In this weekend’s RedMatchday Magazine:
Willo Flood
“It has been a very frustrating season for me. I felt my form was very good at the start and then I got a bad hamstring injury and I was out for 12 weeks. Injuries are part and parcel of the game but they can affect you, not just physically but mentally. You can come back and feel fit but you don’t see things as easily. You just have to get over it and get back to doing what you know you can do. You have to have self-belief.
“I had two knee injuries when I was at Middlesbrough. I took them better because I knew how long I would be out for. At first, you cannot walk so you know you can’t play football. With a hamstring injury you can walk and you can do other work in the gym but you are never totally sure what will happen when you start running again. You have that at the back of your mind, so mentally, that can be quite tough to get over. You know that you’ve had a tear in the hamstring but you can’t see it and you are not sure how it will react.
“So it has been a tough season for me and it has taken me a long time to get fully over the injury and to get back to my top form. I am looking forward to getting a good preseason under my belt and being ready for the new campaign.”
“I am one of those players who tries to speak to the young lads. I will speak to them before a game, I will speak to them during a game and have a go at them when I want! And I will speak to them after a game. During the week I will speak to the young players and see how they are feeling.
“For me, the most important thing is to instil confidence in them. If a player is not confident then it will affect his performance and, in the end, the performance of the team. When you lack confidence, you start to over think things. I just try to give them examples of different situations that I have been in through my career and hopefully that will help them get back on track if they are struggling.
“My advice is to always give everything you do 100%, especially when you are on a football pitch. Every day in training is an opportunity to impress. I have seen some players over the years take training for granted, especially some of the young lads I have played with at previous clubs. You see them moping about. They have to realise the unbelievable opportunity they have been given. They have a great opportunity to make a living from this game, so go and grab it with both hands. For me every day is a day to impress.
Shay Logan “It was a very proud moment for me personally, being named in the team of the year. I will be honest and say that it was one of my aims at the start of the season. I challenged myself to be the best right-back in the county. Coming into the season, I felt I was one of the best so I challenged myself to have a consistent year and to go out and prove it. Making the team is a good achievement but more importantly, it means I have been putting in some good performances to help the team.
“Individual recognition is always nice, everyone likes receiving praise, but at the end of the day, football is a team game. I cannot perform well if the players round about me don’t perform, so any recognition like this proves how well the team have done.
“I know Adam would say the same as well. He has had a great season and deserves to be in the team and also to be nominated for the Player of the Year award. We have all had a few assists to help him along the way, but you need someone to put the ball in the net and he has done that this season. He always seems to be in the right place at the right time. He does it too many times for him to be lucky!
Russell Anderson
“The club has carried off one title this season and it’s important that we congratulate Paul Sheerin and the younger lads here at Pittodrie for winning the Development League, and doing it with such strong performances and with so much time to spare. It bodes really well for the future of the club.
“Having watched them and played in some of the games recently too, I can assure you that there are some very good youngsters coming through with plenty of potential to go on and be first team players here in the future, proving they continue to work as hard as they have done through this season. That’s the key to being successful in this game – there’s no magic formula, no big secret – you just have to keep working as hard as you can, every day you play.”
Frank Ross
“I was in the first team squad for Andrew Considine’s Testimonial match and made my debut. I never imagined at the start of the season that I would be involved with a first team squad. It was really weird playing in front of a big crowd for the first time, but a great feeling.
“As well as playing for the U20s this season, I have still been able to play for the U17s. That has been great because I know I will be playing at least one game each week. At the start of the season, we struggled a bit but the squad has changed quite a lot over the course of the campaign. We now have a number of players who have stepped up from U15 level and there are some very good players coming through at that level”.
Derek McInnes
Games against Celtic are always eagerly anticipated and it’s another opportunity for the lads to pit themselves against some very good players. The last time the sides met here was such a pivotal game, even more so when you see how the season has subsequently panned out, and in hindsight the way that one finished was such a huge benefit to Celtic. Today we’ll be looking for a strong performance that will hopefully get us the three points but to achieve that, we’re going to have to beat a strong team who have demonstrated great consistency all season.
I personally want to thank the support we had at Tannadice and for your recognition at the end of the game. As disappointed as we all were, your applause and backing at full-time meant so much to all the players. They deserved that just as you the support deserve this Aberdeen team. We all know who we represent every time we play, so let’s show our resilience and togetherness again on Sunday and make as much noise as possible.
Richard Gordon
Apart from an unlucky loss to Celtic at Pittodrie, the league form was imperious. We won eight in a row, a feat matched only by the champions; there were eight successive clean-sheets, two better than anyone else has achieved, and a run of 757 minutes without conceding a goal; and the side was unbeaten in the Premiership from early November until the start of March, a 13 game sequence without a loss, by some distance the best recorded by any top-flight side throughout the campaign.
In fact we had a run of 24 league matches in which only Celtic beat us. All that does is back up what most observers have recognised, that the team has been by some distance the second best in the land, and while Cup success evaded us this time round, there is every reason to remember this campaign as fondly as last year’s.
Plus a lot more.
RedMatchday Issue 24 is available from the programme sellers in and around the ground on Sunday. It will be on sale from the AFC Club Shop and you can also buy a copy online by clicking here
RedMatchday Issue 24 is available from the programme sellers in and around the ground on Sunday. It will be on sale from the AFC Club Shop and you can also buy a copy online by clicking here
