Nothing But Flowers

Firstly, and probably the most notable one, obviously, we saw Captain Graeme Shinney leaving.

Not been much of an exit story.

Maybe some people would expect probably a bigger farewell than there was.

There obviously was talk that he was offered another year.

He decided that he felt his future was better off moving up north to Inverness.

I mean, let's just get that one out of the way.

I mean, the man leaves with all the goodwill in the world and I think it would be a very small-minded and very small minority of the club, of the fan base, that would be glad to see him go.

I don't think we've held back on our admiration for Graeme Shinney or indeed what he's been able to contribute towards this football club in both spells.

You know, a different player when he came back and a different character, I think in some respects, coming back into a very different team.

When he first joined, he was joining a team that was kind of upwardly mobile and he was fitting into that and, you know, expected to come in and play left back.

Really, it became quite evident quite quickly that he'd be of more use to us in that engine room in the centre of that midfield.

So it's proved subsequently, really, just the drive and determination.

And I think back to, of this spell, of the second spell, because it's obviously more pertinent to what we're talking about.

This podcast being... long enough that if you really want, you can go back and listen to our eulogies for him when he left the first time round.

That first six months, obviously, was quite a tumultuous time.

I mean, he came back in January of that period, was rather oddly left on the bench for Darvill.

What happened subsequently was one of the weirdest and most unexpected turnarounds that you could expect to see.

really abiding memory of him from that from that half season from that run was of course the night where we did it where we clinched the third place finish and guaranteed group stage football for the first time a man who'd obviously been there for many of the years where we'd fallen short in qualifying under Dirk McInnes it's Graham Shinney who scores twice and he's he's pushing that team on and driving that team on that evening I think it's fair to to argue and um agree to some extent that there's a dimming of the light but it's not quite as dim as I think some people have liked to make out not just and that just doesn't pass my eye test but it's also a lot of the stats last season in terms of and not just Aberdeen players because we know that we had a very mediocre season in fact mediocre is probably being generous And, therefore, I think anybody in that squad, literally anybody in that squad, is fair game to be leaving without too many tears being shed based on last season's performance.

But, on a league-wide basis, Graeme Shinner was still up there for a number of challenges made, for distance covered, all the sort of stuff that you'd want from a ball-winning midfielder.

But I think there's maybe a key point there about him and about his style in a way that role has gone out a little bit of football tactics.

The idea that you're midfielder.

is the man to go and rush and win the ball and everyone else is sat back and doing less of a fronting job.

I think the idea now is your whole team is pressing, your whole team is pushing.

So there's necessarily less of a desire to have that centre midfielder.

Your centre midfielder perhaps now needs to keep the shape a little bit better.