It is clear to me it is in the best interests of everyone involved at Aberdeen if Christian Ramirez moves on.
The news the Dons will listen to offers for the striker does not surprise me one bit.
His family are back in the United States and it does not look like they were planning on coming back.
I don’t know if he is homesick or just wants to go back but if he is unsettled here then it’s human nature that you will struggle to get the best out of him.
I felt in the last quarter of last season his heart wasn’t in it as he struggled in front of goal.
I don’t know if he felt isolated on his own up front and it disheartened him but when you get a player who is unhappy or frustrated at how things are going then there is no point holding on to him.
But the Dons are right to hold out for a fee for the player.
They paid to bring him to Scotland a year ago and despite how the season petered out for him I wouldn’t say he had a bad campaign in a red jersey.
Let’s face it, the guy had a decent enough season.
For any player to score 15 goals for that Aberdeen team last year is good going in my book.
It was not a free-flowing team full of confidence so to get 15 goals, and not one of them a penalty, is really good going.
I’m sure everyone is disappointed with where things are now but if the Dons can get a return on their investment and the player can get a move back home somewhere in the States to be with his family then good luck to the lad.
Bojan Miovski needs to do his talking on the pitch
It’s clear Aberdeen are moving on now and planning for life without the big American following the arrival of Bojan Miovski.
He has been the high-profile new arrival so far and while I admire his confidence in stating he wants to be the number one striker at Pittodrie I’m not sure that’s something I would ever have said.
Maybe he likes to put that pressure on himself but I preferred to do my talking on the pitch. I never boasted I was going to be the star striker in my life, I showed what I could do by putting the ball in the back of the net.
The furthest I would go was to say I hope to be successful and win trophies.
Besides, the last player to boast of what he was going to do was Jay Emmanuel-Thomas. He set himself a target of 20 goals for the season and left having shown some flicks here and there but scoring one goal.
Given he was not scoring there was little chance of him fitting into a Jim Goodwin side.
I expect his Dons team to play the way he liked to play by buzzing about and getting in people’s faces.
Aberdeen haven’t had that since Sir Alex Ferguson left.
£2million for Ferguson? Try doubling it
Aberdeen are spot on to turn down £2 million for Lewis Ferguson.
Quite right too.
I would have said between £3million and £4million is a fee in line with a player of Ferguson’s quality.
He has been here four years, was top scorer with 16 goals last season from midfield, plays every game, doesn’t get injured.
He’s a perfect example of the model the Dons want.
If it’s not a player through their youth academy it’s someone identified at a young age who is given a chance at first team level, developed then sold on as an experienced player of value.
Thanks to the effort of the coaches he has worked with at Pittodrie and Ferguson himself, the player is now a Scotland international and is an experienced player with 169 games for the club under his belt.
The Dons deserve to be compensated accordingly for a player of that stature who has two years remaining on his contract and have every reason to hold their ground on this one.
Dons have backed their manager in the transfer market
Aberdeen fans can have no complaints about the backing Jim Goodwin has been given so far this summer.
Bojan Miovski’s arrival last week takes the Dons spending to almost £1 million so far when you include fees paid for Jayden Richardson from Nottingham Forest and Ylber Ramadani.
It’s encouraging to see Aberdeen paying fees for players rather than just free agents and loan signings.
Don’t forget Covid cost the club a lot of money. Fans are always looking for more but under the circumstances I think the club has shown a promising level of ambition ahead of the new season.
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