristol and it was a very different job he had on his hands there. I think in that situation you need a manager with more experience and the one you have at the moment is that man. Like I said Craig Brown did a steady if unspectacular job of stopping Aberdeen's spiral down the league and getting rid of deadwood. But, Brown would never have had as successful a season as McInnes has had this year, so we needed Brown to do the dirty work if you like first, then McInnes to come in and take us to the next level.

 

It is a piss poor standard as messrs Morris, Wilson and Foster demonstrated when he signed them for us.
 

 

Ricky Foster was poor at Aberdeen too, and is currently struggling in Scotland's League One with Rangers against part-time teams. He's hardly someone to hold up as an example of the standard of Scottish football.

Injuries have taken their toll on Mark Wilson and he's a shadow of the player he was at Celtic and in his first Dundee United spell. He's only playing in recent weeks at United due to a few injuries, generally when they've everyone fit he's on the bench. In fairness the guy was playing in the Champions League and holding his own. Even Ricky Foster did okay in the Champions League at Rangers.

Jody Morris was decent enough in Scotland but none of the top clubs up here paid much interest in him, he hardly set the heather alight.

 

I watched bits of the game between the Sky games.
As per most things associated with Scottish football.. It's was pretty poor fare..
At best lower Championship level..
 

 

The final itself was a horrible game. Inverness played for penalties pretty much from kick-off (they were a far tougher proposition with Terry Butcher in charge) while with Aberdeen losing Pawlett and Hayes early, and just the whole pressure of the occasion, it resulted in a game of very few chances.

Both Scottish Cup semis on sky next week. Worth watching Dundee United v Rangers on the Saturday (which, in the wisdom of Scottish football, is at the neutral venue of, er, Ibrox). Now, Rangers are rubbish so don't expect to be impressed by them (and you'll see how poor Foster still is) but Dundee United have some cracking young players. Look out for Ryan Gauld, Gary Mackay-Steven and Andrew Robertson in particular.

 

People who are saying Aberdeen are bigger than us because they've won trophies and are in Europe are just deluded.

 

Just look at the teams in England, the big 4, then Southampton, Everton, Newcastle, Spurs etc, then the Villa's, Swanseas etc.

They are all a lot better than the Scottish teams, and bigger. Just because Villa aren't in the Europa cup does that mean Aberdeen are bigger?

 

 

I agree with you on that, I think it's more than about trophies won. However, Aberdeen can command fans from all over Scotland, more than the odd pockets of fans you'll get with every club, but a signifcant fanbase in Glasgow and Edinburgh for example. I don't know if Bristol can say the same throughout England besides maybe the odd supporters bus coming from outside Bristol (I'm guessing of course).

 

We sold 40,000 tickets for the cup final and even then that didn't meet demand. We wanted the 6,000 seats Caley Thistle couldn't sell but were refused by police, and we probably could have sold out the stadium ourselves.

The average crowd (around 13,000 this season, but rising) isn't really a true reflection as like I said around 30% of our support live no-where near Aberdeen and tend to go to away games, and the away support at Pittodrie (bar Celtic and Dundee United) is pretty much non existent. That's why we have a situation up here that Hearts and (sometimes) Hibs have bigger home supports, but most would accept we're a bigger club than both of them.

 

Lee Johnson, unsuccessful trials at Brentford and Brighton, barely played a league game in England in a side that wasn't selected by his dad, Scottish cup winner with Kilmarnock ! Nuff said about the standard of Scottish football !

 

In fairness, he lasted less than a year at Kilmarnock.

Kilmarnock also beat Celtic in that final so it wasn't that easy to win.

 

Calvin Zola, a league 2 player at best, Aberdeens main striker..

 

Adam Rooney, released by Oldham, scored a goal every game since he's joined Aberdeen

 

Zola Aberdeen's main striker!? I don't think he's started a game since October. He very rarely even makes an appearance from the bench these days and wasn't in the cup final squad. I forgot he was still at Aberdeen until he was thrown on for the last five minutes last week. He's one of the few mistakes McInnes has made alongside signing Greg Wylde (who we've managed to empty to St Mirren). Be surprised if he's still here next season.

Rooney has done well right enough, but was he not doing okay at Oldham anyway, just playing in a poor team (and by all accounts sometimes being played out of position on the left wing?). We're a side that creates lots of chances so any striker worth their salt should be scoring them. Most of his goals are laid on a plate for him.

 

Motherwell went joint second with Aberbeen tonight, in front of a "crowd" of 3432, massive league...

