St Johnstone v Aberdeen

Premier League, McDiarmid Park.

Two games played, no goals scored, one point earned and comfortably occupying the sacred 9th position in the league table – Aberdeen’s finishing spot these past three years and not something we’re about to give up without a fight.

It’s not all good news, though, as Nial McGinn is out injured after the convincing moral victory at home against Ross County and he’s looked fairly promising – a really good signing - so far.

Today’s objective: score.
Further objective: win.

The very concept of St Johnstone bores me. It shouldn’t, but it does – they’re just one of those teams. The only other team in Scotland that make me feel exactly the same way – which is to say I feel absolutely nothing, I have no recognisable response to their existence, not a twitch – is Livingston.

Prediction: St Johnstone 0 Aberdeen 2

 

And for those of you who may find the concept of Aberdeen or an Aberdeen match or even football itself quite boring – that’s okay, I understand – and want to read about something more interesting, here’s an example of how to comprehensively win an argument (taken from the book The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson – although I’ve edited and abridged where appropriate, without detriment to the central meaning):

“David Rosenhan, a psychologist, had grown tired of the pseudoscientific, ivory-tower world of the psychoanalyst. He wanted to demonstrate that they were as useless as they were idolised, and so he devised an experiment. He co-opted seven friends, none of whom had ever had any psychiatric problems....

All at once, they [including Rosenhan himself] travelled across America, each to a different mental hospital. At an agreed time, each told the duty psychiatrist that they were hearing a voice in their head that said the words “empty”, “hollow” and “thud”. That was the only lie they would be allowed to tell. Otherwise they had to behave completely normally.

All eight were immediately diagnosed as insane and admitted into the hospitals. Seven were told they had schizophrenia, one manic depression.

Rosenhan had expected the experiment would last a couple of days.....[but] they didn’t let him out for two months. In fact, they refused to let any of the eight out, for an average of nineteen days each, even though they all acted completely normally from the moment they were admitted. When staff asked how they were feeling they said they were feeling fine. They were all given powerful anti-psychotic drugs.

Each was told that he would have to get out by his own devices, essentially by convincing the staff that he was sane. Simply telling the staff they were sane wasn’t going to cut it.

Once labelled schizophrenic, the pseudopatient was stuck with that label. There was only one way out: they had to agree with the psychiatrists that they were insane and then pretend to get better.

When Rosenhan reported the experiment, there was pandemonium. He was accused of trickery. He and his friends had faked mental illness. You can’t blame a psychiatrist for misdiagnosing someone who presented himself with fake symptoms.

One mental hospital challenged Rosenhan to send some more fakes, guaranteeing they’d spot them this time. Rosenhan agreed, and after a month the hospital proudly announced they had discovered forty-one fakes. Rosenham then revealed he’d sent no one to the hospital.”

Ouch.

 

Ante post portfolio? What language is this that you speak, Herr Kommandant?

Relax, though, your “investment” – see? I know about betting stuff, too - is safe: Aberdeen would win the league at a canter without Celtic. Fact. I have them down to finish third.

And in the impossible event that you lose all monies that you have deposited in this hedge fund, you can enter a competition I’m running on this site and win all of your money straight back, less the differentials and subject to terms and conditions. All you have to do is predict the attendance for Aberdeen home matches throughout the course of the season and whoever gets closest to an actual attendance figure (by the end of the season) – as defined by the BBC – wins the prize (50 Euros or a £50 Amazon voucher.) By my reckoning, if you win this competition and in the event that you’ve lost everything you staked on Aberdeen, you’ll be ahead of the game, financially.

I work in the City, trust me on this.

