One bad week.
Technically, perhaps, not far off the mark. But equally, the Titanic only hit one iceberg.
It may serve Jim Goodwin well in his future endeavours to shed the trauma of the disastrous foundering of his Aberdeen tenure, but the record books cannot so minimise the scale of the catastrophe.
Worst league results in Aberdeen FC history
The worst pair of league results in the club’s history, either side of the worst cup result in the club’s history: if it was just one bad week, then it was the worst of the 6,250 to pass since the entity’s formation.
And for that week to arise, conditions needed to have been put in place to allow it. As with the sinking of the unsinkable ship, through a combination of misplaced hubris and failure to appreciate the significance of goings-on, a string of warnings went unheeded and dangers unaddressed.
Arguably the first of those alarms was in this fixture, when a puzzlingly directionless Aberdeen side wandered into a pounding from a then-winless United. So, the manner in which the Dons dug out victory this time around – albeit against a team clearly in graver danger than they yet realised back in October – suggested marked psychological improvement.
Firstly in navigating unscathed an opening spell in which they barely sniffed the final third, then in shaking off the ditching of their first lead through the concession of a slapstick penalty, Aberdeen avoided hazards which have holed them below the waterline multiple times this season.
Irresponsible and dangerous behaviour
For all that, it ought to go without saying that managers and players should not themselves require to dodge incoming strikes from supporters, however poorly they are deemed to have done their jobs.
Such irresponsible and dangerous behaviour has no place in any support. Far less one which likes to think itself above that level.
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