Not sure crowds have much to do with the standard of a team or league. Motherwell is a small town with the population of 59,000. Their average is just under 5,000. That's just under 10% of the town going to games, and one where most people in Motherwell will support Rangers or Celtic.

 

However, Scottish crowds - considering the population of the country - look decent when compared with most of Europe. You get clubs in Portugal's premier league for example with smaller crowds than Scotland's first division.

 

Is League One's average not 7,300? If you take away Celtic the average in the SPL is 6,800, so it's not that much different.

 

I accept it's slightly scewed by Coventry's current situation, but also remember Rangers are no longer in the league so their away support is missing, which brings the average down at a few places, and without a title fight Celtic haven't been selling as many away tickets either.

 

I can't confess to following England's League One that closely so I don't know the general standard and how it stacks up to the SPL (far easier to call it that than the premiership). I only really know Stephen Pearson and Liam Kelly in your squad. Both decent enough players but I'm not sure either would get in Aberdeen's current first team. You have Rotherham in 4th (?) place at the moment with Kari Arnason and Rob Milson in the team, yet both were at Aberdeen recently (Milson one of the first players McInnes got rid of) and both again would not get into our current side.

[Norwegian Red]

Aberdeen fan here. Been reading with interest your views on Derek McInnes and Scottish football.

 

When McInnes got the job the fans were very split, and there was a lot of anger at the appointment. He was average at St Johnstone, obviously got sacked at you guys, and he wasn't first choice with us by any means.

 

However, he currently has the highest win rate of any Aberdeen manager (including Fergie), has just won the League Cup (our first cup win in 19 years) and next weekend we're in the Scottish Cup semi-finals. What a debut season!

 

I think in fairness he did come in when we were slightly on the up, as Craig Brown had steadied the ship after the mess Mark McGhee left us in. We had a solid backbone of good players and with no money to pay transfer fees a lot of Scottish clubs started investing heavily in their youth system a few years ago, and we're all starting to see the benefit of that. McInnes has actually said his budget at Bristol City, despite your financial problems at the time, was still higher than the one he has at Aberdeen now.

 

McInnes still did a good bit of tinkering with the squad in summer. Not every decision has been great (Calvin Zola is a carthorse for starters) but our starting XI is probably the best we've had for over 15 years so little wonder we're doing well. Was surprised to read (can't remember if it was this thread or another) that someone suggested the training wasn't good at Bristol under McInnes - one of the biggest things he's done up here is make us the fittest team in the league. We tend to score an incredible amount of late goals.

 

Obviously, that wasn't the case at Bristol and it was a very different job he had on his hands there. I think in that situation you need a manager with more experience and the one you have at the moment is that man. Like I said Craig Brown did a steady if unspectacular job of stopping Aberdeen's spiral down the league and getting rid of deadwood. But, Brown would never have had as successful a season as McInnes has had this year, so we needed Brown to do the dirty work if you like first, then McInnes to come in and take us to the next level.

 

 

Ricky Foster was poor at Aberdeen too, and is currently struggling in Scotland's League One with Rangers against part-time teams. He's hardly someone to hold up as an example of the standard of Scottish football.

Injuries have taken their toll on Mark Wilson and he's a shadow of the player he was at Celtic and in his first Dundee United spell. He's only playing in recent weeks at United due to a few injuries, generally when they've everyone fit he's on the bench. In fairness the guy was playing in the Champions League and holding his own. Even Ricky Foster did okay in the Champions League at Rangers.

Jody Morris was decent enough in Scotland but none of the top clubs up here paid much interest in him, he hardly set the heather alight.

 

 

The final itself was a horrible game. Inverness played for penalties pretty much from kick-off (they were a far tougher proposition with Terry Butcher in charge) while with Aberdeen losing Pawlett and Hayes early, and just the whole pressure of the occasion, it resulted in a game of very few chances.

Both Scottish Cup semis on sky next week. Worth watching Dundee United v Rangers on the Saturday (which, in the wisdom of Scottish football, is at the neutral venue of, er, Ibrox). Now, Rangers are rubbish so don't expect to be impressed by them (and you'll see how poor Foster still is) but Dundee United have some cracking young players. Look out for Ryan Gauld, Gary Mackay-Steven and Andrew Robertson in particular.

 

 

I agree with you on that, I think it's more than about trophies won. However, Aberdeen can command fans from all over Scotland, more than the odd pockets of fans you'll get with every club, but a signifcant fanbase in Glasgow and Edinburgh for example. I don't know if Bristol can say the same throughout England besides maybe the odd supporters bus coming from outside Bristol (I'm guessing of course).

