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I think it's a mistake to assume that failing to meet expectations at Rosenborg tells us much about how Johansson will do with us. Rosenborg operate in a completely different footballing environment. They play in a 20,000 seat stadium, regularly spend millions of euros on players, have won a record 26 Norwegian league titles, have huge domestic support and have played more European matches than any other Norwegian club. Their expectation isn't simply to be competitive. It's to challenge for titles, qualify for Europe and play a recognisable brand of football while doing it. Our reality is almost the opposite. We work with a fraction of that budget, constantly rebuild squads, develop players, sell them on and try to outperform clubs with greater resources. Success at Motherwell isn't measured by whether you win the league. It's about organising a team properly, improving players, recruiting intelligently, competing consistently and maximising limited resources. That's why I don't think you can simply take Johansson's Rosenborg record and transpose it onto Motherwell. In fact, some of the things Rosenborg themselves credited him with - improving training standards, introducing stronger structure and methodology, developing young players and creating value from them, are potentially much more relevant to the job here than whether he was capable of satisfying the expectations of Norway's biggest club. Of course, there are questions about how his spell ended, particularly around adaptability and leadership when results got away from him. Those are worth discussing. But Rosenborg and Motherwell are two very different jobs, with very different expectations, resources and definitions of success. Another thing worth considering is Jens. Flip his career around for a second. Imagine we'd never had him at Motherwell and he was coming to us now from Toulouse. We'd look at his record there and see a manager sitting near the bottom of Ligue 1 without a win in his first four league games. If we applied the same logic being applied to Johansson, plenty of people would immediately conclude that Askou wasn't good enough. But we know that's bollocks because we've already seen Askou manage Motherwell. We know he was capable of coming into our particular environment, working with our budget and players, and being successful. That's the point. Managers don't operate in a vacuum. The club, expectations, budget, squad, league and the actual job they're being asked to do matter enormously. In the end, Alfred didn't meet Rosenborg's expectations, and they were entitled to sack him. But we're not asking him to do the Rosenborg job. We're asking him to organise and improve players, develop young talent, operate within a restricted budget, create value in the squad and make us competitive against clubs with greater resources. Askou is probably the perfect demonstration of why judging a manager purely on what happened at a completely different type of football club can be completely misleading.

A horrible night where everything fell for Aberdeen. The reaction from certain individuals, i wont call them fans, is bordering on hysterical and ridiculous. 6 games into our league season and everything is doom and gloom. Holly moses! We ask our players to be brave, yet certain supporters chose to take the cowards way out and turned their backs on our players by leaving or abusing them. The players need encouragement and not abuse. Last season the fans got the plaudits for the patience shown in accepting our style of play. This season our support is showing little patience and an entitlement that would make the city club teams fans blush. This season was always going to be difficult. Practically a new team, with a new manager. A manager who is still learning about our players and Scottish football. The club collectively will know they let the fans down last night. But today is a new day. Hopefully lessons were learnt and with hard work, belief and patience we can continue our journey of positivity and entertainment. We need to ignore the external negative noise and trolls. Stop the bickering and trust the process even with the odd blip along the way.

Apparently on toulouseonline.com there is a regular poster called TFC saying the exact same every game! 🤪🤪

The bedwetting from some on here and other SM is outrageous, yet sadly predictable. To say after 1 really bad result, and I`m not shying away from that, he is a poor manager or loose to Dundee and the end is nigh is laughable. There was never a chance we would reach the highs of last season, nor do I think it will happen any time soon again, but there are genuinly good signings been made and a decent wad of cash spent bringing them in. I do think the line up was wrong last night, but hopefully he has seen that and will shuffle things for Saturday. Lets keep the faith and get behind the team.

This is a very good and well worded post. Keep doing this and forget the comedy.

100%! Surely he must know that football players only understand chat like "running their socks off" and ensuring they're a "bunch of good, honest lads" and chat like that? Who does he think he's dealing with? Professionals? Down with that sort of thing!

For me the jury is still out whether "we have the players" other than Lowry I've not see the levels of consistency from the rest to categorically agree with that statement. Before the happy clappers get their knickers in an uproar I'm NOT saying we haven't I just need to see more before I can make that call.

See who Hibs fans are calling for? Clarke, Lennon, Kevin Thompson, Alex Neil, Bartley, etc. All aboard the failure merry-go-round again. I'll happily give Johansson a full season and beyond. If he doesn't succeed, then we'll pick up another young and ambitious coach from the continent.

Well said pal. Alfred needs time and before last night everything had been moving along nicely. Players have off days and that happened last night. Looking at our squad i have every faith we will have a good season but fans need to realise that Jens was really unique so its unfair to put that pressure on AJ, especially in middle of September. He needs a full season minimum

He will get a chance and indeed I don’t see anyone saying that he shouldn’t. He is a very young coach and came into a tough job with big shoes to fill and had to contend with the heart of last seasons team being ripped away from under his feet. But there are worrying signs at this early stage, that’s all anyone is saying and from my own post on this thread earlier on today I was simply highlighting that there are some signs of what the Rosenborg supporter posted about him a few months back. It might well come good for him and us though and we all hope it does.

