A week in the life of - Aberdeen FC

By: TheNorthernLight | December 4th, 2008

Sorry its been a while since you last heard from us. We’re still here, we’ve just been mad busy with work, and life in general. Speaking of life in general, things have not stood still for the mighty Aberdeen FC.

Since we last updated our wee corner of The Offside, Aberdeen played their game against Rangers (a 2-0 defeat at Castle Greyskull) and they won their third home game in a row when they cruised past a completely crap Motherwell (a nice 2-0 win, to make up for that dip in the ‘GA’ column incurred against the Orcs).

So, a win and a defeat. All in all, not too bad. In the game against Rangers, we where by far the better side in the opening 45 minutes. Lee Miller and Sone Aluko caused enough grief in the Rangers defence (Lee McCulloch, a defender - aye, that will be right), while Mark Kerr had a good game in the midfield. Together with Gary McDonald - who we rate quite highly though he’s no Barry Nicholson - the two had a satisfying afternoon. But, as usual, it was the defence, or lack thereof that proved our own undoing. Like the game against Hibs, where we lost 2 crap goals after being two goals up, we conceded sloppy stramashy goals we shouldn’t be conceding at this level. Aye ok, so Rangers where all over us like a cheap suit in the second half and we did well to hold out as long as we did but really Jimmy needs to get that defence sorted out in January if we’re to stand any chance of staying in the top half.

So with those three points staying in Govan and the wait for a victory at Greyskull continues (it has only been 17 years, sure we can wait a bit longer), Aberdeen had a game against Motherwell to look forward to. In itself not particularly exciting, but what made this game stand out was that it was Mr Calderwood’s 200th game in charge of the Dandies. He’s certainly lasted longer that most would have wished, but the fact remains that he’s been our most succesfull manager since that Ferguson guy. Ok, success is relative these days with the Old Firm dominating the league and all that, but a third and fourth spot in the last few years is not bad by Scottish Premier League standards. Like most Aberdeen seasons (and for that matter, Aberdeen managers) it’s been 200 games of highs (European football last year and that cracking 4-0 win over Copenhagen), some lows (getting knocked out of the League Cup by Queens Park) and lots (and we mean *lots*) of mediocrity in-between. Still, follow, follow, we will follo … oh shit no, wrong song.

You know what I mean.

So, on to Motherwell and boy oh boy, they where guff. It wasn’t a great game (one for the ‘mediocre’ column), but that’s not to take away anything from the fact that Aberdeen played well (in our opinion, one not shared by everyone): Scott Severin and Mark Kerr in particular looking good while Sone Aluko had another blinder until he got substituted. The win got us into 5th spot, miles behind the Arabs but there’s still plenty of time to catch up.

Despite the win, it didn’t stop the rumours about Jimmy’s future starting up again. In midweek, director of football and all-round club legend Willie Miller said “I’ve no doubt about his coaching ability, I think he’s a very, very good coach. I hope the fans stay with him.” We hope the club sticks with him, not because we think he’s a great coach per se, but there’s not really anyone better out there. We’re not wanting to fan the flames of speculation, but Mark McGhee’s name has been mentioned - mind you, after that showing against Motherwell I think we could do a lot better. Then again, given Motherwell’s season so far (a good example of second season blues) we think Motherwell could do a lot better.

This Saturday we travel down to deepest Ayrshire for a game against another struggling side, Kilmarnock. Killie lost games against teams below them in league (2-1 at home to Caley and 1-0 away to Hamilton) so either we’ll give them a pasting (like we did at the start of November, the crushing 1-0 win at Pittdrie starting our now unbeaten run at home), or it’ll be another 4-2 defeat like in the League Cup back in September. Either way, lets hope it’s a game we can put down in the ‘incredible highs’ column, though we’d settle for ‘mediocre’.

Just not another ‘incredible low’ please - I’m not sure I could take it.