In many respects, James Forrest’s last-gasp goal in Celtic’s final-day draw with St Mirren yesterday might prove to be a blessing. Without it, next weekend’s Scottish Cup final was shaping up to be the most mortifying of all time.
Not just a non-event between two ill-matched teams operating on different planes. Rather, a glorified game of passy all designed to set up a wee guy reaching the twilight of his career a goal for the 16th season on the trot.
We’ve been spared that, at least. However, it still promises to be more of a public flogging than a showpiece occasion.
And following his side’s collapse in losing 2-1 to Dundee United when the heat was on at Tannadice yesterday, it represents a real litmus test for Aberdeen manager Jimmy Thelin at a time when more and more questions are being asked about his exceedingly well-financed Pittodrie reign.
He really needs to show he’s got the minerals to stop the whole event from becoming an embarrassment. And, at this moment in time, the signs don’t look encouraging at all.
The Swede spent the end of last week reflecting on his first season in the hotseat at the Dons. From the sounds of it, he seems relatively happy with the way it has gone.
Jimmy Thelin will meet Brendan Rodgers again next week, desperate for an improved outcome
At least James Forrest won’t be the centre of attention after finally getting his goal yesterday
Thelin and his Dons side were very happy to secure European football despite some dire form
Turning Aberdeen into the third force in Scottish football was always going to be a three-year plan. Reaching two semi-finals and a final has ticked big early boxes for him. Securing European football was another target reached.
That’s all very well. Let’s not grudge him putting a positive spin on things. He probably has hit most of his key performance indicators for this term.
There’s another way to appraise Aberdeen’s season, though. And it paints an altogether less rosy picture.
Anyone actually watching the team during their 13-game winning run at the beginning of the campaign knew, in their heart of hearts, that it wasn’t going to last. They were rarely blowing teams away. The football wasn’t all that. Guys were regularly coming off the bench to change tight games late on, which, for a while, had Thelin looking like the ultimate Tinkerman.
Since they ran into Celtic at Hampden in the Premier Sports Cup semis in early November, though — having won 15 games out of 16 and drawn at Parkhead — and copped a six-goal whacking, the Cox’s Pippins have tumbled off the applecart. Big time.
Finishing fifth in the table cannot possibly be termed a success, particularly given the way the campaign started. Huge amounts of money, by SPFL standards, have been thrown at allowing Thelin to build a team.
Thelin has cut a rather relaxed figure despite his side struggling pretty much since October
At the last count, their overall wage bill was just behind that of their Tynecastle rivals and that might well have changed in the wake of continued expenditure.
Yes, the £6.8million hauled in from Girona for Bojan Miovski last summer — added to the money received from Leganes for Duk Lopes in January — comfortably covered the bill. That’s not the point, though.
Topi Keskinen cost a whopping £850,000. Has he looked like a player worthy of that price tag? Has he had the consistent impact on games that you’d expect?
Kristers Tobers was £700,000. Alexander Jensen cost £650,000. These are big fees. Sivert Heltne Nilsen and Peter Ambrose, a bit-part player at best, cost £300,000 each.
Kevin Nisbet, Oday Dabbagh, Alfie Dorrington and Jeppe Okkels have all been brought in on loan. According to reports, it could well cost something in the region of £1m to turn Okkels’ move from Preston North End into a permanent arrangement, which should certainly knock that one on the head.
What’s more, recruitment for next term has already started with an estimated £400,000 deal having been agreed for Nicolas Milanovic of Aussie outfit Western Sydney Wanderers. There will be more where that came from too.
Johnny Kenny celebrates scoring goal No 4 in Celtic’s most recent walloping of the Dons
This is serious cash. It should be capable of creating a side that looks like becoming the best of the rest in the Premiership. As it is, though, this is a team that isn’t scoring enough goals and couldn’t keep weans out of a close.
Just look at the goals for and against figures. Last term at Pittodrie was a comedy turn, with Barry Robson being succeeded by museum exhibit Neil Warnock, who oversaw some truly dismal performances while writing wisecracks for his upcoming tour on the stand-up circuit.
The Dons finished in the bottom six. Yet, their goal difference was still considerably better than this season. Last term, they scored 48 and conceded 52. Following yesterday’s momentous flop at Tannadice, the Class of 2025 have netted 48 and let in 61.
Fair enough, they were playing weaker opposition in their last five fixtures. There’s no excusing their away record in the league this term, though. It is nothing short of dreadful.
All-in, they’ve won five, drawn four and lost 10 of their 19 games on the road with 17 goals scored and 35 conceded.
Three of those victories came in that golden run at the beginning of the season. In their last 16 games outside of Pittodrie, however, they have won just two.
Daizen Maeda makes it six for Celtic in last year’s League Cup semi-final at Hampden
Prior to yesterday’s matches, Aberdeen’s form in the previous 25 league games placed them joint-bottom with relegated St Johnstone.
Sure, the late Ebbe Skovdahl used to talk about statistics being like mini-skirts. ‘They give you good ideas, but hide the most important parts,’ said the one-time Dons boss, in a statement now likely to have you lynched on TikTok and reported to the rozzers than hailed for the humour and perspicacity of experience.