 

We sold 40,000 tickets for the cup final and even then that didn't meet demand. We wanted the 6,000 seats Caley Thistle couldn't sell but were refused by police, and we probably could have sold out the stadium ourselves.

The average crowd (around 13,000 this season, but rising) isn't really a true reflection as like I said around 30% of our support live no-where near Aberdeen and tend to go to away games, and the away support at Pittodrie (bar Celtic and Dundee United) is pretty much non existent. That's why we have a situation up here that Hearts and (sometimes) Hibs have bigger home supports, but most would accept we're a bigger club than both of them.

 

 

In fairness, he lasted less than a year at Kilmarnock.

Kilmarnock also beat Celtic in that final so it wasn't that easy to win.

 

 

Zola Aberdeen's main striker!? I don't think he's started a game since October. He very rarely even makes an appearance from the bench these days and wasn't in the cup final squad. I forgot he was still at Aberdeen until he was thrown on for the last five minutes last week. He's one of the few mistakes McInnes has made alongside signing Greg Wylde (who we've managed to empty to St Mirren). Be surprised if he's still here next season.

Rooney has done well right enough, but was he not doing okay at Oldham anyway, just playing in a poor team (and by all accounts sometimes being played out of position on the left wing?). We're a side that creates lots of chances so any striker worth their salt should be scoring them. Most of his goals are laid on a plate for him.

 

Not sure crowds have much to do with the standard of a team or league. Motherwell is a small town with the population of 59,000. Their average is just under 5,000. That's just under 10% of the town going to games, and one where most people in Motherwell will support Rangers or Celtic.

 

However, Scottish crowds - considering the population of the country - look decent when compared with most of Europe. You get clubs in Portugal's premier league for example with smaller crowds than Scotland's first division.

 

Is League One's average not 7,300? If you take away Celtic the average in the SPL is 6,800, so it's not that much different.

 

I accept it's slightly scewed by Coventry's current situation, but also remember Rangers are no longer in the league so their away support is missing, which brings the average down at a few places, and without a title fight Celtic haven't been selling as many away tickets either.

 

I can't confess to following England's League One that closely so I don't know the general standard and how it stacks up to the SPL (far easier to call it that than the Premier League). I only really know Stephen Pearson and Liam Kelly in your squad. Both decent enough players but I'm not sure either would get in Aberdeen's current first team. You have Rotherham in 4th (?) place at the moment with Kari Arnason and Rob Milson in the team, yet both were at Aberdeen recently (Milson one of the first players McInnes got rid of) and both again would not get into our current side.

Cheers for all that, very interesting. Never knew Aberdeen had support outside of Aberdeen and surrounding area.

You don't want to take too much notice of all our jabber - it's just a way of consoling (and distracting) ourselves as we grapple again with League One.

[Taylor10]

Aberdeen fan here. Been reading with interest your views on Derek McInnes and Scottish football.

When McInnes got the job the fans were very split, and there was a lot of anger at the appointment. He was average at St Johnstone, obviously got sacked at you guys, and he wasn't first choice with us by any means.

However, he currently has the highest win rate of any Aberdeen manager (including Fergie), has just won the League Cup (our first cup win in 19 years) and next weekend we're in the Scottish Cup semi-finals. What a debut season!

I think in fairness he did come in when we were slightly on the up, as Craig Brown had steadied the ship after the mess Mark McGhee left us in. We had a solid backbone of good players and with no money to pay transfer fees a lot of Scottish clubs started investing heavily in their youth system a few years ago, and we're all starting to see the benefit of that. McInnes has actually said his budget at Bristol City, despite your financial problems at the time, was still higher than the one he has at Aberdeen now.

McInnes still did a good bit of tinkering with the squad in summer. Not every decision has been great (Calvin Zola is a carthorse for starters) but our starting XI is probably the best we've had for over 15 years so little wonder we're doing well. Was surprised to read (can't remember if it was this thread or another) that someone suggested the training wasn't good at Bristol under McInnes - one of the biggest things he's done up here is make us the fittest team in the league. We tend to score an incredible amount of late goals.

Obviously, that wasn't the case at Bristol and it was a very different job he had on his hands there. I think in that situation you need a manager with more experience and the one you have at the moment is that man. Like I said Craig Brown did a steady if unspectacular job of stopping Aberdeen's spiral down the league and getting rid of deadwood. But, Brown would never have had as successful a season as McInnes has had this year, so we needed Brown to do the dirty work if you like first, then McInnes to come in and take us to the next level.

