Derek McInnes

[Stupie82]

A fair view.

He has certainly built a good platform for us and we have improved in a lot of ways under him. Perhaps the relief of getting away from all the garbage we were exposed to over the previous 20 years or so has caused some people to be content with where we are. However, I don't know many if any Dons supporters that are happy with our record versus Celtic and Rangers.

I don't think that without any major financial backing, Aberdeen can challenge for the league. I do feel we need to win a Scottish Cup this season or next to show some decent success under McInnes. One League Cup in year one just doesn't do it for me.

I think he will see his contract out with us and leave for a team down in England.

If anyone is acceptive of our record against the OF this season, then they need to give themselves a shake. Those of us who want to beat the OF are always ridiculed as seeing the 'smaller picture', but the fact is if you can win these games and still do well against the lower teams, you stand a massive chance of success. Rolling over and getting your belly tickled by them is submissive and showing them you havent got the balls for it.

As a club i think we are too soft and we are easy pickings for the cheeks. Its almost indoctrinated into some fans that being the 3rd best team is acceptable. In my opinion Derek has done well, but this season was always going to be huge for him and i dont think he has delivered. He has the SC and if he fails in that... well questions need to be answered. I would love nothing more than for him to prove me wrong and I hope he does, but he hasnt shown me this season he has the gonads for it.

[Mr_Grieves]

Cannot believe some of the opinions on here suggesting Aberdeen are going backwards because we haven't won everything . McInnes may well have hit a ceiling but that's hardly his fault!

McInnes has hit a ceiling because too often he is tactically inept in big matches. He isn't as clever as he thinks he is.

Do you really think that there isn't another manager available in our price range who would be able to improve on a record of 0 out of 18 points against the weegie bigots ?

[RED_JOHN]

Do you really think that there isn't another manager available in our price range who would be able to improve on a record of 0 out of 18 points against the weegie bigots ?

Martin Canning might have a better record?

[Red Zone]

Long time lurker here now joining the debate (or sticking my head above parapet maybe).

To put my comments into perspective my memories as an Aberdeen fan go back to the Ally MacLeod period so obviously have seen a lot of incredible highs as well as some desperate lows. I would look at the Alex Smith period as to what we should be aiming for as "normal" success i.e. 2 cups in 4 seasons plus regular European qualification. So since that time we have seen a steady decline with one or two exceptions over that 25 years or so up until McInnes arrived.

The early and significant improvement in the team and results meant that I was a strong advocate for him and generally speaking still am supportive but my faith is waning a fair bit now. Our success has clearly been built on our ability to very efficiently beat inferior teams and even this season we have a better record against the bottom 9 than either Celtic or sevco. Credit must go to Derek for that.

However many of his weaknesses that have been glossed over or were not taken advantage of by poorer teams are much more evident now that the league has more quality teams in it. They have all been mentioned numerous times by many people on various posts but for me include being too conservative (worrying too much about the opposition rather than playing to our strengths), being too loyal to players either off form or simply not good enough (step forward AOC amongst others), being too slow to make substitutions when change is needed, not giving our own youngsters more of a chance, being too stubborn to see obvious weaknesses and address them, like left back and indeed central defense etc.

I think a big part of our pathetic record against our main opposition in the league this season has been his very poor signings (permanent and loan) this season. In his earlier years he has always managed to bring in players that significantly improved our team e.g. Robson/Flood followed by Logan/Rooney and then Lewis/Shinnie/Christie but in reality none of Arnason/GMS/Stewart/May/Maynard/Cosgrove/Chidi/Woodburn have really improved our team at all.

So where does this leave us? McInnes won't be sacked by Milne, nor does he deserve to be. I think he is a very ambitious guy so I don't see him walking away because where does he go from there? Look what happened to Lennon after he quit Celtic with no job to go to and he had done a whole lot more than Derek. Equally I don't see him being approached by any decent English Championship team because his record is less sparkling with each passing big game defeat. Would he leave for an ambitious Division 1 team that he can then try to get into Championship - who knows but not convinced.

I think there is an attraction to him to at least see the new Training Facilities in place if not the Stadium so I suspect that for better or worse DMcI will be our manager for a fair time yet so I think that any talk of possible replacements is at least 1-2 seasons too early.

