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It’s only one criterion on the list of things we should be looking for in a manager, the ability to build and lead a team that is stronger than its individual components. Playing style is another. If Tommy Wright hadn’t made an arse of the Killie job and wasn’t a renowned hoofball merchant then his name would probably be on the shortlist. But he did and he is so he isn’t. If Ross had a track record of playing attractive progressive football then he’d be a good option despite his track record. But he doesn’t. He’s a dour, overly conservative coward. He has lost just about every big game he has ever managed and makes zero sense as an option considering the reasons we sacked Derek McInnes. Jack Ross is basically Derek McInnes with the positive attributes removed and the negative attributes turned up to 11.

You misread me Lightbulbetc, I believe we could have won the title a couple of times since the extraordinary 80's and I believe we can at least challenge going forward and win a cup or few along the way. That's the target isn't it? But we won't do it by employing a Hollywood manager at 10 times our salary and 100 times our player budget levels any more than we could by employing Andy Robertson, Gilmour and Lukaku. It will need a sustained period of good management, revenue from sales and Europe to fund the team, a few decent breaks in the market and a great team attitude. Idealistic I know but even after all my Dons supporting years I still live in hope!

Imagine appointing your best mate as manager. No professionally run club would do that…………oh wait.

Is that storm Eunice I can hear, or a collective sigh of relief from the populations of Dingwall and Perth?

It's fucking brilliant if true. Not just the fact that he's McGhee, but he's also got a six match ban still to serve after the "incident" against us.

Farley? Anyway, not sure we should be taking the piss out of Dundee given the state we’re in.

Watching Knutson's team against the the Victims on BT Sport. Such a shame that he doesn't want to come to us as his team is a joy to watch. More convinced than ever on the basis of that first forty five that he would have been the man for us and would have had L.A/Orlando Don soon forgetting about OGS and publicly admitting that Rico has been right all along

You youngsters just lack ambition.

I won the argument about sixteen replies ago, as everyone on here bar you can grasp. You haven't provided a single piece of contrary evidence. Great story though.

Ok, I'll go in a different direction and try to humor you a little in the process. You will never win this argument no matter how hard you try. I traded a couple of emails with Haardon the other day. We disagree strongly on vaccines but there's zero hard feelings, just a difference of opinion. No love lost. I've no reason to dislike the guy, or any of you, we just see things differently. I respect him for reaching out too. That type of mentality is getting harder to find. People are losing friends daily because of disagreements in opinions. I like donstalk, debate with a bunch of complete strangers who really know very little about each other and why we think the way we do. We all have mindsets and opinions, and that's great. I accept that. I've also lived my first 23 years of life in Scotland, the last 26 years in the US. I'm probably more American in my thinking now. I will passionately fight my point at times, and try to educate others at times too. I think I'm smart, but not that smart. I won't lie, there are people here who use words that still call for me to reach for a dictionary. I've coached football a lot, full time for a while, and am highly trained and qualified/licensed/credentialed. Doesn't make me an expert, but I think I have a more educated football brain than many. I was raised in Lanark, went to teacher training college in Edinburgh, Moray House. My first teaching job was at Bannerman High School in Castlemilk/Baillieston. While in college I coached summer football/soccer camps in the US during the summers. After a year teaching I came back out to the US for a summer. Never came back. I do visit, used to be yearly, but been here 26 years now. If I had listened to many of my Scottish friends and family I'd still be teaching at Bannerman. I've lived in Tennessee, Florida, and California. Married and divorced by 33. I won't get vaccinated. Have my reasons. Recently quit my job because of my beliefs, walking away from six figures as I said the other day. I don't have a job lined up yet. That's a 100% pay cut. I have 3 and 5 year old boys. My older boy just got kicked out of preschool because his parents aren't vaccinated, not even him. I've dated models, porn stars, hung out with celebs, done more blow than can line Pittodrie. Spent way too much time in Hollywood and Vegas. I already own a house in Florida and when I sell my LA house I'll probably pay off the Florida one. No debt. Unless the world/US goes to shit in the next three months which is possible. Trump was nuts but I'd take him over Biden and this admin any day of the week. I'm opinionated and I express that. Daily. And I'm wrong sometimes. I live life and take risks, and I feel I get rewarded for that. I've won more than I've lost. It's the only way to live if you ask me. Calculated and educated risks. Here's my point. There are reasons for Ross, Goodwin, Lennon, Adams, as you stress, and all the other predictable names. Boring as fuck. All your reasons are safe and valid. But boring as fuck. I think you have to open your eyes, really open them. Isn't football meant to be entertainment? I think Cormack has tried to bring more of that, both off and on the park. But yes, as pointed out, results do matter. I'd argue Cormack is more American thinking now, and in Glass he was willing to take a calculated risk. It failed. I just hope he doesn't crumble and conform to the more Scottish safer mindset of Goodwin or Ross. Of course I want us to be fiscally responsible and not put the club in jeopardy. But surely we can find a more creative and inspiring mind. My initial response to Ole was simply that it's not that daft an idea - my point, as I keep saying, is that you never know. If you never explore or ask you'll never know what could have been. Surprises do happen. My life has been nuts, but at least you know me a little more and maybe understand me a little more. I don't make it easier at times. But I wouldn't have it any other way. That's how I live. Others would choose to still be teaching at Bannerman because it's safer. I don't want our club to be safer and conform, I want bravery and risk. Calculated of course. Bigger risk bigger reward.

