THE SEASON starts tomorrow! Well, kind of - the Dons players return to the club for pre-season training on Monday.
Despite holidays and the World Cup interrupting the transfer market this summer, the Dons have rid themselves of two top earners already, club captain Mark Kerr and Charlie Mulgrew, and have brought in an international defender in Rory McArdle.
The mooted revolution is underway then, with many weeks of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing to come before the season proper gets underway on August the 14th.
So with the Dons players starting pre-season training tomorrow, and their first warm-up fixture against Fraserburgh less than two weeks away, what have we, the fans, got to look forward to?
Well... two more months of guff before the transfer window shuts for a start.
When there's nothing to say, the club still has to feed the local press with something that they will inevitably make a story from - for it is in the club's best interest in terms of season ticket sales and so on to keep a high-profile media presence.
However, this manifests itself in a load of boring twaddle in the papers. A local evening newspaper, for example, managed to spin out the Charlie Mulgrew 'story' for weeks - with headlines along the lines of: 'Decision Time For Mulgrew'; 'Charlie Certain To Leave Pittodrie'; 'Mulgrew Mulling Over Dons Contract'; 'Mulgrew Set For Celtic'; 'Charlie Could Stay At Dons'; 'Mulgrew Leaves Pittodrie'...
Most Aberdeen fans knew Mulgrew would be leaving the club in January, but the local press, with only one top-flight club in its catchment area, need to fill their pages with something. The only thing that still bewilders is why, in the era of online news, forums and chatroom communication, anyone still buys them.
So far so same as it ever was. Reading between the lines of the scant communication from the club this summer (where's the excellent interaction 'twixt AFC and fans we saw from the club on its website last year?), the manager and his team are hard at work investigating and following up on a long list of potential names.
So why don't we hear about them? Simple - it could compromise the deal if news got out. We have to trust that they are getting the job done to the best of their abilities. Why would they do otherwise? What possible benefit do Mark McGhee, Willie Miller etc get from AFC not being as good as it can possibly be? None.
It's simply Occam's razor - only convoluted conspiracy theories and spurious assumptions can lead to anything other than the fact that Mark McGhee wants AFC to be the best that it can be, and he will be trying his hardest to make that so. Is he capable of it? We will have more of a clue during the coming season, and if he is not, then it is simply a case of getting rid of him and finding a new manager - but let's give him a chance first!
The level that Aberdeen operate at is pitiful at this time, but that isn't necessarily Aberdeen's fault; regardless, it is pointless playing a retrospective blame game - the manager and his team just have to get on with the job of looking for the best players within the club's budget who want to play for Aberdeen. And that's what they are doing.
However, this will mean patience from them and from the fans. As we get closer to the gentle closure of the transfer window, bargains are to be had among those players who are struggling to find a club at the level they previously played at, and they are forced to reduce their wage expectations.
This is where scavenging clubs like Aberdeen and the rest of the SPL can benefit, but that usually means waiting till late August.
And this means that the fans need to calm the beans. And we have to temper our signings expectations - Christ, if Celtic are operating at the level where Charlie Mulgrew is on their radar, where does that leave the rest of the SPL? The quality of next season's top Scottish league with that in mind is a dire prospect.
However, it takes more than quality players to make exciting games - in fact, not even quality players can guarantee excitement: see several early World Cup ties. Having something to play for in terms of trophies and Euro places (even avoiding relegation) adds excitement; teams that are matched up closely from the top of the league to the bottom leads to excitement; bad defences means lots of goals means excitement! And so on.
So it's not all doom-and-gloom - Aberdeen FC just have to ensure they are better than all the other pish in the SPL. 'But', the teeth-gnashers wail, 'We're Aberdeen! We shouldn't be fighting for scraps!' Unrealistic expectations take many forms...
Stand Free Ed
