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No he did not. That'll be his first European goal. Unless he scored an own goal in Europe? Wouldn't be surprised. Good to see he's still playing, and far enough away that we don't have to witness it.

Fuck sake Rico You're clearly a fair bit older than I thought

A mental case in the midfield, that'll please the fans. Just what we've been lacking, they'll say. "I've been saying it for years". In a year's time, they'll be moaning about lack of discipline. I do like a strong midfielder, but I think it's less important these days than being able to cover a lot of ground, or being able to control the tempo of the game. Quite a few on that twitter feed suggesting he's a Ramadani replacement, but seems a different player altogether. Ramadani wasn't a defensive midfielder, in the sense that you couldn't have him sitting on his own in a 4-1-4-1 type formation (Goodwin tried it and it was terrible). Ramadani defending - like Shinnie - on the front foot, by playing high up (or deeper) in people's faces. His game - like Shinnie - involved covering lots of ground and being fit. He could sit in a two also - like Shinnie - but I still don't think you'd call him a defensive midfielder. Ramadani is basically just a less aggressive version of Shinnie, which, when added together, was very potent. It'll be really interesting to see what Thelin has in mind for him. From the lineup last night, it looked like it could be a 4-3-3, but I don't see us going with that if this guy is in the team alongside Shinnie, which I assume will be the case. I don't think we'll need two sitting midfielders in a 4-2-3-1 for most games (at home, anyway), so this guy might sit in while Shinnie bombs about and Clarkson does his thing, both pressing high off the ball. I can see Clarkson being the weak link in that press, but hopefully the preseason will have battered it into him. It does suggest that we have the option of completely changing the way we play by bringing Polvara off the bench. He finished the season very strongly and has a good bit of headroom to improve if he's given the opportunity. McGrath will be, I assume, out wide and probably cover several roles. We really need something creative from the wings.

This design reminds me of the Vitesse Arnhem home shirt. Love it. I have a soft spot for them as used to always buy Greek forward Nikos Machlas from them on Sensible World of Soccer back in the day. I'm sure he was the European Golden Boot winner in like 1996-97 season. Him, Sean Dundee, Steven Milne, Kennet Andersson were always my four strikers on the computer.

That's fine, I will shield Thelin of all criticism until he settles in. It's the least I can do.

If we don’t we now can blame you for the above statement in bold. I am with Al on not being overly happy with lack of game time. League Cup group stages should not be treated as friendlies. They are games in one of the two competitions we have a realistic chance of winning. Not advocating having the number of games under Goodwin but at the same time would have liked at least a couple more games before we start the competitive games.