Barry Robson provides update on Bojan Miovski injury and Aberdeen’s hunt for new signings

Aberdeen manager Barry Robson has confirmed Bojan Miovski will miss the start of pre-season due to injury.

The North Macedonia international suffered an ankle injury in Aberdeen’s 3-0 win against St Mirren in their penultimate Scottish Premiership fixture of the 2022-23 campaign following a challenge that earned Saints player Thierry Small a red card.

The striker was hoping to play for his country in Euro 2024 qualifiers against Ukraine on June 16 and against England at Old Trafford three days later.

Robson says the 23-year-old faces a delayed start to the new season but Robson is optimistic Miovski will be ready for the start of competitive fixtures.

The Dons have announced they will be heading to Portugal for a pre-season training camp before playing friendly matches against Turriff United on July 12, Fraserburgh on July 15 and Charlton Athletic at The Valley on July 29.

Robson said: “Bojan will probably miss the first week or two of pre-season and then he will be back.

“I did say to him that those first few weeks will be really difficult so he won’t miss that.

“He will have a two-week blast after that.

“To go and perform you need to have the pre-season that I like to do.

“It will delay him a wee bit but we need to get him up to where we want him to be when the games come around.

“I don’t want to just throw him in with the players when he is two weeks behind.

“We need to build the base for him.”

Patience required to land top targets

Robson has already turned his attention to building his squad for the new season – but says he will do everything he can to ensure any incoming players have the right attributes to succeed at Pittodrie.

He said: “It has to be the right type of player.

“It is not always easy.

“You may see a player and want to sign him but there are a lot of things you need to look into, such as finances and if the player is having to move up to Scotland if it is someone from England or even if it is a Scottish player moving up to Aberdeen.

“We pride ourselves on being a good club and a progressive club and we try to sell that to any targets.”

Robson admits he would love to have any new recruits at Cormack Park for the start of his demanding pre-season schedule but accepts he may have to play a waiting game to land his top targets.

He added: “Ideally we would like to have everyone there for the start of the pre-season but that will not be the case at any club in Britain – even the top clubs.

“You need to wait to get the right people in.

“We try to get deals done as quickly as possible but sometimes you need to wait until after pre-season for players that we have targeted.

“We will try to get the majority in as quickly as we can.

“We try to build a base in pre-season as the training can be demanding at times.

“Even when they do come later we can try to get them up to speed.”