What’s this? A defeat? It was always bound to come sometime. It happens to everyone. But the end of Aberdeen’s unbeaten run should not be treated as anything more significant than the perfect opportunity to reflect on the utter extraordinariness of it.
This was the first time Aberdeen had been beaten in conventional play for 234 days. That, outside of the two periods when football was suspended as the world was at war, is the longest timespan between two losses in club history – by three and a half weeks.
Those figures in themselves reflect a spell of abnormal resilience and quality, at a club which has fielded some extremely accomplished teams in its time. But for it to rise directly out of the ashes of the ridiculous bin fire which became of the 2023/24 season is the most dizzying turnaround imaginable.
For it was only four days before that previous defeat that Aberdeen parted with their erstwhile manager, and just 38 more since they sacked the one before. At that point, the club was in complete turmoil, with results falling off a cliff, no sense of any coherent remedial plan and panic spreading across the region.
To imagine that that team, apparently incapable of getting through 90 minutes without calamity let alone winning a match, could be immediately transformed into the most relentless unbeatable machine in club history would have been as good as impossible.
The work done by Jimmy Thelin and, before him, Peter Leven – whose restoration of confidence and pride becomes more significant every day as a foundation stone of what has followed this season – has been breathtaking.
That work will continue, however backward a step this is perceived as being. 234 days say that Aberdeen are on the right track, irrespective of one bad afternoon.
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