This article may well consign my application as a regular contributor for the Aberdeen match day programme to the bin, but it won’t be the only thing around here that's worth binning, to wit: Mark McGhee, Aberdeen FC's dreams of European football next season (or any season, for that matter) and the hopes and dreams of a life-long and long-suffering Aberdeen supporter.
This season has been a ride (in more ways than one), the likes of which people would queue up for at Disneyworld. There have been so many ups and downs, so many sharp turns and sudden halts that even the most hardcore of roller coaster fanatics would be wiping the sweat off their furrowed brows.
Since our glorious win against Rangers, and prior to the game last night against Falkirk, our form guide had taken a perfect palindrome-like quality: LLWWLWWLL. Back to back wins against Hearts (one of those in the Cup, and which spelled the end of Csaba Laszlo) gave some hopes that, as we put it ourselves in the preview for the Motherwell game over on The Offside, the green shoots of recovery where beginning to come through. But ninety minutes and an embarrassing and spineless 3-0 capitulation later, and suddenly all the good work against the Jambo’s seemed undone.
Following the departure of Lee Miller to Middlesbrough at the end of the January transfer window, McGhee finally had the funds to offer both of his season-long transfer targets Jim Paterson and Steven MacLean a loan deal, sending a gentle ripple of excitement across the north-east.
Both players would feature in last night’s league game against bottom side Falkirk, but as an introduction to not just Scottish football, but football as played by Aberdeen FC it was certainly not a good introduction. Like Keane at Celtic, their debut for their new team would end in defeat. Ironically, while our own strike force, in the shape of the hard-working but limited Mackie and new boy MacLean huffed and puffed to find the net, it was another Aberdeen striker, Chris Maguire, on loan at Kilmarnock that sank the Bhoys. And to continue with the irony, it was another on-loan striker - Ipswich’s Colin Healy - who sealed Falkirk’s win, as he drilled his shot from the edge of the box high past Langfield in the Aberdeen goal on the half hour mark.
The defeat followed an all too familiar pattern: a bright enthusiastic start where we pressure without really threatening followed by the loss of possession in midfield and the subsequent loss of a goal, at which point confidence and skill evaporate.
It was our fourth home league defeat in the last five SPL matches at Pittodrie, leaving us outside the top six, twelve points behind fourth-placed Dundee United and facing the prospect of having to qualify for Europe via the Scottish Cup, assuming they beat Raith Rovers on Saturday: me, I’m taking nothing for granted…
Look, it's uncomfortable reading, but here's the truth: the current Aberdeen side are not a good team, Mark McGhee is not a good manager, Mark Kerr and Gary McDonald are terrible midfielders (and Kerr a terrible captain), Jerel Iffil and Davide Grassi are terrible defenders, and it says something about the state of professional football in the Granite City when your goalkeeper and Richard Foster (a man who, year on year, is top of our list for shipping out to pastures far, far away) are the best players in your team.
I grow weary whenever I hear those dreaded phrase emerge from McGhee’s mouth: “transitional season”. Those two words, the battle cry of McGhee apologists on every message board I’ve come across, have become a euphemism for clueless mediocrity, the sort played by talentless footballers and lead by an equally talentless manager, under the auspices of a board that fails to recognize the living embodiment in their midst of the tale of the emperor’s new clothes that is Willie Miller.
The Aberdeen board should be congratulated on their very Aberdonian fiscal policies, policies which have brought the club a reasonable degree of financial stability at a time when most clubs, notably Kilmarnock, Livingston, Dundee and of course Rangers have very publically felt the effects that reckless spending brings with it. And those fiscal policies could very well put Aberdeen in line for entry in European competition through the proposed ‘Financial Fair Play” awards. But is that what we really want: qualification through accountancy?
So, where do we go from here?
One possible solution is obvious, but sadly also completely unrealistic: investment. Any businessman worth his salt knows that you need to speculate to accumulate. The Aberdeen board could take a leaf from the exploits of their counterparts in Glasgow-east, namely to do their utmost to bring in the types of players that get the supporters back to the stadium - it’s a sad fact that yesterdays defeat to Falkirk was watched by just over 7,000 supporters, the lowest attendance of the season. Clearly, our reputation pales into insignificance when compared to that of Celtic or Rangers, but in the age of the mercenary footballer and manager, a club’s reputation matters very little – it’s the size of the number at the bottom of the wage packet.
Given that Aberdeen won’t spend the money, there’s little else out there for us as fans to do but to grin and bear it, to accept the mediocrity on show as a fact of life, and to tell ourselves that this will have to do. I love my club, I really do, and there’s no other team I’ll ever support, but I’m frustrated at the state the club is in, and the sheer hopelessness of our situation.
Do not misunderstand me. I do not spend my evenings wearing an ’83 replica kit, running my fingers across a picture of the 1990 Scottish Cup winning side, or the League Cup winning side of ’96; I’m not a huge fan of Alex Ferguson either (though I’d let Alex McLeish jump the queue in the chipper). What angers me more are the missed opportunities that the success of the early 80’s should have brought, and our failure to think in the longer term.
Like the oil-riches that should have made Scotland fabulously wealthy back in the 70’s and 80’s, in those heady days when Aberdeen where the best side in the country, our footballing wealth (in terms of our players, our image and our reputation) has been squandered on a series of terrible transfer deals and terrible managers, from the woeful Iain Porterfield, through to the two Millers - Alex and Willie – and culminating with the appointment of Stevie Patterson, all of whom have played a large part in the subsequent period of painful decay and decline, the effects of which we continue to see every weekend out on the park.
The decline of Aberdeen in the latter 90's was somewhat in line with the rest of Scottish football. The English Premiership, Bosman and SkyTV were all "game changers" that few knew how to handle properly, and the only solution being marketed was the classic "for every fiver they spend, we'll spend 10" philosophy - and look how that's coming home to roost.