Well that post is really much ado about nothing

McGhee is an absolutely insane appointment. The Rusk guy who is going to be his assistant was actually the manager at Stockport and McGhee was his No 2. What's that all about? Someone must be running Dundee for a laugh with the confusion over voting, Strachan working for them and Celtic and now appointing his best mate as manager. Absolute comedy.

Mr Solskjaer's salary is only the start. His second question would be how much do I get to spend in the summer? Our budget being a factor of 100/200 times lower than his would end the phone call. Not only is it a ridiculous proposition but even if he wanted to come he'd be useless dealing with free transfers, risky prospects and those who have failed at other clubs: that's the market we are dealing in.

It’s actually fucking true. This could be hilarious.

We'd be third in the league if you base it on goal attempts Slim https://spfl.co.uk/stats-centre

Superb Rico, I'd forgotten about him getting the six match ban post that glorious night at Pittodrie. You couldn't make it up, no really you couldn't In a relegation fight, sack your manager and appoint one that can't even be in the dug out until his seventh game in charge Comedy brilliance

Idealist? Probably you’re right, I still daydream about knocking in the winner for us in the Champions League final. That’s probably what I was doing when I didn’t see these hundreds of goal attempts you saw us have in the last 12 months.

https://www.afc.co.uk/2021/12/29/afc-archive-signing-charlie-nicholas/

A good playing style is idealistic crap unless you have the luxury of De Bruyne, Messi and Salah in your team. If we have learnt anything in the last 12 months it is that winning football is what fans want. None of us have liked our team losing despite having hundreds of goal attempts and loads of possession. If we went to Ibrox and Parkhead and won four times in the season you wouldn't care what style of football we were playing.