This is fair comment. Jens IS a hard act to follow. But Alfred has been backed heavily in the transfer market. The early signs were all very good, so Im not going to jump on any negative bandwagons. However, despite still "playing nice stuff at times" we havent looked anywhere near as compact or in control of games as we did under Jens. Thats a tough thing to figure out and fix without coaching time on the pitch and whilst assembling a squad. But the window is now closed and we now go into period after the Dundee game where that excuse will no longer be valid. I would expect to see some significant improvements in the next month or so. We will have a better idea by the end of October as to the actual quality of our squad and the coaching ability of our manager.

Anyone reading my posts will know my views here. I am very much in favour of AJ and after 6 league games ( unbeaten in first 4), it is way too early to be judging him. I will break down my points. 1) whoever replaced Jens was going to be judged more harshly as expectation levels increased 10 fold 2) huge personal choice for him as he had an 8 month pregnant wife also to look after as well as moving to a new country. 3) he lost 5 regular and key players last season and has brought in 11 new players plus we had an injury list of 10 players 4) we faced helsinki and freiburg in europe and the performances I felt were great, especially helsinki at home. 5) for those criticising his stenhousemuir line-up, he made a call and it didnt work. Lets not forget that Jens got hammered in league cup semi and for dons away in cup also put out a weakened side when we weren't even dealing with european ties. 6) hopefully he is learning from mistakes and we start getting a settled side. I think squad is actually strong and competition for places is healthy. Of our new signings I have been impressed mainly and also remember a few coming from overseas and adapting to a new league. We shouldn't be happy about last night but jeez lets not forget the style of fitba Robinson.....Alexander and Kettlewell inflicted on us. Give the lad a chance

I am glad some folk on here aren't my boss as jeez one typo on a document or wrong figure on a spreadsheet and it would be dole queue tomorrow! We were rotten last night, it's one game. AJ taking pelters for team selection ( and rightly so in some cases), but surely Rogers and rest of coaching staff with more of an idea of Robbo's tactics should have been more aware that the forward line wasn't right. Last season at end of September we were away to Livi and defeat would have made us bottom, we won and rest is history. No doubt Jens would have bern getting pelters then also. Also please note Toulouse yet to win a league game yet..........hmmmm maybe because it takes time to bring in new ideas and formation. Healthy debate and constructive criticism is all good but some of the reaction in stands last night and on here is in my opinion is totally over the score. It was always going to take time for new manager....players...formation etc. Too many folk now expecting us to finish 4th every season, that ain't going to happen. Bring on Dundee and please give us any kind of win. COYW

I always love the analysis that consists of downplaying the wins and positives, but absolutely playing up the losses and negatives. Can't beat it.

I like that team but I’d give Levitt a go in place of Hodge with Lucas as Captain

but you're going to make bold statements about how poor you think him and the rest of the team are and predict a terrible season?

I thought Alfred nailed it in his post match. Basically lost the plot, especially after the second goal, and abandoned the tactics in favour of desperate passes and hopeful long balls. That's when we miss an old head like a SOD or McGinn on the pitch to calm things down.

That’s not what I said though, was it? For all that went wrong last night, I’ve said that the buck stops with the manager. I’ve also said that he needs to turn it around for the Dundee game, otherwise I think it could be the beginning of the end for him. That’s not me calling for him to be sacked, nor is it me suggesting we should revert to Kettleball.

Aye sack the manger, get someone who is used to hoofball kick and chase tactics back in charge and forget all the tippy tappy shite, were you in the pod south members area last night, as there was some daftie ranting the same at AJ all night. We had a very bad game, gifted a shite team 4 goals and got what we deserved ie feck all, shit happens, so onwards and upwards to Dundee.

Hopefully MJC won't predict a win.

Dont think olly whyte would have looked out of place last night,could have done with a bit more physicality.

So why did you predict defeats under jba almost every week...heard thats the real reason he went to toulouse.

Exactly...look at the players and manager we lost. It was always going to be a transition that will take time. I certainly don't think Alfred out his depth, he is working with a new squad and implementing his own ideas which will take time

😂 so the answer is to back to the good old days of booting the ball up to the big man. We didn’t have a physically big squad last year, that went ok. I think last night goals just came at bad times. 1st was after us have a good amount of sustained possession and it knocked us and then the second killed us. Game was gone then. Its a bad result no doubt, but we have been pretty good this season so I’m not panicking yet

Trying to compare our start this season to this time last year is pointless, it is not the same at all. For all we couldn’t buy a win at the beginning of 25/26 you could see what we were trying to do football wise, even if we weren’t able to make it count yet. And JBA was a leader, a proper boss, a figurehead who you just felt had that something about him that would work for us. It was always going to be difficult to follow on from that, but sadly AJ doesn’t look anywhere near capable of bringing the same to the table. Yes we have lost some top class players and that was always going to hamper us, but we have no leadership in that team whatsoever.

