No festive relief for Aberdeen, and the Dons’ fixture list displays a concerning trend.
When Premiership rivals ran into Jimmy Thelin’s red revolution for the first time, they amassed an aggregate total of two draws and nine defeats; informed by that arresting reconnaissance, the seven sides who have had a second go have managed four wins and two draws.
By eye, Aberdeen are not playing well – the pace has dropped, the cohesion appears absent, and they are allowing opponents to establish much more substantial periods of advanced possession.
But, given the pattern, it is certainly worth considering whether the fault is truly Aberdeen’s, or whether they are simply proving too easy to hatch an effective plan against.
Is the Dons’ inability to sustain their early competitiveness down to physical atrophy and subconscious gearing down of ambition, or have Scotland’s coaches already figured out how to play around them?
Such swift collective action would be unusual efficacy for Scottish football, but certainly here Derek McInnes saw to it that his team played the vast majority of the game in areas where the Dons could not attack them.
Having the higher possession percentage while being significantly outgained in terms of territory is the exact opposite of the Thelin blueprint, and so, too, was the final score.
There is no longer any glossing over it: this has become a major problem for Thelin to solve.
The credit in his account enabled the first five matches of this winless run to slide, but conceding seven goals in a pair of stuffings either side of Christmas cannot be overlooked.
Though, talk has already turned to the transfer window, that does not come soon enough without a winter break.
The squad at hand have thrived before – Thelin must find a way to make them do so again.
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