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Willie Miller: My time at Aberdeen showed me how productive pre-season trips like Portugal can be

With Jimmy Thelin's Aberdeen in the Algarve, Dons legend Willie Miller talks overseas pre-season camps and why bids for Bojan Miovski WILL come this summer.

Jimmy Thelin is officially unveiled as the new manager of Aberdeen Football Club at Pittodrie Stadium, on June 25, 2024. Image: SNS.
Jimmy Thelin is officially unveiled as the new manager of Aberdeen Football Club at Pittodrie Stadium, on June 25, 2024. Image: SNS.

Aberdeen’s training camp in Portugal’s Algarve region reminds me of my own Dons pre-season trips.

We would regularly go away for some kind of pre-season camp during my time as a player at the club in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Like new boss Jimmy Thelin’s Dons appear to have done, you would normally spend the first week (maybe 10 days) of pre-season in Aberdeen before going away.

However, going off the footage released by the club last week, it is clear the modern Reds have had a slightly different start to pre-season than we used to!

Thelin’s squad were filmed doing attacking drills with the ball.

We just used to get loads of running. It wasn’t the sports science-led approach to fitness they have nowadays, and we wouldn’t see the ball for at least the first week.

It got slightly better in the 80s than it was in 70s, but I’m still talking about heaps of running without the ball, including cross-country, up hills, over sand dunes, round Seaton Park, interval running, 50 metres, 75m, 100m, 220m, 400m… I could go on.

Your legs were knackered during those opening days of pre-season, and I don’t think people really thought too deeply about how much any of it actually helped you in a football match. It was the just the way pre-season was “done”, and how it had always been done.

But training camps away from Aberdeen are something there’s always been value in.

The manager taking you somewhere, usually abroad, meant you were away from distractions, the prying eyes of the media – for the most part – and allowed you to bond with your team-mates, including new summer arrivals.

Thelin and his staff have just arrived at the club themselves and they will be trying to get a lot of information about how they want to play across to the squad they’ve inherited, as well as two of their new signings – Gavin Molloy and Dimitar Mitov – who have made the trip.

Going to the Algarve gives Thelin and the coaches a lot of time to work on the football side of things, as well as the opportunity to further understand the personalities of the group – who is the joker, who are the leaders, who needs an arm round them and so on.

Aberdeen’s Vicente Besuijen, right, celebrates scoring a 4-1 win over Annan Athletic in the Premier Sports Cup. Image: SNS.

It is a further chance for peripheral players, like those who were out on loan last term, including talented attacker Vicente Besuijen or right-back Jayden Richardson, to really show their new boss what they could be capable of in the campaign ahead.

Those players will hope the clean slate and time abroad in an enclosed environment will see them click with the Scandinavian gaffer in a way they haven’t with previous managers.

The trip to Portugal will also allow the players to better get to know their team-mates on the training pitch and the guys they are rooming with – which can also help create better connections on the field of play.

I’m sure the facilities Aberdeen are using are exceptional.

It is also expected there will be a bounce game/bounce games during the week in the Algarve.

Thelin already saw his Dons in action behind-closed-doors against Cove Rangers at Cormack Park on Saturday, and those friendly face-offs are so important to build further familiarity between the manager and the players, how he wants the team to play, and between the players themselves.

My old manager, Alex Ferguson, always liked Germany for pre-season, and he took us there in the summer of 1984.

I think we went away for something like 17 days to a place called Bad Kreuznach.

It was in the middle of nowhere, but it had everything you needed in terms of training.

Left to right, Willie Miller, Doug Rougvie, Jim Leighton and Doug Bell hold manager Alex Ferguson. Image: DC Thomson.

The only issue was there was very little else to do!

It felt like a very long trip, bunked up three to a room, and I’m sure Aberdeen will have more to do this week in the Algarve during their leisure time than we did.

There has to be a bit of relaxation as well during these camps, and it can’t be all work and no play.

We took on German “amateur” sides on that trip, and, believe you me, the quality of some of those teams was very high.

If Thelin’s Aberdeen can secure opposition like them over in Portugal, then the Dons’ camp will be very productive indeed.

Bojan Miovski bids will come

While it was good to hear there has not yet been any concrete bids for Aberdeen’s star striker Bojan Miovski in the transfer window, I’d still expect the Dons’ resolve to be tested this summer.

The amount of talk around Miovski, combined with quality of his finishing and goal return over the past couple of seasons – despite his team-mates not creating enough chances for him – have me convinced the offers will start to come in.

Aberdeen's Bojan Miovski scores to make it 1-0 against Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-final. Image; SNS
Aberdeen’s Bojan Miovski scores to make it 1-0 against Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-final. Image: SNS.

I think we’d all be surprised if Aberdeen weren’t put in a position where they had a decision to make on whether to sell their talisman in the weeks ahead.

Don’t get me wrong, I would be delighted if Miovski was still around to lead the line for Jimmy Thelin’s hopefully much-improved Dons next season – and so would the club and the Red Army.

Whatever happens, though, Miovski is contracted to Aberdeen, and Dons chiefs hold the cards. They can be tough with the negotiations and ensure they get the money to match Miovski’s talents and importance to Aberdeen.

They don’t have to sell the North Macedonian, but the Pittodrie masterplan is to bring players in, give them a platform for a couple of years and then move them on for a big fee, so they’d be following their blueprint.

If that happens with the sale of Miovski this summer, the next task for Aberdeen will be making sure they are in the position to start the cycle all over again.

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