Aberdeen’s model under chairman Dave Cormack has been to invest money in young players in undervalued markets who can then be re-sold.<\/p>\n
It is the strategy lots of clubs now employ and, with a trophy to show for it and more money in player sales than any club outside Celtic and Rangers since 2018, the Dons could easily say it is working.<\/p>\n
However, the challenge is, with every departure, there needs to be adequate replacements, while young players always come with a risk.<\/p>\n
This season, Aberdeen have fielded squads with an average age of 25, among the youngest in the country.<\/p>\n
New recruits like Nicolas Milanovic, Adil Aouchiche and Yengi are still finding their feet and some of those recruited last season are still yet to catch fire.<\/p>\n
Time should be afforded to fresh recruits, particularly those from abroad as they settle in a new country.<\/p>\n
However, players such as Ivan Dolcek and Zac Sapsford have hit the ground running for Dundee United, as have Claudio Braga and Alexandros Kyziridis with Hearts.<\/p>\n
Sapsford, who has three United goals this season and been a standout, came from the same Western Sydney Wanderers side as Aberdeen’s Milanovic.<\/p>\n
With the Dons spending, relatively speaking, a lot of money along with Hearts and Hibs, there is greater expectation on a lot of these players.<\/p>\n
“Jimmy Thelin’s got a lot to think about,” Miller added. “He’s brought a lot of project players in and, as yet, we’ve still got to see the fruits.<\/p>\n
“There are so many new players coming in and it’s a very young squad as well. There are a lot of them 23 and under. They don’t have a great deal of experience.<\/p>\n
“This game [against Falkirk] was one I felt Jimmy Thelin had to win to settle things down after a rocky start in the league. But he’s going to be tested, the squad are going to be tested.<\/p>\n
“All these players need to convince that they are good enough for the club.”<\/p>\n
It all means Thelin and Aberdeen face a big few weeks. <\/p>\n
First, fans will expect action on deadline day, while games against Livingston and Motherwell after the international break feel significant already.<\/p>\n
Even for a Scottish Cup-winning manager.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aberdeen’s model under chairman Dave Cormack has been to invest money in young players in undervalued markets who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-109565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}