Rousseau

HOW DARE YOU LUMP SIR JOSH IN WITH THOSE FRAUDS!!

That was the deal: he invested over a billion for a minority stake and got full control of the football department.

I've been quite impressed with his managerial career. He gets his teams playing an attractive style of play, despite financial limitations; MK Dons, Swansea and Southampton all played lovely stuff under him. He would certainly be a coach I'd have on a watch list - I said so before Beale was appointed.

What are your thoughts, folks?

These First Goalscorer picks are dragging me up the table despite not having a Correct Score yet.

The defending champion takes the lead with a cynical Correct Score! Correct Result (1 pt): BD and r_s. Correct Number of Rangers Goals (1pt): R, Franc, BEAR, BD, Yorkie and CammyF. FGS (2 pts): R and Lenny. Correct Score (3 pts): BD. Latest Standings:

Calm down! We'd end up with McInnes... Do you think he'd come?

Pittodrie is a tough place to go when we're good.

They might be too far ahead in second for the xG to even itself out...

A Ruud awakening for Leicester...

It's easy to show urgency when there is space to run into. Lyon weren't that great, IMO, they just had better quality to take advantage. (xG on the night was 2.06 to their 2.24.)

Unless we compare them to a Lyon, where they're just ... better ...

It's an interesting debate: those special games or the bread and butter.

Key highlights include: Record Core Revenue of £88.3m; Record Total Income of £94.2m. Record Commercial Revenue of £67m; double digit growth. Cost increases managed to just 1%. Pre-player trading loss reduced to £2m – down from £10.5m in 2022/23. Club free of any litigation claims for first time in over a decade following settlements.

Stats won't predict a one-off game. Stats only predict general trends over the long term.

From @compo's tables: Aberdeen: 1.21 xG - 1.33 xGA Rangers: 1.72 xG - 1.05 xGA On average Aberdeen are creating less than their opponents. That's ... pretty poor. We're creating 0.67 more than our opponents, but that's still not good enough for a title challenge.

@compo is quoting stats. My work here is done...

All I'm saying is it's not sustainable over the course of a season. If we had a similar output I'd be incredibly worried - but we're judged on titles, which Aberdeen are not.

We were lucky against Hibs, but deserved to win the others in terms of xG. I've been critical of our xG output but it's still generally higher than our opponents - except against Hibs. Aberdeen have had a lower xG against 4 of their last 6 opponents.

I know this is an absolute nonsense link, and yet...

I was on about 50 points after Saturday, then got bigger all for Sunday's fixtures. Stupid Arsenal...

I don't think Diomande is a #10, he's just shoehorned in because Lawrence is out; and then Cortes and Matondo are out so Bajrami can't play as the #10 either. And Hagi is suspended...

I agree with everything except this. The stats say they've been lucky. I expect it to even out over the course of the season - unless they get better...