Aberdeen lose the euphoria but tooling up in transfers can still send them ahead of Rangers – Scott Burns
Most Aberdeen fans would probably have bitten your hand off to be sitting in third place at this halfway point in the Premiership season.
The Dons are currently sitting there as best of the rest but there still remains a feeling of what could have been. And being on a an eight-game run without a win certainly doesn’t help. It has seen them go toe-to-toe with Celtic to slipping behind Rangers and are now within touching distance of Dundee United and the chasing pack. Before a ball was kicked Aberdeen the internal target for new boss Jimmy Thelin would have been third place.
The Reds currently occupy that place but this is a season where so much more could be on offer. Yes, there were the early season tongue-in-cheek chants of “F*** you Celtic, we’re going to win the league” as Thelin’s side matched every early step of Brendan Rodgers’ side.
There was even talk of Aberdeen being potential title challengers but that now seems a million miles away. It was fun while it lasted and the majority of the Red Army lapped up that early season euphoria.
The bottom line is that, as it stands, second place is still very much up for grabs. Rangers are currently two points ahead with a game-in-hand. Aberdeen were well clear of them but Philippe Clement’s team managed to haul them back during this poor run. Yet if Aberdeen had won either of their last two games, against Kilmarnock or Dundee United, then they would have been back clear in second spot, albeit their rivals would still have a game in hand.
The reality is that it could still happen if Aberdeen can beat Ross County on January 2 and Rangers lose to Celtic. There is still so much to play for but Thelin and his team need to stop the rot and quickly.
What an opportunity they still have. What they don’t want to do is to continue haemorrhaging points and to be hauled back into the dogfight below, where just 10 points separate the Dons from seventh-placed Hibs.
January looks like it could be a pivotal month for the Dons and their season’s ambitions. They have Ross County, Hearts and St Mirren at home, Motherwell and Rangers away and an away Scottish Cup tie at Elgin City.
The other big thing for Thelin is that the January window will open in days and the Pittodrie board are ready to back their manager. A lot of the current Aberdeen squad now look to be running on empty. They look tired, out-of-form and lacking confidence.
If Thelin can bring in some of the targets he wants then it would bolster his side and give his team a much-needed lift. It is clear he wants to play a rigid 4-2-3-1 formation. That will never waver.
He will now be able to bring players that meet his own player profile and can more naturally fit into that system. The current Aberdeen squad has served him well but in recent weeks that has faltered in both boxes.
The strikers are struggling for goals and clean sheets have been few and far between. That is something Thelin and his backroom team will be working overtime to rectify because they won’t want all their good, early season work come undone.
Thelin has never been one to make bold predictions. It has always been one game at a time. The best we have got from the Swede is that he wants to get Aberdeen back into Europe and over the longer term make Scotland’s third force on a consistent basis.
The former Elfsborg boss has certainly opened the door to, at least, achieve that in his first season - if Thelin and his team can quickly pull themselves out of their current slump.
