Mister, your eyes are full of hesitation. Which makes me wonder, if you know what you’re looking for.
Words which may, at present, apply to Stephen Glass. For it is one thing having a long-term strategy, quite another to be convinced as to which of the many supplies amassed are the right ones to arrest an immediate slump.
Twenty-two players have been used during the Dons’ six-game winless run, but if you have two teams then you don’t have one.
Constant rotation to keep players fresh is a fine thing when the squad is of sufficient quality to continue winning matches whatever the line-up on the day, but when three or four changes every time are returning similar lack of success it begins to look like a desperate hunt for the right formula rather than canny resource management.
Yes, a busy start to the season meant prudent resting was originally reasonable.
But the heavy activity late in the transfer window may have left Glass with more players than he knows what to do with, in a relatively sedate part of the calendar with limited game time to cement new combinations.
And yes, that Andy Considine doesn’t feel very much like walking after Baku may have put a spanner in the defensive works, but the fact remains that an Aberdeen payroll which now contains four of the last twelve men to start at centre-back for Scotland has only returned one clean sheet this term. Ignorable if the goals are flowing at the other end; problematic if not.
It has yet to be proven conclusively whether, in management, Glass can boogie or not. However the side’s inability to surmount a variety of circumstances in its last half-dozen outings suggests that he needs a certain song – and is struggling to remember how it goes.
