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The 5 urgent Aberdeen problems Jimmy Thelin MUST fix as title challenge collapses into top six scrap

-Credit:SNS Group
-Credit:SNS Group


Sinking Aberdeen have now gone 13 games without a win as their form suffers an alarming slump

A once immensely promising season continues to go down the toilet and their dramatic fall-off in form has seen them drop down to fourth spot, with seventh-placed St Mirren are now just five points behind. It wasn't so long ago they were genuine title contenders – now even a place in the top six is at threat and failing to achieve that would be nothing short of a disaster for boss Jimmy Thelin.

The Dons travel to Hibs at the weekend and will be hoping that can be the turning point for them and the Swedish manager in his rollercoaster first season at Pittodrie. Record Sport looks at the main issues that Thelin has to address as he tries to arrest the slump and keep his team on course to finish in the European places.

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Self-inflicted goals

The biggest issue for Aberdeen of late has been the goals they have been losing and the manner of them. A lot of the time it has been down to individual mistakes. Saturday’s defeat to St Mirren was the prime example, where all three were the result of defensive errors.

There is no doubt that confidence is starting to drain and the players probably feel like they are being punished for every mistake. They are in a cycle where they feel everything is going against them.

Thelin is trying and on the training pitch he has been working on the defensive side of the game. Making his team more compact when they are on the back foot but there is very little he can do when different players keep making big confidence-sapping mistakes. The problem is that several players have made them and it’s not as if you can take one player out and the mistakes will magically stop.

The manager has also brought in his own players in Kristers Tobers, Alexander Jensen and Alfie Dorrington. They look like they could be decent additions and once they get time to find their feet then that should also help give Aberdeen more of a solid base.

Get the team firing again

Aberdeen, at the start of the season, was one of the most potent teams in European football. Now their manager must be sitting wondering where their next Premiership goal is going to come from.

They haven’t managed to score in their last four league games, although they did net three in the Scottish Cup win over Elgin City. Pape Habib Gueye is still the top scorer with five goals and he has just come back from several months out.

People have been looking for the Dons to replace the goals lost from Bojan Miovski’s sale to Girona. The likelihood is that even the Macedonian would probably have struggled to get anywhere near the goals he got last season.

The central striker is the one who starts the press and is expected to do a lot of running but it’s not as if they get a barrowload of chances. A lot of the work the striker does is to sacrifice themselves for the team in Thelin’s system.

Kevin Nisbet has a proven track record and is Aberdeen’s best striker but just now things aren’t falling for him. With his quality that is likely to change sooner rather than later but can the likes of Peter Ambrose and Duk chip in with more, along with Gueye, in the final few months? Or will Thelin bring in another striker before the deadline? It is a position that the Dons very much have an eye on.

The rigid 4-2-3-1

Thelin is very much a man who sticks to his principles and his formation is a central pillar of that. The critics claim that teams have worked out how to counteract his set-up but the Swede has insisted it shouldn’t matter. Thelin has made it clear that if his players do the basics right then it shouldn’t matter about the opposition.

Thelin makes changes to his personnel, whether that is changing his central striker and his wingers on the hour but the formation remains the same. A lot of the strikers at the club have been used to playing in a twin partnership previously but now it is very much one central with two wide men and an attacking midfielder tucked in behind.

Yes, there have been games where Aberdeen have been well beaten but there have been long spells in the games where they have dominated but just not got the goals. There are also questions within that, like: are Sivert Nilsen and Graeme Shinnie too similar to play as the two holding midfielders?

The curious case of Slobodan Rubezic

The big Montenegro international was a big part of Aberdeen’s early season success. The 24-year-old, like so many other teammates, has seen his confidence drain. Rubezic has made mistakes as the defence have struggled to keep clean sheets. He forced his way back into the team after his sending off at Motherwell but then asked to come off in the first half of their weekend defeat to St Mirren.

Rubezic wanted off against St Mirren
Rubezic wanted off against St Mirren

The big defender had a difficult afternoon. Jimmy Thelin after the game admitted he hadn’t spoken to Rubezic at that point and didn’t know what the reason was for the substitution. Rubezic took some stick from his own fans but if Thelin can get him through things and back to the top of his game then he could be a major asset going into the final months.

The first objective - get Aberdeen into Europe

November 9th was the last time Aberdeen registered a win in the league. At that point, they were still right up there at the top with Celtic. Since then, they have dropped like a stone but their strong early season form means they still remain in the European spots. They are still only two points off third place although a longer continuation of their current form and they could fall out the top six altogether.

Things are still so tight. Thelin has always maintained he wants to turn Aberdeen into a stable European team. They can still do that but for Thelin it will remain more short-term, the next game and looking for that elusive win that could yet transform their fortunes and their season.