Andrew Considine

When a player comes through the ranks at a football club, it’s tempting to always think of them as a youngster. It’s hard to recognise that moment when they become a regular, harder still to see the point when they’ve made the transition to seasoned pro at the heart of the side.

Andrew Considine is very much a case in point. It seems like five minutes ago that we were alerting supporters to the emergence of one of the hottest talents in some time from our academy and now here he is with well over 300 games and a testimonial to his name. So what’s it like being a veteran all of a sudden?!?

“I wouldn’t say I was one of the senior players when you compare me to Barry! We still have Barry, Willo, Scott Brown and then it’s maybe me. I suppose I have moved up that list a bit with Russell and Jamie leaving. I would never consider myself to be old though. I certainly don’t feel like it.

“Saying that, when you have played a lot of games, you do have more responsibility and you have to deal with that properly. I do try and help the young boys around the club when I can. We see them in and around the changing rooms, but I don’t see a lot of the U20 boys on the training pitch, just now and again when they train with us.

“They play games in midweek so we don’t see a lot of them, but I know we have some very good young players coming through. Defensively we have Scott McKenna and he is a very good player. He was out for a while with injury and that was hard for him but he has come through that. We also have Michael Rose, who is now part of the first team squad, even although he is on loan at Forfar. He is also doing very well but it was important for him to go out and get games”.

Experience is a key ingredient in a sound defence, perhaps more important there than anywhere else in the team. Andrew has been a part of the rock solid defence on which our successes of the last couple of years have been built so, like the rest of us, he was left scratching his head as to why the Dons suddenly started shipping an uncharacteristic number of goals in October.

“Mark Reynolds was out for a while and losing someone of his ability was a loss, although we coped well enough earlier in the season. Last season, when we had the run of not conceding goals, we had a settled back four which we maybe have not had this season. There have been quite a number of changes which were forced on the manager and that didn’t help.

“More than that though, it is all about confidence. When we are on top of our game, winning first balls, winning first headers, the confidence spreads right through the team. When you are confident, you are not over thinking what you are doing. When you’re not confident, you start doubting yourself and that is when mistakes are made. A split second of hesitation can lead to a mistake which in turn can lead to a goal. That is when it shows. One misjudgement can lead to a goal or, as a defender, it can lead you to being sent off.

“I would not say there is suddenly anything new we are now doing or that we worked on, we have just had to go back to basics to get the wheel turning again. The confidence is back. It shows with our performances on the park and also shows in training. When the confidence dips the standard in training dips slightly, but we are back to where we were now.

“We finished second last season so the expectation levels are very high. Then having such an incredible start put us up on that pedestal and then we beat Celtic at Pittodrie. We were on a real high but then someone just put the lights out. That is how it felt. That lasted for six or seven games, so you can fully understand the frustrations of the supporters. But it was even more frustrating for us because things were just not going right. It just was not happening, but that is football. It is very hard to fathom out why it happens. That bad spell could have hit us at any time. For whatever reason, it happened in October.

“Maybe playing for almost 12 months of the year, only having three weeks off, is a factor, I don’t know. But you ask any of the boys, they would rather be playing in Europe than not being there. I think the European games helped us get off to a flying start but maybe there was always going to be a time when we hit a brick wall. It looked worse because we went from being amazing to being pretty poor in a short space of time.

“During my career I have never had to deal with extremes like that. I have seen some real lows but have experienced anything like that and, I will be honest, it was tough. It was tough on the boys. Sometimes when players come to Pittodrie, they maybe don’t fully appreciate just how big a club this is and what the expectation levels are. Even losing one game can feel like the end of the world so it affects the whole club, it affects the whole city.

“But I feel like coming through the bad run will make us even stronger. When things got tough, we were able to come through it. The spirit has been outstanding but I feel it is even stronger now within the group.

“We could well look back on the Ross County game as a turning point. They are a decent side, they have improved a lot and they really came at us in that first half. In the second half we maybe got a bit of luck, particularly with Jonny’s goal, which was a cross, let’s be honest! But you do need a bit of luck in football. And in the first eight games we were maybe getting those little breaks. It then just came to a halt.

“Every time we were losing at half-time, the manager and Tony were still very positive. They would still tell us we could win the game. The manager is very positive all the time and it rubs off on the boys. It did during that second half against County, we worked out what we had to do and got the win. We followed that up with an outstanding first half performance against Dundee and then a deserved victory over Hearts.

“The tempo in those games was suddenly a lot better. Tempo is very important to our game. It is huge, especially with all the pace we have in the side. We are maybe not the biggest of teams but we have real pace, so if we can win first balls and get up the park, put our opponents on the back foot, we will do well.

“We have such speed on the wings, if we can isolate their full-backs we will get countless crosses in all day and opportunities will present themselves. Against Hearts, I think we had something like 40 crosses and eventually one of them led to a mistake which won us the game.

“At Dundee, Niall was outstanding in the first half. He then came off and Peter came on and he was brilliant as well. I felt sorry for the Dundee full-back, McGinn, who is a good player because I have had days like that as well! But it just highlighted the electric pace we have in the side.

“It’s been a long season already with a lot of ups and downs. We had a cracking start with being in Europe and were very unlucky to exit when we did. We probably should have gone through. But we took that form into the league and made an unbelievable start, which everyone associated with the club was over the moon about. But then we hit that sticky patch. As I said, I still can’t exactly put my finger on why. I am speaking ahead of the Kilmarnock game, but I would say we have dug ourselves out and especially the last two or three games, we have shown the kind of form we had at the start.

“Fingers crossed, we can now have the same sort of run and show the same kind of form that we showed over Christmas last season. Hopefully it also bodes well for the rest of the season. But there are a lot of big games coming up and a lot of work to do”.

One of those big games comes in January when the Dons go to Tynecastle in the Scottish Cup of course.

“It is certainly not an easy draw. It will be tough. We don’t seem to get many easy draws in the cup any more! Hearts are a good side. They were a team that the league missed. They are a big, big team who are physical. We had a very good first 45 minutes down there when we were clinical. We know the cup match will be a huge game but I feel we have the boys and the squad to handle this type of game. The game will take care of itself.

“Before then we have three very important league games, two of which are at home, and winning them will stand us in good stead for the cup game and what lies ahead. Our home form in 2015 has been very good. I think I’m right in saying that we have only lost three matches. Two of them were against St Johnstone, one at the end of last season when we fielded quite a number of young boys.

“The only home game we have lost this season was when St Johnstone beat us 5-1. That was just one of those days when everything went wrong for us and everything they hit landed up in the net. The only other defeat was at the end of last season when we lost narrowly to Celtic in a game we should have taken a point.

“So the home form has been very good and it is very important we finish 2015 with two positive results and then see where that puts us”.