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Transfer deadline is 23:30 GMT tonight. It wasn't wrong, Rico admits he misread it. BBC 2-0 BigAl/Rico.

Pray for Orlando Don. Mikey Johnston is West Brom bound

Ouch ya fucker, fair play. My crime is greater than Rico's as I repeated his error

Ach, it's just the Aberdeen press trying to unsettle their most talented asset ahead of Saturday's fixture.

A disgraceful window like, and shows that nobody at the club has learned anything. The whole point in our supposed recruitment setup is that much/most of the responsibility is taken away from the manager. The idea being that we have a large degree (as much as you can have in the transfer market) of certainty over signings, regardless of who the manager is. The window is about keeping things ticking over, getting rid of a few players and experimenting with new ones. January doesn't have to be a big one, but two players in would have been the minimum I'd have expected regardless of the manager. By not getting a winger, we've completely limited the options of the new manager, and by not keeping things ticking over, it's basically like being one or two short already in the summer. As we've seen since McInnes left, that makes the new manager a window behind at the outset, but we won't give him a window leeway to get it right (I'm not necessarily saying that the others should have got another window, just that they were very hard done by). The last three summers have seen a 10+ turnover over players because of this. We have a slightly more settled team this season, but we're probably still going to be looking at 8+ signings, which means at least 12 in to get 8 worthwhile players. That includes the likely loss of Miovski and Duk (or Duk just continuing to be like having a player missing). Players who won't, or shouldn't, be here next season: Roos Gartenmann (he might sign) MacDonald McGarry Morris Barron Besuijen Richardson Gueye Miovski Duk Phillips That's anything from 8-12 above that will be leaving. Anything between 3-5 of those who'd start. That's a massive turnover, and if you're looking at that as a person coming in, you'd probably pass. Of course, the board will tell us that they'll back the manager, but that's utterly meaningless unless it occurs over at least two windows, as the margin for error in the transfer window is huge and largely has nothing to do with the manager. Unless that manager has strong experience of Scottish football, and bringing players into our game, it's unlikely that they'll get higher than 50% success rate. That's why I thought we had the model that transcended the manager and our recruitment team could ably tide things over where the manager was on a shoogly peg. Just one first team recruit (a fucking winger for fuck sake!) could have saved the manager a world of hassle in the summer.

Yup!

Will he at least change his name to Mikey Johnson?

I see Micky Duff is on some bookies list. As a bit of a Cheltenham hero as both a player and manager I wouldn’t be averse to this. Turned Cheltenham round quickly. Would have been promoted, I think as Champions, in the Covid season had it completed. Did the following season, highest ever finish first season in League 1, before going to Barnsley where he turned them round too. Rated highly at both clubs. Plays decent football. Just his short stint at Swansea as a blot.

Jimmy Thelin. Have been reading a few articles on him and watched some Elfsborg highlights. What intrigues me is his way of playing is kinda what Barry Robson was trying to do at times, but Thelin does it much more effectively. He plays a fast-paced direct style of football, and even against smaller teams Elfsborg often have fewer than 50% possession. But it's all about high pressing, winning the ball in the opposition half, and if they win it in their own half then it's often a long ball to get them up the pitch quickly. But the formation is more of a 4-2-3-1 with more width, the defensive line high up, and often the advanced midfielder stays up to form a front two when they're defending so they have two men to aim for. It almost like Thelin has a solution to a few things Robson was doing wrong in his own quest to make that style work at Aberdeen. That type of football isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I think back to what was, for me, the high point of Robson's reign and possibly the game that landed him the job permanently. Against Hearts at home in April we played at a pace Hearts couldn't live with, pressed their midfield, and forced them into errors. We turned them over 3-0 and could have won by more. And yet, we had just 38% possession that day. But a lot of Hearts passes were among their back line. We had 47% accuracy with long balls (compared to hearts 32%). We had a 60% success rate with passes into the final third (Hearts 45%). I thought that would be how we'd always be under Robson but it then became a long ball shambles after that. I dunno if Aberdeen just fluked it that day v Hearts. If Thelin can recreate it though then I'm all for him. We just need to go and poach the manager who finished second in the Swedish top flight last season...

Lennon can GTF. What's he actually done? Beat Barcelona once. Got punted fairly quickly on every job since including Celtic again where he inherited a treble treble winning side and humped it. Only closet dims want him. we need to get the brand right this time, Not the name. I've got a lot more patience for a new manager who doesn't make my eyes bleed but might need a bit of time. I'd offer up Gary Naismith but that particular Messiah has to finish his current job and take stenny to the premier!

I'm not ready to say goodbye to Duk yet and I refuse to sanction this transfer.

That was so bad I couldn't even be arsed commenting when I got in. Terrible stuff. Despite our poor result at Tynecastle, we had a great first half, with the makings of a team and setup that could play in this type of fixture. It was something we could have built on. He decides that he can't trust MacDonald in a back four (maybe with reason, but you have to risk it in my opinion), so moves to a back three, with the centre half at right wing back and the right wing back at centre half. The formation (3-4-1-2) last night worked really well against the Huns here when they cheated to get a draw, but he genuinely doesn't see the differences between the fixtures and the teams we're playing against. His changes come late, and then he crams them into the space of twenty minutes, as always, so that all the subs get is five minutes to settle before changing shape and having to settle again. They never get the chance to show what they can do. McInnes would do the same too, it was frustrating, but the game was usually won by the time he did it. Clarkson had just started to play again with the move further forward, some of his link up play against hearts was excellent, so he gets shunted back and Barron gets dropped. He was clearly knackered when he came off, and Shinnie again had to cover 8 marathons in a single game. I can only assume Barron won't be here tomorrow, it's inexplicable otherwise. Injuries were an issue at the back in fairness. Jensen and MacDonald are a terrible pairing as they're both ponderous and miss the opportunity for the quick pass. Roos was really, really bad - the worst I've seen him - he just looked off the whole night, really panicked and drained of any remaining confidence. Looked to me like he was at fault for the goal, but difficult to tell from the RDL. Otherwise, nobody played exceptionally bad, we were just terrible as a team. It's a terrible place to be trying to bring through young guys like Duncan and Milne, it does them no favours. It's horrible to watch Robson go through such a slow and painful managerial death, being allowed to drown with seemingly no assistance from anyone at the club. If the strategy is to develop young managers, then 0/3 is a fucking awful statistic. It's brutal for Robson, as it was Glass and a lesser extent Goodwin. There is only one way this is going, and everyone can see it.