Nobody is asking for or expects us to do anything financially irresponsible. I don’t see us as that club anyway, and don’t think we have been for close to 20 years. What Dundee did in the past means fuck all to me, plus they went to shit financially anyway. I don’t expect or want that. What I am asking is that we explore every opportunity. And as I repeatedly say, if you don’t ask you don’t get. What’s the worst that can happen, we get told to fuck off. And as I keep saying, regardless of money, why does Charlie Nicholas come to us? London and a top club like arsenal to Aberdeen?? I didn’t expect that. We were not Ferguson’s dons by then. never heard of the Celtic manager until they signed him. And look at the players they are bringing in. they could have easily gone for a predictable premiership reject but failing with Eddie Howe, they went out and were creative. Seems to be working for them. So far. While we are on a different financial level to Celtic, let’s be equally ambitious and creative within our constraints. Hiring glass was ambitious and risky, but it was clear to most if not all of us that he didn’t have the experience. It showed. Learn from that. Goodwin may be up and coming but he isn’t experienced either. He hasn’t achieved a single thing at st mirren other than preventing them from being shite. No cup, cup finals, or Europe. The expectation and pressure in that job is totally different to us. I just don’t see that much appeal to him. He may be great in the future, he may even end up shite this year and st mirren finish nearer the bottom than top of the league. ross in not unlike mcinnes. He has proven he’s capable. Lennon is capable too. Goodwin just doesn’t have it for me. Yet. At the same time, I hope we are creative and look outside of the token fishbowl where we can all guess the candidates. I hate being linked to the same dour bunch. Again. Sorry to keep saying, shoot for the moon, but be responsible financially. Can we afford OGS? Probably not. Duncan Ferguson? Unlikely. But why not ask? Leicester won the league. Never saw that coming. Villa just signed coutinho. Erickson to Brentford. Money talks but it’s still surprise signings. Why not someone special to Aberdeen? I do feel we are an appealing job and think there’s a good one out there for us. If we look and if we ask.

It surely can’t be McGhee. I just assumed folk were putting Strachen working for Dundee and them being mates together to get the completely wrong answer.

Nobody is cancelling anyone. Steve Clarke is a terrible example, not even close to solskjaer joining Aberdeen as even a rudimentary examination of evidence would point out. Nor Charlie Nicholas, nor George Best. The onus is not on me to come up with reasons why a person wouldn't take a 95% pay cut (or we spend 70% of our turnover on a manager) it's on you. You must surely be able to grasp that? You're the one proposing something extremely far fetched. You're accusing me of narrow mindedness, which is basically gaslighting. It's not narrow mindedness to point out basic arithmetic and critical thinking. You then try and couch the argument more generally as if I'm suggesting all foreign managers are terrible suggestions or that we shouldn't get someone at the outer reaches of our budget, when the argument is very specifically about Solskjaer. The paradox in your reasoning, that you don't seem to have worked out yet, is that if AFC "show ambition" by spending 70% of their turnover on a manager, then the reverse is also true. What sort of ambition would it show from Solskjaer, and why would we want someone so severely lacking in that regard? What would that say about him? The Knutsen guy is clearly ambitious and feels he can do better than us - fair enough. Goodwin is ambitious and wants to make the step up from St Mirren. What if Lewis Ferguson decided to sign a five year extension because he thinks it's an easy life at pittodrie? We'd rightly criticise him and question his strength of character. He doesn't, because he's ambitious. If the criteria is ambition, then why is the onus on the club to show ambition and not the manager it appoints? Why on earth would you want the club to show ambition to appoint someone with zero ambition? Your logic is completely and utterly flawed, but I'm 100% you know this already and you're arguing in bad faith (because you're clearly not stupid).

