Pittodrie

By Graham Barnstaple
September 26 2011

Despite numerous Managerial changes, shuffling in the background and player changes, nothing gets better at Pittodrie.

After Saturday’s defeat to Motherwell Aberdeen are now sitting second bottom of the SPL table, only a point ahead ofInverness. They do have two huge home games coming up with the Friday night game withDunfermlinefirst and then at home to Dundee Utd the week after the International break.

If they fail to win both of these they could find themselves rock bottom and locked in a real relegation dogfight. How do they get themselves out of this mess;

1. Do they sack Craig Brown? – this has so often been the answer atAberdeenwith manager after manager being hounded out due to results. Jimmy Calderwood had a 41% win record, took them to the top six and out of the group stages of the Europa League BUT this still wasn’t good enough. Therefore sacking Brown probably isn’t the answer even if he has only won 13 of his 40 games in charge.
2. Change the playing personnel – they need to look at what they are bringing in, there appears to be a move to bring in quantity rather than quality.Vernon, Fallon, Gonzalez, Osbourne, etc are no better or the equivalent of the players who left. Maybe Brown needs to look at the approach of his previous club Motherwell, and go for quality rather than quantity in each transfer window.
3. Live within their means – I was astonished to read they are £12million in debt, and lose £60000 per home game, which is under written by the much maligned Stewart Milne. It is time they looked at spending what they bring in, like many of the clubs they compete with in the SPL. This is another reason for not sacking Brown, they can’t afford to pay him off!

Finally, they do need to forget they were the top dogs in the 1980s, and those days are gone. If they are not careful they will end up like Queen’s Park who were top dogs in the 1880s.

I would hate to see this happen as the Dons have always been a biggish club as long as I can remember and I would hate to see them fall further from grace.