There really is no dressing up Thelin’s recent record, though. There have been unhelpful injuries at key times, but that’s life at a football club. That’s what spending money on a squad is for.
Even pointing to a semi-final outing in one cup competition and a final in the other doesn’t look quite so impressive when subjected to scrutiny. Prior to being taken apart by Celtic in the Premier Sports Cup, Aberdeen had played Queen of the South, East Kilbride, Airdrie and Dumbarton in the group stage and Queen’s Park and Spartans in the knockouts.
In the Scottish Cup, Elgin, Dunfermline and Queen’s Park had provided the opposition before a last-gasp extra-time win over nine-man Hearts in the last four. Aberdeen were rotten that afternoon, though. Their first-half performance, in particular, would get football stopped.
The last week has only heightened concerns over what awaits at the National Stadium in six days’ time. A 4-0 hosing at Ibrox against a soon-to-be-dismantled Rangers outfit that couldn’t buy a win at home could have been much, much worse.
Thelin has much to ponder after defeat at Tannadice saw his side finish in fifth place
Shipping five going on 10 at home to Celtic’s shadow squad was just humiliating. Thelin, himself, admitted it was unacceptable. Talk to Dons fans and they’ll tell you that the pressing play that marked much of their early-season success has disappeared while defensive calamities just keep happening over and over again.
Celtic have scored 19 times in five meetings with the Dons this term. Thelin has to find a way to stem that tide next weekend. He has to offer solid evidence he can set out a side to dig in and stay in the game.
Another hammering will be just one dose of debasement too many and valid reason to start asking proper, serious questions about the general direction of travel under his charge.
Thugs have gone too far with latest missile shame
Another week, another bout of missile-throwing. This time, though, we really have crossed the Rubicon.
After all the talk from Celtic keeper Viljami Sinisalo about it being a matter of time until someone is seriously hurt inside a Scottish stadium, the pictures of Aberdeen’s Jack MacKenzie being wheeled up the Tannadice tunnel with a bloodied bandage around his head after being struck by a seat thrown by his own fans has got to be a line in the sand.
Those images are shameful, disgusting, a scar on the face of a sport that must get a proper handle on dealing with what has been a rising problem.
Aberdeen defender Jack MacKenzie is visibly stunned after being struck at Tannadice
Anyone throwing any kind of object must be thrown in prison and banned from football. Custodial sentences and banning orders are necessary here and clubs, cops, the SPFL, the SFA and the judicial system have to focus on making that happen.
We’re dangerously close to having to look at putting up fences around fans — or having the government bring in strict liability. That’s not something to campaign for, but it’s getting to the stage where football won’t have a leg to stand on should Holyrood threaten to get involved as it did back in 2016.
Dundee boss Docherty is in the dock with a flimsy defence
Perhaps the greatest disappointment of this season has been the decline of Dundee to a side somehow still fighting for their Premiership lives on the final day.
Their first campaign back in the top flight last term was an unqualified success. A top-six finish was beyond expectations. However, right from the early weeks of the action, you could see clearly that they were never going to be in danger.
How that has changed this term. Going to watch games at Dens *has* been fantastically entertaining. There is plenty of attacking play and a guy in Simon Murray who is a Scottish football phenomenon.
It took an injury-time penalty to stop them beating Celtic 3-2 there. They also drew with Rangers and should have beaten them second time around before collapsing late on and losing 4-3.
Tony Docherty’s side have scored plenty of goals but can’t keep them out at the other end
It seems incredible, then, that they are where they are ahead of today’s visit to St Johnstone. Until you look at the ‘goals against’ column in the table, that is. They’ve conceded a staggering 77 times, the worst record in the league by quite some distance.
It seems like almost every game ends up a basketball match with them. Yes, manager Tony Docherty was right to be unhappy at the penalty decision that gave Ross County a draw in midweek. He has been critical of officials all season.
He’s had injuries, too, and the loss of Luke McCowan to Celtic was a sore one. Yet, it’s hard to mount a defence for their lack of a defence. Money has been spent on the squad there.
If Dundee go down, Docherty is surely toast. He must feel the flames licking his loafers ahead of today’s trip to McDiarmid Park.
He badly needs a result. A walk across the high wire in a play-off with Livingston is not something a club looking ahead to new stadiums and all the rest of it can afford.
Ferguson is wrong on so many levels about Rangers job
The end of the season has arrived at the right time when it comes to interim Rangers manager Barry Ferguson.
To a great degree, he did the job asked of him in ending the toxicity around Ibrox in the dying days of Philippe Clement. He delivered an Old Firm win and got the club past Fenerbahce into the last eight of the Europa League. He has spoken honestly about the state the club is in ahead of the impending US-takeover.
Barry Ferguson waves goodbye to the Rangers fans for what is sure to be the final time
However, all that stuff in midweek about getting more respect if he was foreign was a step too far. At the time, before seeing off Dundee United, he had won five games in 13. His talk about Rangers having to get a move on in appointing a boss has been puzzling too.
What’s the big rush? It seems clear there is already work going on behind the scenes in terms of approaching candidates and lining up transfer targets. The most important thing is making sure Rangers get the right man after years and years of chaos in the dugout.
That takes time and diligence. And, yes, it ought not to involve a rookie such as Davide Ancelotti. Obvs.
