a brand new world

In this weeks RedMatchday Magazine there is a feature length interview with the Aberdeen manager. To subscribe to RedMatchday please click here

We stand upon the brink of on Saturday, ready to enter a new era of Aberdonian success. The man charged with delivering the top six and, perhaps, a piece of silver to a city starved for too long of real footballing success? Derek McInnes. It’s as well that he’s a man who is always up for a challenge…

…”I think the story of last season, especially at Pittodrie, is that this is a solid team that struggles to score goals – all those 0-0 draws make that pretty obvious. That’s why we need to make sure that, regardless of what the opposition do, whether they drop deep, play a high line, whatever, we have to make sure we have an answer to it.

…”All over the pitch, we can contribute more to scoring goals. Once you become a team that has got goals in you, then you have a chance, because that’s the hard part. As a coach, it’s easier to work with boys on organisation to keep goals out, so if you’re scoring reasonably freely, you can have some optimism. We need to bring the ammunition from other areas of the pitch and the goals will come. I think we’ve gone a long way to doing that with the players we’ve brought in and the work we’ve done, but we’ve got it all to prove now.”

…”This is a huge club, a one city club, there’s massive potential, but the last three or four years have been pretty poor and that needs to be addressed. Quite rightly, the support feels a wee bit let down with what’s gone on over the last few seasons, particularly at a time when smaller clubs have done so well without the resource that Aberdeen has.

…”For me, coming back to the point that good players and managers have underachieved here, you have to strip it all back because there have to be reasons why that has happened. I’ve said it before and I don’t mind saying it again, there are loads of areas of this football club that are so well run, very slick, very professional, it’s got a bit of class about it, and there’s a lot to be proud of.

…”But also, some areas of the football department were running really well with good people but others were lacking, areas where we were clearly behind our competitors. I know that a lot of other clubs were better in some of those aspects than we were. That has changed now and though it is only a small part of the overall outcome, hopefully all these percentage steps forward will stand us in good stead. Our match analysis and our opposition analysis will be better, our scouting and recruitment will be better, our sports science side of things will be better, our training facilities, if they’re still not perfect, they’re better.

…”Getting so many new faces in before we started pre-season training was a big positive for us and you have to commend the club on doing that business. It settles the dressing room down, you can come in from day one and say, “This is us now” and get on with your work.

…”It’s always dangerous to set too many public targets before the season starts because so many factors can influence things, especially if you are unlucky with injury for instance, or cup draws are especially unfavourable. Privately, we know what our targets are but more importantly, we know what our expectations are of the players, what demands we will put on one another.”