It seems hard to believe, but such has been the pace with which this season has sped by, we’re almost at the end of the 2015-16 campaign.
It is going to be one we as Dons fans will look back on with a mixture of pride and regret; with an appreciation of much of what the team has given us, but with a sense of frustration at an opportunity passed up. I guess the question “what if?’ will always linger in our minds, and those of the players and management.
First and foremost, the boys went out and did what Derek McInnes had urged them to – despite all the advantages Celtic hold (finance, resources, squad size) they pushed them all the way until the last few weeks of the season, maintaining the same level of consistency shown in 2014-15. There’s still a chance to equal or better last season’s record-breaking points tally, and I’m not sure we can really ask for much more than that.
Yes there were chances blown, games lost when they shouldn’t have been, but equally there were matches won or points salvaged from seemingly lost situations, and the simple truth is that we don’t have the budget to fund the strength in depth required to guarantee fewer points being dropped. The team can get on a roll – as they did last autumn – and the confidence bred by winning leads to further successes, but there will always be a disappointment around the corner, the level we’re operating at means that is inevitable.
Finishing second and having long since secured a top six place to reach the Europa League qualifiers should not be dismissed lightly – you don’t have to delve far back into the history of our club to a point when even those achievements seemed like pipe-dreams. I know lots of you are feeling a bit down right now, but there are still plenty genuine reasons for positivity.
Could we have won the league this season? Yes, given how it panned out, clearly we could have done, but taking on Celtic for the title remains an uneven playing field, and even when they were not playing well the size of their squad, the individual quality within it, meant they were always likely to see it through. They’ve been getting a lot of stick right now, some of their performances have been poor, but they’re still on a ten-match unbeaten run in the Premiership … that’s what all those extra millions buys you, that’s what we simply cannot match over the long run.
This time of the year always brings an element of sadness, that empty feeling that comes when you know the weeks without football are stretching out in front of you. I know the close-season break is much shorter these days – we’ll be in European action at the end of June – but right now that seems impossibly far away. I liken it to the break-up of a relationship, or friendship. You’re used to that day-to-day contact, you share all the highs and lows, and then all of a sudden, sometimes in inexplicable and heartbreaking circumstances, just like in football, it’s over. I’ve been fortunate this season, I’ve been in Aberdeen on many occasions and had some incredible times, some fantastic memories … hopefully there’ll be many more to come when the players step back out on to the Pittodrie pitch in the summer sunshine, a wave from down there, and the rollercoaster begins all over again.
In the meantime, the team still has work to do, and it would be lovely for them to finish off the last few matches of this campaign on a positive note, to give us renewed hope for adventures which might lie ahead.
In the meantime, the team still has work to do, and it would be lovely for them to finish off the last few matches of this campaign on a positive note, to give us renewed hope for adventures which might lie ahead.
