Willie Miller: Calamitous defending and non-existent midfield were Aberdeen wake-up call

With a calamitous defensive display and non-existent midfield the loss at Dundee must serve as a sobering wake-up call to Aberdeen.

After the positivity of winning the first five games of the season, the 2-0 defeat at Dens Park was a reality check that a lot of work is still required to gel Stephen Robinson’s  rebuilt Dons.

The real concern is Aberdeen looked like a team of individuals in the loss who had not seen or played alongside each other.

Head coach Robinson said after the defeat at Dundee he didn’t recognise the Aberdeen team after such a poor performance.

The large travelling Aberdeen support certainly saw it wasn’t good enough.

Robinson, his coaches and the players must use this week on the training pitch to address the problems and work on delivering solutions.

Aberdeen’s back-four at Dens Park consisted entirely of summer signings – Chris Cadden, Lewis Mayo, Dan Happe and Nesta Guinness-Walker.

A worry is that it felt like Dundee didn’t have to perform to a high level to get the better of any of Aberdeen’s four defenders.

Dundee gave the back-four a torrid time and it could have been much worse than the 1-0 deficit at half-time.

It has to be much better from Aberdeen.

Aberdeen’s full-backs Cadden and Guinness-Walker couldn’t cope with Joe Bevan and Charlie Reilly.

I don’t know what centre-backs Mayo and Happe were thinking at times, as openings were produced without Dundee having to work too hard for them.

It just seemed like the space was opening up for the Dens Park side to exploit and the Dons defence found it tough against Simon Murray and Joe Westley up top.

The back-four were individually poor and also poor as a unit, which must be concerning for the manager.

The midfield was non existent – even though they had more numbers in there during the first half, with three against two.

That midfield of Afeez Aremu, Alexander Briedl and Stuart Armstrong were outplayed and outmatched.

And that was despite them being up against Ethan Hamilton and Ryan Finnigan.

Aberdeen could not deal with Dundee’s high press and that resulted in having no control of the game.

When that’s the case, you are not going to create anything for the front three.

So attackers Kevin Nisbet, Toyosi Olusanya and Tony Yogane were starved of service.

It is a new team with 12 players already signed before Mitchy Ntelo was secured just hours before kick-off at Dundee.

So it will take time for that side to gel, but the level of performance against Dundee was not good enough, regardless of the turnover in players.

And although Aberdeen beat Hearts 2-1 in the Premiership opener at Pittodrie, I felt the Edinburgh side were the better team.

Through determination and grit in the last five minutes, the Dons managed to turn around a game which looked like being defeat.

They deserve credit for that battling comeback against Hearts.

However, at the same time it must be pointed out it wasn’t a quality performance.

Aberdeen have a fantastic opportunity to show lessons have been learned from that loss at Dundee.

They have a chance to immediately bounce back when they host Dundee in the Premier Sports Cup second round on Saturday.

Aberdeen have a whole week to work on fixing the issues from the defeat, so I would expect the performance to be much better on Saturday.

Aberdeen supporters have been brilliant and more than 4,000 travelled to Tayside for the game at the weekend.

I’m sure the Red Army will turn out in force again on Saturday to cheer on Robinson’s team.

The Dons must make the most of that backing, and repay the fans with a win.

Exits required from bloated squad

Aberdeen must start to move players out of Pittodrie in the summer transfer window as it has become a bloated squad.

There are now too many players.

Aberdeen’s board have invested in the squad this summer with 13 signings secured.

I don’t think manager Stephen Robinson can complain about the backing he has had from the club’s hierarchy in the transfer window.

However, the backing has to be transformed into performances and results.

It is payback time for the manager and players for the board’s support.

They must deliver signs this will be a season the supporters can look forward to.

Against Premiership opposition so far it has been disappointing performances with a lot of work still to be done.

I don’t think any fans can complain about the signing activity during the window with 13 new players secured.

The signing of striker Ntelo is a positive as the Belgian will be another option for boss Robinson to use in attack.

He is supposed to be quick and physical, so he should add an edge to the frontline.

[Source: Press and Journal]