Lets not beat about the bush here: it was a dire game against a truly dire side last night. Ray Stubbs sounded like he was losing the will to live during the build up - you could almost hear the 'I was Ted Hankey's sidekick, now I'm doing this pish' desperation in his voice.
To be fair to 'Stubbsie', what followed over the next few hours was woeful. When you've got to pad for the entire interval about some handbags between Arfield and their deranged keeper (I mean, there werenae any real punches thrown) it's an indication of a truly woeful game. To be honest, at times we were paying more attention to the OKH vs Masada darts game - well, that and trying to guess which decade the mince pies came fae.
If you wanted a working example of the individual shortcomings of our players, last night was the perfect case study with every single player providing at least one example of what drives us to distraction about them.
I'm also seriously beginning to suspect that McGhee isnae cut oot for this Dons manager lark. I mean, last night I heard him admit he'd got the tactics wrong and accept that his 4-3-3 vision just aint going to happen with this squad of players... truly outrageous stuff! Dis the loon nae ken he's nae meant to issue mea culpas, blame schloppy performances and then list a set of increasingly tenuous excuses in order to distance himself from a woeful performance? If the boy disnae come oot wi some story about his da doon the Govan Boolin' Club afore the Rangers game, then I'm sorry - he's just got to go.
Yet as instantly forgettable as last night was, I staggered away fae the boozer more convinced than ever that actually we're actually gonna be alright. I cannae point to anything tangible or specific, but last night I saw a side who, given a few months, are going to be pretty damn good by SPL standards.
To use an entirely inappropriate military analogy, if Calderwood was attritional trench warfare, McGhee is mair Blitzkreig (nae the best analogy admittedly, as this would mean Sone Aluko would be the Waffen SS... and there's probably a laboured gag about Lee Miller and Stukas in there n'aw) but ma point is we're moving from a solid static form to a more liquid and agile form of play.
Just now we're in the transitional phase but in a couple of months I reckon we'll be flyin'...
We've now got a good solid base in defence. I must admit to harbouring fears that Ifil would go a bit Toni K (who looked outstanding in his first couple of games before we realised he had all the pace and skill of Bill Cosby wi lumbago). His distribution last night was admittedly on the sweetcorn bits side of shite last night, and I've also got no doubts he'll get sent off a couple of times and give away at least three pointless penalties this year, but he can do the blood and thunder stuff very well and truth be told that's all you acually need in an SPL centre-back.
Elsewhere there was more evidence of the Foster paradox - put him up against a good player and he looks decent to superb, put him up against a crap player and he looks awful (last night was in the latter category) and last night Mulgrew showed why he's really more of an auxilliary left-back who'd be much more comfortable in midfield, which presumably, with Sone's upcoming absences, is why Grassi has been brought in.
Throw in the ever improving Clangers and by SPL standards that a freakingly good defensive unit ye know... OK, so nae quite Italy in Espana '82, but collectively they're more than capable of shutting out most SPL attacks.
No doubt the most disappointing area in the side so far (e'boy Fyvie's cameos aside) has been the central midfield with Kerr and McDonald showing very poor early season form, but I'm nae that concerned... they both had almost identical starts last year and come May it was hard to imagine our side without them both.
Perhaps this can be put down to the three-man midfield experiment, which, using my expert knowledge picked up fae playing Fitba Manager fae time tae time, can be played either of two ways. You have one player holding (formerly known as the Makelele role) and two creative guys, or ye flip it and have two holding players and a creative force. Fyvie has shown glimpses that he might be the creative guy in a couple of years, but Kerr and McDonald have looked completely lost in the new formation and as a result our midfield has sat too deep and started communicating with our forwards by semaphore.
With McGhee hinting that the 4-3-3 experiment has been mothballed (until at least the January window anyway) they should both be more comfortable and effective in a 4-4-2 as we saw in our better performances last season, which showed that, as a pair, they can throttle almost any team in this league.
Down the flanks we've got a... well, nae plethora of options, but we can perm a pretty decent midfield that anyone outwith the OF wouldnae mind having. If we're going more defensive then Mulgrew and Duff can come in and do a job and if we're going for the jugular then perm any combination from Aluko/Pawlett and Mike Megginson's loon.
Up front Miller is on a Siberian cold streak just now, but eventually he'll become million-plus rated hot again - and if he disnae, the heir apparent appears to be on board in the form Michael 'Lust for Glory' Paton. El Makigol will be, well El Makigol, and rest assured if there's a season defining goal then he'll score it. McGhee seems to favour fast, agile forwards which suggests that if his attitude is right then Bebo could have his breakthrough year - and let's be honest the kid only seems to score spectacular goals.
As I said we're not a side without some obvious flaws and certainly not infallible, but you don't have to be flawless and infallible in this league, just competent, and no matter what shortcomings they had, Calderwood's squad (and this is still very much his squad) in SPL terms they've demonstrated their competency time and time again.
And when you throw in the talent coming through the youth ranks, there's more than enough grounds to be confident that this side will cut the mustard in this league. And to be honest it will take an apocalyptic outbreak of Ebola and Swine Flu on Pittodrie St and an SPL by-law banning players whose surnames start with 'M' for us not to be in the Europa League places come May.
Delusional? Wildly optomistic? Possibly. As I said, I can't point to anything tangible to back up my arguments and they are really based more on gut instincts and (the wrong side of) 30 years experience as a punter.
What the club and McGhee needs are two things to convince others that my Prozac/10 bottles of Miller and half an ounce of ganja optimism isnae misplaced.
Firstly, 'The Performance'. You know, just a game where we totally annihilate our opponents. Under Calderwood we did dominate games but it was almost as if once we got the second goal, we were almost too polite and too sporting to give them a right f*cking doin'. Fortunately there are two possible opportunities coming up in the next week - on Saturday we face the truly awful Smurn (and I can say with absolute confidence we WON'T be matching up to Big Gus's formation) and then in the Tin Pot Cup against the Tayside Glaikitcoos.
And then we need 'The Result'. A scoreline that re-energises the support and the City after the disastrous start against Sigma/Celtic... and there's this wee fixture against a team that’s no our rivals byrawaybigmanbut on September 26th that would fit perfectly.
Oh, and as an aside, the Masada thrashed the OKH at the 'arras and much to my disappointment I wandered out onto Scotland's most lawless street and didnae see gangs of feral teenagers scrapping, naebody assaulted me, naebody was puking... almost a bigger anticlimax than the game itself, which just goes to show Uncle Ebbe was ontae something when he was havering about miniskirts and statistics.
The Red Avenger
