Aberdeen fan view: Time to start building a side for next season

By the time the last transfer deadline arrived, big-spending cup holders Aberdeen had signed no fewer than 12 players to attack an ambitious, multi-front campaign.

When Adil Aouchiche’s locker becomes the latest to be cleared, four of them will have already left; in one window and out the next as an ill wind blows incessantly through Pittodrie.

The eight who remain have gathered just 55 starts between them – fewer than seven per head – in an almost miraculous show of concerted unimpactfulness. It is about as bad an advertisement for the club’s recruitment team as could possibly be imagined.

Perhaps they themselves knew it first of all. If the free agency cupboard rake for Stuart Armstrong, making it a baker’s dozen, was an emergency tweak to an unpalatable recipe, it fell flat, with he too among those serving pies on a weekly basis.

That is not to solely blame new faces for this disastrous season.

Father Time is now leaving old faithfuls Graeme Shinnie, Nicky Devlin and Sivert Heltne Nilsen puffing in his wake; Dimitar Mitov will surely soon be put out of his misery; the disappearances of Ante Palaversa and Leighton Clarkson when the side most needed them hinted at their own lack of dependability. Others too have missed their mark.

But it was likely the intention for such pieces to be phased into obsolescence; that the team has been unable to stand without continuing to lean upon them is unimpressive.

That is of significance because it now falls to the club to try again, and this time with no safety net.

Forget this season – little can be saved here – they must build a side almost from scratch for next term, and they cannot afford such a high error rate again. German efficiency, it seems, will be the guiding principle.

[Source: Press and Journal]