Aberdeen youngsters penned new deals despite English interest – as pathways boss lifts lid on ‘uplifting’ Stephen Robinson attitude, Jamie Mercer ‘adversity’

Five Aberdeen youngsters signed new deals despite interest from clubs in England – with Stephen Robinson’s arrival as head coach opening up the first-team pathway for Reds starlets.

On Thursday, Aberdeen announced five youth academy-produced teens, who all spent the campaign out on loan had all penned contract extensions, predominantly signing on for an extra couple of years to try to make the grade at the Dons.

The players are 18-year-old centre-back Lewis Carrol (loaned to League One Cove Rangers), another 18-year-old centre-half Jamie Mercer (League Two Elgin City), midfielder Zak To, 18 (Highland League Keith), right-sided wide player Jack Searle, 17 (also Keith), and 16-year-old Aaron Cummings (Buckie Thistle).

Mercer celebrated his new deal on Sunday, when he was named in an Aberdeen first-team matchday squad for the first time for the Premiership finale away to Dundee. 

Aberdeen interim pathways manager Stuart Duff confirmed to The Press and Journal some of the players had the option to move to England, with clubs down south increasingly poaching young Scottish talent post-Brexit.

He told the P&J: “That’s a compliment to the players and probably the staff that work in here. We’ve got players there English teams are aware of.

“Of course, there’s the potential there (they could get poached).

“In a perfect world, we want them to play for Aberdeen for 10, 15 years, and be the next Willie Miller and Alex McLeish.

“In reality, we want them to be impactful for Aberdeen, and then I don’t think anybody could argue once they’ve made a significant contribution to Aberdeen’s first team, if they then move on.

“We’ve got high potential players here, and whether English teams look at them, or Europe and beyond, our focus is obviously getting them into the Aberdeen first-team.

“But there has been interest, yeah.”

Duff: We’ve had more youngsters at first-time training in three months than we have in a long time

Recently-appointed head coach Robinson’s attitude to youth was described as “uplifting” by Duff, who oversees Reds youngsters in the transition phase between the academy and first-team football.

Despite battling to secure Aberdeen’s Premiership status in his opening months in charge, former St Mirren manager Robinson has had several youngsters join in training with the senior squad.

Duff revealed they’ve “had more (young) players probably in the last three months over (at first-team training) than we have in a long period of time.”

He said: “It has been really good for our boys to see there’s actually a pathway there, and the manager will have a look at you and he’s fully aware of who they are.”

With a deeply disappointing Aberdeen season having now reached its conclusion, Robinson, sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel and the recruitment staff are ramping up their efforts to rebuild the squad for the 2026/27 campaign.

Whether any on the five young Dons who have penned new deals, or other starlets under contract, come into the senior picture proper this summer will be decided during pre-season.

Duff added: “He’s far more open and I think he has seen already the potential of the young players we’ve got here and is willing to give them an opportunity.

“Now, he’s not going to take them for the sake of just taking them. It might be position-specific players he’s looking for, or it might be how well they’re doing at their loan clubs – it’s part of my role to make him aware of these players and fresh in his memory.

“But he’s been nothing other than really forward thinking in his approach. He’s fully aware of who the players are, and he’s far more open to getting them in and allowing them to train.”

First-team squad or another loan for new deal five?

Former Dons midfielder Duff joked “hopefully the manager takes all of them (this term’s young loanees) into the first-team”.

But he thinks there is every chance the youngsters who were loaned out this term step up the levels with another loan in the new campaign.

Third-tier Cove and fourth-tier Elgin are currently loan co-operation partners with the Reds, meaning young players can move more freely between the clubs than with regular loans.

Duff said: “There might be one or two that more of their training gets spent with the first-team.

“But all of them will probably go out on loan.

“Where that is… that’s ongoing just now. The discussions are ‘what level? What’s best thing for them?’ Each player is looked at individually.”

Jamie Mercer: From major injuries to earning Aberdeen senior players’ ‘respect’

Mercer could be the most likely candidate to jump straight into the senior set-up next season under Robinson.

As well as training every day with the first-team in recent weeks and being named on the bench for Sunday’s loss at Dens Park, Mercer also took part in the warm-up ahead of last week’s Pittodrie defeat to St Mirren.

Duff thinks Mercer has earned the “respect” of the older players during this period, and “they’re all understanding what a good player he is”.

Ironically, asked if he had harboured doubts over the five contract signees’ potential to be future Aberdeen first-teamers going into the season just-finished, Duff pointed to Mercer. Not due to his ability, but due to a “chequered injury past” with his hamstrings, including surgery.

Despite initially making the switch last summer, Mercer wasn’t able to feature at all for League Two loan club Elgin until he rejoined the Moray side in February.

Duff thinks Mercer’s ascension to the first-team periphery under Robinson is a credit to the youngster, saying: “For such a young player to go through such major injuries with his hamstrings and to come out the other side of that, it’s huge.

“Firstly, the medical staff have been unbelievable and got him back into condition, where he’s ultimately went and trained with the first team.

“I wouldn’t classify him as a first-team squad player (yet)… but he’s trained every day with them, so the manager’s obviously seen enough to like him.

“That’s unbelievable. There’s a really bright future ahead of him.

“I’m making a conscious effort not to mention injuries – I think we’ve moved past that now. He needs to go and show exactly what he can do.

“He’s represented Scotland at a national level, so there’s a really good pedigree there.

“Nobody ‘deserves’ it, but if anybody does, it’s probably Jamie – just off the back of going through that adversity.”

This season’s Dons loanees won over Highland League doubters

Last summer, Aberdeen decided to forego entering the new national under-19s league, pivoting their youth development approach towards getting players more, what they believe is vital, experience of men’s football earlier using the loan system (as well as Aberdeen “B” fixtures in the KDM Evolution Trophy and Aberdeenshire Cup/Shield).

The conveyor belt will continue to run into the new season.

While Zak To, for example, after helping Keith to an impressive seventh place in the Highland League this term will likely now be loaned to an Scottish league club in the new campaign, younger Dons talents – some who are still just 15 years old – will experience their first loans in the Highland ranks.

Duff said: “We’ve had three games against Highland League teams within the last month, and an in-house game here where we invited all the Highland League clubs to come and watch. Pretty much a showcase.

“If you look at the bounce game at Cormack Park, there were nine sides there represented and they’ve all returned information back about players and positions they would like.

“If we rewind a year, that probably wouldn’t have happened, because people would have turned their nose up and thought, physically, the boys couldn’t play at that level, couldn’t handle it et cetera, et cetera.

“This year has obviously been a really good development from our point of view, because it’s broadened the mindset of the managers outwith Aberdeen that younger players can handle that.

“It won’t work for everybody, of course – and there’s still potential they can go and play 17s – but the feedback and buy-in from clubs is huge, it’s massive.

“And we want to grow that, we want to build that, and I think that’s really important, particularly the Highland League, because that is pretty much within our geography.”

[Source: Press and Journal]