This should have been an opportunity to blow away the cobwebs which have settled over Aberdeen’s attacking play in recent months.
It could, conversely, have been another disaster from which recovery would have been dreadfully difficult.
In practice it was somewhere in between. The margin of victory, though injected with late padding and aided by a goal which almost certainly wasn’t, reads reasonably on paper: but the method by which it was achieved remained plodding and unconvincing.
Other than progression to the next round and shedding the millstone of the winless run – though perhaps, under the circumstances, that is enough – it is hard to see what Aberdeen truly gained here.
The chance to give Jeppe Okkels some minutes against players who would not simply run him out of the game was missed by Jimmy Thelin; so too that to give Sivert Heltne Nilsen the rest for which he’s been panting for weeks.
Neither Peter Ambrose nor Kevin Nisbet succeeded in finding the scoring touch that someone will need to provide in the second half of the campaign, and though Duk did, eventually, find the net, his newly-opened seasonal account will probably not see many more deposits as he joins those being phased out before departure. With Pape Gueye returning to action their places in the queue will now surely be usurped.
The most that could be said is that Jimmy avoided a cup upset, and yesterday’s sad news should remind us that that in itself has value.
Jimmy Calderwood was, over the piece, a fine Dons manager undermined by the habit of calamity in knockout tournaments. He leaves the Red Army with an album of remarkable memories. Thank you for them Jimmy, and farewell.
Conversation