Ricky Foster was poor at Aberdeen too, and is currently struggling in Scotland's League One with Rangers against part-time teams. He's hardly someone to hold up as an example of the standard of Scottish football.

Injuries have taken their toll on Mark Wilson and he's a shadow of the player he was at Celtic and in his first Dundee United spell. He's only playing in recent weeks at United due to a few injuries, generally when they've everyone fit he's on the bench. In fairness the guy was playing in the Champions League and holding his own. Even Ricky Foster did okay in the Champions League at Rangers.

Jody Morris was decent enough in Scotland but none of the top clubs up here paid much interest in him, he hardly set the heather alight.

The final itself was a horrible game. Inverness played for penalties pretty much from kick-off (they were a far tougher proposition with Terry Butcher in charge) while with Aberdeen losing Pawlett and Hayes early, and just the whole pressure of the occasion, it resulted in a game of very few chances.

Both Scottish Cup semis on sky next week. Worth watching Dundee United v Rangers on the Saturday (which, in the wisdom of Scottish football, is at the neutral venue of, er, Ibrox). Now, Rangers are rubbish so don't expect to be impressed by them (and you'll see how poor Foster still is) but Dundee United have some cracking young players. Look out for Ryan Gauld, Gary Mackay-Steven and Andrew Robertson in particular.

I agree with you on that, I think it's more than about trophies won. However, Aberdeen can command fans from all over Scotland, more than the odd pockets of fans you'll get with every club, but a signifcant fanbase in Glasgow and Edinburgh for example. I don't know if Bristol can say the same throughout England besides maybe the odd supporters bus coming from outside Bristol (I'm guessing of course).

We sold 40,000 tickets for the cup final and even then that didn't meet demand. We wanted the 6,000 seats Caley Thistle couldn't sell but were refused by police, and we probably could have sold out the stadium ourselves.

The average crowd (around 13,000 this season, but rising) isn't really a true reflection as like I said around 30% of our support live no-where near Aberdeen and tend to go to away games, and the away support at Pittodrie (bar Celtic and Dundee United) is pretty much non existent. That's why we have a situation up here that Hearts and (sometimes) Hibs have bigger home supports, but most would accept we're a bigger club than both of them.

In fairness, he lasted less than a year at Kilmarnock.

Kilmarnock also beat Celtic in that final so it wasn't that easy to win.

Zola Aberdeen's main striker!? I don't think he's started a game since October. He very rarely even makes an appearance from the bench these days and wasn't in the cup final squad. I forgot he was still at Aberdeen until he was thrown on for the last five minutes last week. He's one of the few mistakes McInnes has made alongside signing Greg Wylde (who we've managed to empty to St Mirren). Be surprised if he's still here next season.

Rooney has done well right enough, but was he not doing okay at Oldham anyway, just playing in a poor team (and by all accounts sometimes being played out of position on the left wing?). We're a side that creates lots of chances so any striker worth their salt should be scoring them. Most of his goals are laid on a plate for him.

Not sure crowds have much to do with the standard of a team or league. Motherwell is a small town with the population of 59,000. Their average is just under 5,000. That's just under 10% of the town going to games, and one where most people in Motherwell will support Rangers or Celtic.

However, Scottish crowds - considering the population of the country - look decent when compared with most of Europe. You get clubs in Portugal's premier league for example with smaller crowds than Scotland's first division.

Is League One's average not 7,300? If you take away Celtic the average in the SPL is 6,800, so it's not that much different.

I accept it's slightly scewed by Coventry's current situation, but also remember Rangers are no longer in the league so their away support is missing, which brings the average down at a few places, and without a title fight Celtic haven't been selling as many away tickets either.

I can't confess to following England's League One that closely so I don't know the general standard and how it stacks up to the SPL (far easier to call it that than the Premier League). I only really know Stephen Pearson and Liam Kelly in your squad. Both decent enough players but I'm not sure either would get in Aberdeen's current first team. You have Rotherham in 4th (?) place at the moment with Kari Arnason and Rob Milson in the team, yet both were at Aberdeen recently (Milson one of the first players McInnes got rid of) and both again would not get into our current side.

Cheers for that fella.

Nice to have some constructive points put across about Del, Aberdeen and Scottish football in general.

Be interesting to see how Del gets on next season for you guys.

[Super]

Just been done by his former club in the Semi Final!