CASH BUT NO SPLASH
CHIEF STEWART MILNE’S JANUARY MESSAGE FOR THE MANAGER...
ABERDEEN’S board will do all they can to back Derek McInnes this month – but Stewart Milne has warned there won’t be a huge pot of money to spend.
The Pittodrie club have continually backed their boss in his five years and the latest figures show they paid a record £8.6million in wages for the 12 months up to the end of June.
McInnes revived his team last January with a handful of signings and they head into the winter break in fourth place but only three points behind table-topping Celtic.
The Dons manager is now keen to bring in a striker and strengthen other areas of his squad so they can make a real fist of things in the second half of the season.
And chairman Milne said: “Most people appreciate the constraints we work under in Scottish football. We have worked hard over the past four or five years to continually grow Derek’s budgets.
“When the window is open Derek has clear plans for the move he wants to make. We will work with him but Derek recognises there’s not a huge pot of money to work with.
“It’s about how we can reshape the squad over the January window so we are geared up as strongly as we can be to tackle the second half of the season.”
Although Aberdeen have worked hard to give money to McInnes they’ve also had to find a balance as they have look to seal finance for their new training ground and potential new stadium.
The directors have increased the wage budget and financed signings such as the near £400,000 McInnes paid Preston for Stevie May and six-figure fees for Lewis Ferguson from Hamilton and Chris Forrester from Peterborough.
The club have looked at different ways to increase their budget but Milne knows the main route would be getting more fans through the Pittodrie gates. He points to the fact Hibs and Hearts sell their stadiums out regularly. And he’s told the Red Army getting an extra 1000-plus fans in per game would make a huge difference to what McInnes could spend. Milne said: “What helped last year was the Aberdeen DNA money (funds from the fans that were invested into the team). We still have to find additional areas to see if we can squeeze additional cash out of whatever fund.
“One of the critical things is we’ve fallen behind Hearts and Hibs in particular because they’ve grown their crowds a bit quicker than we have.
“That is an area we have to work really hard on to try to get another 1000 or 1500 on the average gate.”
The building tycoon knows there isn’t much more McInnes and his team can do on the pitch. They have won a League Cup and finished second the last four years.
Milne reckons McInnes has been Aberdeen’s most consistent manager since the halcyon years of Sir Alex Ferguson. The Dons boss has his team just three points behind leaders Celtic after an impressive December drive.
The Aberdeen chairman
expects McInnes to maintain those levels in the second half of the season. And he doesn’t think they’ve hit such heights as regularly since Ferguson left the Granite City for Manchester United back in 1986.
Milne said: “Derek likes to keep stats and normally midway through we are somewhere between 30 and 36 points but we are now above that.
“December had always been a good month for Aberdeen. Derek has been very consistent. Every year we have been second apart from the first season when we were second until the last kick of the ball and it was dragged away from us.
“I don’t think we have had a manager at this club who has delivered anywhere near that level of consistency since Sir Alex Ferguson left.”
The real fly in the ointment in Aberdeen’s revival is the fact Celtic have been so dominant – that has seen only one trophy in the Pittodrie boardroom over the past five years.
Milne added: “That is the biggest disappointment. I know there is a frustration out there with the fans as well.
“We have been in seven semifinals and four finals. You could argue one of out of the four isn’t that bad but we know there have been a couple occasions where we have been so close, including the League Cup Final this year.
“A wee bit more from the team and a few more breaks and it was a cup that was in our reach.”