The 2021-22 season will go down in history as one which promised so much but in the end delivered little.
Stephen Glass was given all the support any Aberdeen manager could reasonably hope for as he carried out a major overhaul of the Pittodrie squad in his first summer window.
Let’s look at the numbers in basic terms first of all. Aberdeen had finished fourth in the previous campaign and had qualified for the UEFA Conference League.
But significant changes were needed after the Dons limped over the finish line to claim fourth spot and as a result Glass brought in 11 new players in his first window with six departing.
Glass oversaw biggest overhaul in years
It was comfortably the biggest intake in a summer window of any of the last five Aberdeen managers in their first year in charge.
Comprising eight new arrivals and three loan signings, the entire team of new faces replaced the six departing players at Pittodrie.
With Calvin Ramsay and Jack MacKenzie elevated to the first team squad from the youth set-up, the other defensive reinforcements to arrive were Atlanta United right back Jack Gurr, Motherwell captain Declan Gallagher and in the final week of the window, David Bates from Hamburg.
They replaced four departing defenders in Ash Taylor, Tommie Hoban, Shay Logan and Greg Leigh.
With Ross McCrorie also moved to a central defensive role from midfield Glass brought in three central midfielders in player-coach Scott Brown and loan signings Teddy Jenks and Matty Longstaff.
Miko Virtanen made way as he joined Hamilton Accies.
Completing the set were strikers Christian Ramirez and Jay Emmanuel Thomas and Marley Watkins, who was given the task of being the link between the Dons midfield and the forward line.
Bruce Anderson departed for Livingston while loan forwards Callum Hendry, Florian Kamberi and Fraser Hornby returned to their respective clubs.
Focus was on midfield strength and attacking firepower
Glass had a clear idea of what he wanted and believed his recruits would deliver.
He said: “I know what’s missing, it’s obvious there are centre forwards missing because every striker we’ve got apart from Michael Ruth is on loan or out of contract. So there is a huge hole there that needs to be fixed.
“We know Scott Brown is coming in already which adds to the winning mentality of the group.
“I think we’ll be better for the time we had in April and May last year. It feels better, as a staff, that we had that time.
“We need to use everything we’ve got, the time we had last year, and show that it was worthwhile.
“It’s important that we show how these players we’ve added are going to strengthen our group, put them in positions to prove it.
“There wasn’t a real belief that we had someone at the top end who was a pure finisher.
“Big Sam Cosgrove left in the winter and there was a hole left by that. He was the guy who scored a good number of goals for the team.
“We believe we’ve added guys who can add to that.”
While Ramirez excelled, others struggled
Considering three of his summer signings were gone by January and four others failed to last the season it does feel as if it was a bit of a scattergun approach in the end.
Glass did not dispose of all of them of course with his replacement Jim Goodwin in charge by the time Brown, Emmanuel-Thomas and Jenks departed with Ramirez allowed to return to the United States a week before the season ended.
The former Dons boss was fortunate to survive as long as he did, making it to February before chairman Dave Cormack pulled the plug following the club’s Scottish Cup exit at Motherwell.
The case for a change to be made as early as October was just as strong with the Dons going through a 10 game run without a win from August 15 to October 16.
Aberdeen’s European and League Cup bids were already done and dusted by then.
Glass would pay the price for poor form
A season which had started with so much optimism was already looking like being a slog.
His chairman backed Glass then but he could not do it a second time after the Dons returned from the winter break with another wretched sequence of one win in seven matches – a Scottish Cup victory at home to League Two side Edinburgh City.
It would take a further six games, five of them with Goodwin at the helm, before the Dons would finally win a league game again as they beat Hibernian 3-1 at Pittodrie on March 19.
By then the damage had been done though, with Aberdeen’s late scramble for a top-six place scuppered by Ross County at Pittodrie.
One post-split win against Dundee consigned the Dons to a 10th place finish in the Scottish Premiership, ending an eight-year run of European football.
Andy Considine, Dylan McGeouch, Funso Ojo and Michael Ruth have been moved on while Adam Montgomery has returned to Celtic at the end of an uneventful loan spell with the club.
Now it’s Goodwin’s turn to start over
The slate has been wiped clean as Goodwin tries to succeed where Glass failed in his first summer window as Aberdeen manager.
Like his predecessor he was afforded the chance to assess his squad prior to making changes but it is clear Aberdeen are effectively back to square one as another major rebuild is needed.
If anything, the task is even tougher for the new man in charge. No carrot of European football to offer and a huge job on his hands in restoring morale.
The Dons boss will be keeping his fingers crossed the bruises from this campaign have faded away by the time the League Cup gets the new campaign under way on July 9.
- What did other Aberdeen managers do in their first transfer window? Read more here:
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Revisiting a struggling start for Aberdeen boss Mark McGhee in 2009
Plugging the gaps was Craig Brown’s first challenge at Aberdeen
Midfield generals gave Derek McInnes a midfield platform to build on
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