ReplyDeleteIn the last 10 years, we've seen strong teams/clubs in Hibernian, Dundee United, Dundee, Inverness, St.Mirren all relegated; while Livingston, Gretna and Queen of the South have (embarrassingly?) represented Scotland in European competition. The 2000-2010 decade of Scottish football is it's most de-stabilising since the league formation, and yet almost every other "big club" has come to terms with navigating these waters.
Hibs, for example, have not paid one transfer fee this season, yet have signed 2 old firm players, 3 ex-old firm players and 2 ex-premiership players. Dundee United under Craig Levien have bought incredibly wisely from europe, and have been a side who's win/loss ratio for the last 2 years does not do them justice. Hearts manager's, while having to deal with "Mad Vlad", have for the most part been given some latitude to change the squad.
As a Celtic Fan, i can tell you that both home and away games against the 3 teams mentioned above are met with caution, while Aberdeen is now looked upon in the same format as Motherwell or Kilmarnock - and for someone who remembers Leighton, Miller, McLeish, Hewitt, Bett, etc...its just disappointing.
Aberdeen's refusal to aim higher is only going to widen the gulf between them and the "top 6". Their current reliance on attempting to bring in Scottish players who have failed in England, on loan and for free, is one that is destined to fail.
Mark McGhee is not the answer, not so much in his style of play, but in his ability to play the transfer market and use a scouting system. His ineptitude during the summer was obvious and unfortunate, and i can't fathom what will happen this summer.
I wrote in the summer that players like Quinton Fortune, Francis Jeffers, Mike Williamson, Liam Miller, Jack Cork, Alan Gow and even Russell Anderson were a step above the general level in the SPL and could be worth talking to. It's a World Cup year, and a large percentage of the South African players have been in a state of flux since last July. The Slovenian and Slovakian leagues are closed for winter, and they are both going to the World Cup. Bit part players desperate for games... Where have Aberdeen been in the chasing of these players?
It pains me to say that asset management has been the downfall of Aberdeen over the years, and i truly believe that this year is as poor an Aberdeen team as i've seen in a long time. Propped up the table by a close-to-going-bust Kilmarnock, clueless-new-manager Falkirk, we've-been-found-out Hamilton and, of course, a club in St. Mirren who feel it's their role in life to yo-yo around the league table - helped by their refusal to win at home.
I don't doubt that Aberdeen will be safe in the SPL for at least the next few years, though i sadly believe that its due in part to the melt down of the other clubs around them. But as I write this on the 4th February, with only 11 games to go before the split, Aberdeen are closer to relegation than to Europe.
Something has got to give eventually...
Steve, thanks for your excellent reply; it's worth posting as an article all by itself.
ReplyDeleteWhen I wrote this piece last night I was angry and frustrated at the state of the club that had so much potential to build on the successes of the past, yet which has squandered so much to end up where we are today: lacking quality and above all, ambition.
And it is that lack of ambition, that unwillingness to push the boat out and bring in exciting players that will eventually consign the club to decades of mid-table finishes, empty trophy cabinets and mostly-empty stadiums. The club may find that acceptable, but as a fan I certainly do not.
Aberdeen's lack of ambition (and imagination) is clearly visible when you see the types of players we're trying to get; we're quick to dip into the lower reaches of the Championship where costs are low, but so is the quality. Our latest recruits, MacLean and Patterson, are both surplus to requirements at their current club (a club currently second bottom of the Championship) and neither have an illustrious career behind them.
I would have loved to have seen Russell Anderson back. He's a Dandy through-and-through who might well have taken a wage cut to return to his home-town team in return for regular games. Had we even bothered to approach him, I suspect he might very well have come north again. Or even Scott Severin, who has just moved to Kilmarnock on a season-long loan and who would have kicked some life into the poorest midfield I've seen at Pittodrie for quite some time may well have moved back, had we even asked or twigged at his availability given the problems at Watford.
I can't see it changing any time soon. There's a group-think mentality in Scottish football, one which widely accepts that you're never going to win the league anyway, so risking the clubs future to bring in expensive players is not even on the agenda. Celtic, when signing Keane is sailing close to the wind financially, but they can absorb the costs better than any other team in the league.
Calumn Melville (ironically an Aberdeen fan) has not been afraid to splash the cash at Dundee to bring in a series of players that look to take the Dee back to the SPL. Whether they'll survive remains to be seen (given the state of the SPL, particularly the bottom half of the SPL, the chances are they will), but at least Melville has shown ambition to get out of the First division, and he's shown a willingness to take a gamble to make those ambitions come true.
I sometimes wonder what Stewart Milne's ambition is: to win things, or to run a profitable business. I think the answer to that question is essentially the difference between the chance at glory and the certainty of mediocrity. But given the state of the team today, I think the answer to that question is sadly pretty obvious...
Hi Inside Left!
ReplyDeleteSad to say, I thought Aberdeen might struggle a bit this season, and it seems to be happening. If McGhee ever stopped talking about Celtic or moaning about referees he might become a decent manager... but he's too self-absorbed to recognise his limitations ad try and address them.
At least you appear to have some good young prospects coming through, and McGhee is giving them a chance, because this really is the future. Unless a club has a good youth set-up, they will really struggle in the years ahead.
I have no idea what Stewart Milne's gameplan is either, and with such uncertainty over the future of Pittodrie you'd think he might talk more about his vision for the club. Otherwise, Aberdeen might just drift along, with the supporters unsure as to what the future might look like.
Remember that Hibs are now reaping the benefits of many years of austerity, in which they were forced to sell all their young players to try and pay off the debt. Things are looking good now, but for years Hibbys have had to put up with accusations that their club "lacked ambition".