Then I saw your face......🤣🤣

Utterly horrendous tonight. No press. No urgency. No second balls. No idea. And that’s entirely on the manager. Lose against Dundee and it’s the beginning of the end.

Im not disagreeing with you, I'm agreeing that stats can be very misleading.

Who is over reacting?? people are commenting on where we are now. No one is saying we are relegation material , no one is saying we will not make top 6.

It's to do with people over reacting to a single defeat. It's one match that got away from us.

Seems like some people need a bit of a reminder.

If there's an exact opposite of papering over the cracks, what you've posted is exactly it. Hibs away "decent enough." I disagree there, you're not giving us enough credit for a very good away win. This is the same Hibs that went on to beat Rangers at Ibrox in their next game, and didn't lose in the league until they played Hearts. So that was a good performance and win, especially away from home. Falkirk at home "struggled." I don't know if I'd agree with that. We did okay, and Falkirk are a decent enough side. They'll take points off other teams this season. Stenhousemuir was a game that fell victim to our European run. We chose the side based on other competitions, unfortunately. It is what it was. Not ideal, but again, we have to pick and choose our battles at that stage of the season. Dundee United was a very good, comprehensive win. Them being down to 10 men is neither here nor there. We won 3-0. St Mirren. "Could have conceded five" but we could very easily have scored five as well! It was one of those games. Rangers, we lost to the better side fair and square. No issues there. Same with Aberdeen. I'm certainly not going to be proclaiming us as finishing top four this season, but we've been fine so far. We're fifth in the league, we've won two, drawn two, lost two, and our goal difference is close to neutral. Oh, and for those saying we're not scoring enough? Only Hearts and Celtic have scored more in the league so far. So yeah, not amazing. Not terrible.

They were a baw from scoring twice before they did. The warning signs were there. First Aberdeen team to beat us by a 4 goal margin since Alex Ferguson days. That sums us up tonight. The defence is piss poor and we have zero up front. Maswanhise and RCC are not going to score many goals. I'm not convinced by this squad, yet. Not saying it wont change but still not convinced . I think there has been a lot of hype about a good bit of it unjustified. Pretty patterns with nothing at the end of it was pointless. We badly need to take something from Dens but I fear another grim day ahead.

The only thing that could have made things worse would be if Kettlewell led Ross County to an 8-0 win tonight.......awwwww bawsssss!

I know it doesn't fit with the reactions, but the truth is, it happens. We've seen this kind of thing happen to teams in this division all the time. Outside of the Old Firm and whichever Edinburgh/big city club happens to be having a good season most of the other clubs can easily do this to each other on any given week. This time it was our turn. I'm sure we'll see over-reactions, doomsday chat and all sorts, then we'll even out and be challenging for top six by the end of the year.

Watt has been a massive loss

All the chat has been that we need time on the training pitch while also balancing rest and recovery. Well that paid dividends against an Aberdeen team that went into extra time with 10 men 3 days ago. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if a few months from now, we look back on tonight as a rare blip. I’ve seen enough in riding our luck against Hibs, a powderpuff performance against Falkirk, an embarrassment at Ochilview and a 8 minute capitulation in Paisley to signal cause for concern. Of course, there have been a good few positive moments along the way, but we are miles away from implementing the principles that brought great excitement, belief and relative success last season.

Sussed! McGlynn , McLeish, McIness and now Robinson. They have shown how to stop us from playing. We are too slow coming out from the back allowing defences to get set up and stifle any attack. It's going to be a long season unless Alfred sorts it out. I won't single out any players but there are a few who should not be on the park next week.

Ugly and effective beats Pretty ineffective tonight I'm afraid. Robinson had the measure of us from the start. We're weak at the back and toothless up front. Slow and ponderous on the ball allowing the opposition to get back into shape. Awful stuff.

You may not be wrong but long road to go. 3 goals to St Mirren, Rangers should have taken 4 off us and a piss poor Aberdeen took 4 off us. Nothing up front and a piss poor defence.

0-4 You can dress this up any way you want but that is an absolute disgrace. Against a team who’ve not been able to buy a win of late too. I repeat, we are in trouble this season.

If we're teying to get down the sides and get crosses in, it would make more sense to have SPH as the target for them

Cant understand how RCC has kept his place and I am really not comfortable with Sparrow at right-back. Aberdeen big physical side so I would have had big jake at right back and Jamie KL in centre. Big Seb up top. In alfred we trust though so COYW