Ross Doohan ready to grab Aberdeen chance as Dons No2 looks to show Jimmy Thelin what he can do
Ross Doohan knows the chance to showcase his talents over the coming weeks with Aberdeen could be massive in helping him secure his future.
The keeper has been handed the Pittodrie gloves with No1 Dimitar Mitov out for several weeks with a hamstring injury. It has given Doohan the chance to step up and he knows it is a big spell for him because he is also out-of-contract at the end of the season. The keeper, who will start against Hibs this weekend, confirmed: “This is my last year here. Yeah, I’m in the last five or six months but I'm not really focusing on that right now.
“I'm just focusing on getting a run of games and just showing everybody what I can do. I’ve come up here, I've had a few games, not too many but this is the chance to show everyone what I can do. I've not really thought about the end of the season.
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“I’m just taking it game by game, working under the manager (Jimmy Thelin) and the staff here, it's been brilliant. Working with all the boys, we're just looking to get going on.“
Doohan is one of a number of Aberdeen first-team players who are out of contract, including Jamie McGrath, Jack MacKenzie, Duk and Angus MacDonald. Dons director of football Steven Gunn has already started talks with several of the players and their representatives.
Doohan came on at half-time and impressed in the draw at Hearts and then kicked on with impressive performances against Celtic and St Johnstone. Prior to that the 26-year-old's only first-team action under Thelin had come in the early Premier Sports Cup group win over East Kilbride back in July. It was a frustrating spell because Mitov has come in from St Johnstone in the summer and been a standout before his injury.
The good thing for Aberdeen and Thelin is that Doohan has plenty of past experience under his belt. He came through the ranks at Celtic and had impressive loan spells at Ross County, Dundee United and Ayr United before he moved on to have stints in England with Tranmere and Forest Green Rovers before he moved to Aberdeen last year.
Doohan, however, isn’t looking too far ahead and his sole focus is on Hibs this weekend. He said: “Yeah, it's just I'm taking it game by game now, it's obviously came out of the blue a wee bit as well but that's all we can do, you can't focus too far in the future.
“You just need to go game by game and take it from there. It’s a big spell because it's December time, Scotland's always massive. There are a lot of games coming at once so I'm just looking forward to the challenge, showing everyone what I can do.”
Aberdeen’s season after the superb start has stuttered a bit in recent games. The second-placed Dons have failed to win in their last five games and that is something everybody is keen to put right when struggling Hibs head north. Thelin gave his time off last weekend, having no fixture and will expect to see them back on it.
Doolan admitted: “Listen, at a club like Aberdeen you need to win every game. “We've been pushing to do that. “We've been working hard on the training pitch, the team spirit from the start of the season to now has been absolutely brilliant.
“Nothing has changed, it's just we need to get going and that starts again in the next game. “Listen, we've been great at the start of the season, we just keep going, keep going and believe in ourselves, that's the main thing.”