As someone pointed out, McInnes didn't arrive with much more experience than Goodwin and, for the first 4 years at least, did alright. People look at St Johnstone & think because they won those two cups last season, that every manager of a small club should be aiming for that. Lets be honest here, it was a fluke in a weird season when nothing was normal. If you look at the smaller clubs in the Premiership, the normal is that they don't win anything. Motherwell - nothing since 1991. Dundee - I'm not even sure but haven't won the Scottish Cup since 1910. Livi one trophy in their history, Ross County I think it's one in their history, etc. What Goodwin has done at St Mirren might not look impressive, in the same way that Celtic fans wouldn't look at McInnes making four cup finals & staying top four as impressive. But, for the size of club he's managing, he's actually doing very well which is why you'll struggle to find many St Mirren fans who want him to leave. He's earned the chance to take on a big club with five times the budget to see what he can do. If it's not us, maybe it's Hibs or Hearts. Would I prefer a big name - of course, in the same way that if you had offered me a 40-year-old Ibrahimovic or Christian Ramirez with an average goal scoring record, I'd take Zlatan all day long. But Ramirez has done alright, and maybe Goodwin does too. People talking up Hibs finishing third as an achievement. Aberdeen were really poor that season. Hearts were out of the division. Hibs didn't at any point appear to be impressive. Hibs fans were desperate to get rid of Ross, even when he finished third he was getting slated. He bottled very winnable semi-finals. They were far too inconsistent. He didn't really build anything at Hibs. The reason I rate Goodwin over Ross is because Ross, twice, has had a chance at a big club & not done the business. This is third time lucky if you like. Goodwin hasn't and there's still that unknown about him which is intriguing, but from what I've seen he has the ability to make a small club hard to beat, deal with the loss of big players, and with a bit of money you wonder what he could do with that team. And that makes me wonder what he could do with us. Are Lennon's stats good though? Winning trophies with Celtic when you have the biggest budget - most managers in the Premiership could probably do that. At Hibs, they were eighth when he left them. Lennon actually comes across as a manager who hasn't moved with the times. I'm told his training was really poor. Tactically he was poor. That Celtic team unravelled spectacularly last season. Yeh, it was a bit of a freak season, but they were in a mess when Postecoglou took over.

God forbid they aim high. Can I suggest they don’t deserve better than Yogi Hughes? You should have a word there and set them straight.

Reading reports, no clue how accurate, that we are discussing compensation with st mirren. Blown away by this if goodwin is our guy. most want a manager with experience and say that’s where glass failed. Is a stint at alloa and a couple of years at st mirren good enough experience? Does that truly transfer to managing us? Hasn’t won anything, hasn’t managed outside of Scotland, no European experience. Has he even experienced a cup final, too lazy to check? I’d even value the battle hardened experience of being sacked before. Surely we should be looking at all of the above, plus a manager with national and international connections. While I’m not saying Lennon or Ross are the answer, they are more qualified than goodwin. I see goodwin as slightly more experienced than glass and coaching st mirren to not be shite doesn’t win me over. as I mentioned before, goodwin is the flavor of the month, not unlike tommy Wright or callum Davidson. I think we should be aiming for better.

Fair point but I think Scott Brown is definitely a selling factor to a lot of players i.e. if he can choose Abwrdeen over Celtic, it can't be a bad place to play.

You may admire Djokovic to stand up for his beliefs but he entered a country unvaxxed which clearly stipulates you must be vaxxed unless you have medical eexemption. As a top athlete, he did not! Having caught the disease before doesnt make you exempt from entering Australia. He even admitted he lied on his forms. But what did it for me was the fact he knew he had covid yet took photos with kids and adults and didn't give a shit about passing it on. The Serbian prime minister even said Djokovic was 'tortured and tormented'' in Australia. There's no doubt he's one of the greatest tennis players of all time but his integrity is definitely fucked now I would say. Yeah attitudes like this do anger me when I have a son with asthma and a dad in a care home. And there is division. There should be. For example, we've seen what some Americans will do when asked to get vaccinated or locked down. Stand in their lawns with semi automatic machine guns...storm buildings resulting in deaths etc etc. They have a right to do this of course yeah? I mean let's respect them for that yeah? Bullshit! The human race baffles me at times but there's always been supporters of the ridiculous. Bojo and Trump being perfect modern day examples. I would even categorise non vaxxers as extremists. Can you imagine the deaths in the world right now if nobody was vaccinated at all? Remember the footage of mass graves in Brazil? According to figures 9.82 billion doses have been administered globally with 28.95 doses administered each day. The only way to live with covid is to protect everyone as best we can and live life as we ALL used to, by getting vaccinations. . Almost every reference you made, swimming, ladders, drugs, cars, is where you are given a choice. Why don't you respect the choice of taking this vaccine when we know people are having severe reactions? None of these actions hurt or kill others directly^^^