If I am right then he badly needs to improve recruitment in the Summer and please please let's play the big games in a way that suits our strengths rather than a failed attempt to stifle the opposition. We will still lose some of the big games, that is just reality, but at least if we give ourselves a chance to win them unlike this season, the fans will be much more accepting of that.

I'll say again, over a five-year period so 10 cup competitions I think it is reasonable for us to target to win 2 trophies and to do that we will absolutely need to figure out a squad and playing style/tactics that is capable of winning big games in Glasgow.

Over to you Derek

[KIWIRED]

Huge close season for the Dons and to get players in
We could be on the verge of offloading and sending back the loan players that could amount to 9 players ( First team squad )
That's a huge rebuild exercise and I hope the club have in place a plan now
But do we entrust DM to make these decisions. I would agree with Red Zone that his signings ( mostly ) have flattered to deceive or complete waste of wages.
Now Miilne and the board have to step and give him some decent funding- no excuses , I don't really care how its done
Failure to provided adequate funding / decent quality signings and we regress back I would say aleast 5 seasons nobody wants that

Aberdeen have recently employed some financial wiz kid with a decent track record in sports finance / commercial revenues etc and his remit seems to be to up the revenue by a couple of million a season.
Its a half cocked plan unless the squad quality is improved and attendances increase

Over to you Mr Milne and fellow board members dig deep or we will be a mid table season team next year and beyond and forget European participation on a regaular basis

[RedStarTorphins]

Huge close season for the Dons and to get players in
We could be on the verge of offloading and sending back the loan players that could amount to 9 players ( First team squad )
That's a huge rebuild exercise and I hope the club have in place a plan now
But do we entrust DM to make these decisions. I would agree with Red Zone that his signings ( mostly ) have flattered to deceive or complete waste of wages.
Now Miilne and the board have to step and give him some decent funding- no excuses , I don't really care how its done
Failure to provided adequate funding / decent quality signings and we regress back I would say aleast 5 seasons nobody wants that

Aberdeen have recently employed some financial wiz kid with a decent track record in sports finance / commercial revenues etc and his remit seems to be to up the revenue by a couple of million a season.
Its a half cocked plan unless the squad quality is improved and attendances increase

Over to you Mr Milne and fellow board members dig deep or we will be a mid table season team next year and beyond and forget European participation on a regaular basis

We won’t “dig deep”.
We’ll spend what goes out the door, with like for like.
We have a £50m white elephant to fund.

So expect more short-term thinking with loanees from the a*se end of League One in England & beyond.

Russ Richardson’s black book will be getting plenty of action in the summer.

[Aldo1983]

Do you think he’s regretting bottling the Hun job?

Maybe but he'd only turn them into us. A distant second, bottling big game and so on.

[rico94]

Farts did in 2006/2007ish they split them didnt they?

They did split them but their "title challenge" was over before Christmas.

[rico94]

I take on board what everyone is saying, but is it too much to want more than just runners up medals? sure we are better now compared with the years before, but why settle for that?

When we started this season, i looked back at 2016/17 with pride, being the second team in Scotland was some feat, however I would have hoped we would have built on that and gone into this season with the belief that we could really press for the league or cups. Some folk will laugh at me even merely suggesting the league and some will also say that Celtic are far too superior, yet if we just had that bit of belief and approached the OF games with some f*cking dignity, we could well be sitting here speaking and dreaming of the possibilty. Instead, some of us on here are accepting the fact we are not in it, and more scarily seem to be happy to be sitting 3rd.

The cups are where the reality of silverware lies, however has anyone really seen anything this season that suggest we can win a cup? Does anyone truly believe that McInnes has it in his locker the ability to change his stubborn approach to these games and go for it... i certainly dont. The Killie game this weekend is huge for us and if we fail to get past them, well the season is pretty much over and we got out with a whimper.

I dont think any team in the world gives themselves a hope in hell of winning their league if they sell their best player to the team that just won the league the previous season then also take a player from them on loan who cant play against them.

If Aberdeen had any ambitions to win the league they would have played hard ball with Celtic over Hayes and Christie, as in we get Christie permanently or you dont get Hayes.If Hayes wasn't happy about it Im sure we could have flogged him to some guff championship team.

[Pacman1903]

I dont think any team in the world gives themselves a hope in hell of winning their league if they sell their best player to the team that just won the league the previous season then also take a player from them on loan who cant play against them.
.

Absolutely f@cking bonkers that was the Christie part

Hayes had a clause so we couldn't say no