 

Ach, I got distracted and started writing a disclaimer for any predictions I may make about Aberdeen results - as opposed to Aberdeen attendances. I'll post it here for future reference and to cover my back, anyway, before attending to the task of making the attendance-predicting competition water-tight with bogus sounding legalese. Although, to be absolutely and unequivocally clear, the only money that will be leaving my pocket is a one-off payment of 50 Euros or £50 (if the happy winner chooses to receive his or her winnings this way), made at the end of the season. Also, the current frontrunner - the poster formerly known as Admiral Pure - has already predicted an Aberdeen home league attendance to within 28, which will take some beating. A small administrative fee of £51 may be payable under certain and all circumstances.

To Whom It May Concern​

These predictions (non contra bonos mores) may contain or may be predicated upon or may entirely or partially consist of personally constructed or idealised or unrealistic projections. If you are not an intended or willing recipient of these predictions or feel in some description threatened or discriminated against by their inclusion, or suffer an “anger event” at their sighting (perforce: to “beel”), please notify the predictor (hereinafter referred to as “The Soothsayer” (sub nomine “Psychosomatic”) and/or “The Defendant”) immediately by privately channeled electronic mail and delete these and all other predictions in any quoted response you may proffer on the publicly accessible hosting website (“Not606”).

Unless specifically stated otherwise, any prediction(s) submitted to this Aberdeen forum by The Defendant (including any perceived or actual examples of jactitation and including any perceived or actual examples of barratry) are not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Football Prediction Code of Not606 or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party for adoption as their own opinion any prediction or predictive matter addressed herein or hereafter.

All predictions are subject in perpetuity to the arbitrary action of depressed downwards revision without notice (actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea) and third party written investors in the Aberdeen forum (hereinafter referred to as “Fans of Other Clubs”) may lose their mental deposit and be made to look intellectually sluggish in the event of a restructuring of said predictions being undertaken by The Defendant and in the event that they [Fans of Other Clubs] have tried to take issue with or continue to take issue with or intend to take issue with a(ny) prediction that may no longer exist or may never have existed as an accurate or attributable representation of The Defendant’s most hopeful best guess or freely chosen flight from the broadly accepted margins of reality. Cadit quaestio.

 

With fourteen minutes gone, the BBC's live text commentary page reveals no shots on goal from either side, no corners, with Aberdeen having 62% of the possession. This is a crushing way to "watch" a game.

Still, looks like a belter at McDiarmid Park.


Edit: Aberdeen appear to have scored, but the scorer and time of goal still remain a mystery on the text commentary page.

Further edit: Osbourne 16 minutes. St Johnstone 0 Aberdeen 1. First objective achieved.


Further edit and update: That's 40 minutes gone now, still 1-0, with Aberdeen having had one shot on goal (as compared to St Johnstone's three) and 55% of possession.

Easy Street. In control. Coasting.

 

A bunch of your lot went past my window today on the bus shouting at a disabled Saints fan.

I did the only appropriate thing and waved my hand furiously to signal they are ****ers

 

Hello, MD.

Good for you. They certainly sound like ****ers. But "my lot"? I have no association with these people save for happening to be a fan of the same football team, it would appear. I'm far too effete for all that boisterous - we're all just lads together - gang mentality kind of thing. I prefer to hum sentimental ballads to myself and/or simply hang my head in despair.

 

Half-time: 1-0 (there is very evidently a time delay between reality and the arrival of reality on the BBC live text commentary service.)

Aberdeen will score again very close to the beginning of the second half and will shut St Johnstone out of the game thereafter. Too easy, for sure.

 

Nah I know its just boys will be boys Psycho.

All the best for the game my flatmates a Saints fan and I've been enjoying tearing into him

 

2-0 Aberdeen. Johnny Hayes on 47 minutes – I stun myself with my predictions.

Get laughing at him some more on my behalf, MD, the sheep are in cruise control.....

 

St Johnstone 1 Aberdeen 2

Oh dear. Surely that must be full-time.


Edit: Praise be, an excellent result and 58% of the possession away from home is commendable. Hearts next, I think, and another victory is all but assured.

Re-Edit: No, next up is Morton (away) in the League Cup. Could be tricky. I predict....victory.