This season is make or break for Goodwin ... and Cormack
IT has been a summer of big statements at Aberdeen. None more so than the one put out on the club’s Twitter page on Friday to sell season tickets. Spending an estimated £1million on fees alone for the five players brought in so far represents a level of business — and ambition — not witnessed outwith the Old Firm in Scottish football in years.
What’s more, there is clearly more to reinvest out of the £4.2m brought in for Calvin Ramsay from Liverpool and whatever arrives for Lewis Ferguson.
‘We’re in negotiations with a number of other very good players and I am hopeful they will commit their future to the club in the coming days,’ teased manager Jim Goodwin in that social media post 48 hours ago following revelations that a cool £535,000 had been forked out for North Macedonia striker Bojan Miovski.
He has since stated he wants at least another five new faces. Maybe even six.
Exciting as all this is, the fact that Aberdeen needed a total rebuild was clear midway through last term after the silly appointment of the underqualified Stephen Glass as head coach had been exposed.
On clearing old recordings from the dictaphone the other day, the musings of Goodwin in the wake of a cranium-splitting draw at Hibs in May merited a revisit. After a fruity off-the-record comment about how bad it had been, Goodwin, who made no attempt to hide the deficiences of the squad inherited, quipped: ‘You should try sitting here and trying to think up different answers every week. It’s not easy.’
Poor up front and useless at the back, the Irishman was on a hiding to nothing with that group. In truth, despite a grim record, he had to be given a free pass for those first three months of his reign.
No longer, though. The answers he now provides in the wake of Aberdeen’s worst league finish in 18 years must be compelling given the level of spending being undertaken.
Goodwin needs to prove he is capable of leading — and handling — a club with the size and expectation of the Dons and the same goes for his chairman Dave Cormack.
This has the potential to be a defining campaign for both of them.
Goodwin hasn’t done much wrong in his managerial career so far. He got Alloa into the Championship and kept them up while earning a living in Civvy Street.
At St Mirren, he built an organised, competitive side that should have been top six in 2021 and was sitting sixth and in the last eight of the Scottish Cup when he left.
Yet, there have been the smallest of cracks showing in the armour up north. He admits he was too honest in telling players their time was up when there was still the need to guarantee Premiership safety.
The departure of Andy Considine, meanwhile, became a PR disaster. News was leaked that a new deal couldn’t be agreed. So what? Happens every summer at every club.
Yet, Goodwin went tonto, claiming Aberdeen had been ‘thrown under the bus’ and making an unfortunate situation spectacularly messier.
That one journalist was prevented from even accessing Pittodrie towards the end of last term — for, it seemed, little other than writing stories that were correct — appeared an over-reaction in the extreme.
Club legend Willie Miller, talking about ‘vanity’ within, certainly felt the need to point out to Goodwin that ‘you have to be bigger than what’s in the media and online’.
Of course, Cormack can be a little touchy too. Who could forget that bonkers BBC interview back in late 2021 in which he claimed he had data showing Glass, whom even the sheep in the field had sussed out, would still succeed and accused no one of caring about Aberdeen?
Miller is similarly clear on the fact that Cormack’s two-and-a-halfyear spell as chairman ‘hasn’t been good enough’. And he’s right.
Glass was a failure, the departure of Derek McInnes was handled badly, tie-ups with Atlanta United have raised questions and dealings in the market just haven’t been anywhere near acceptable up to this point.
It is great to see Aberdeen having a go. It is equally encouraging to hear Goodwin accept responsibility and speak about how the buck stops with him. But it’s not that simple.
Reconstructing a team isn’t easy and it is ridiculous the Dons are in this situation, but that rests on Cormack and his stewardship to date.
With a wage bill nudging £10m a year, it is crazy that Aberdeen haven’t finished better than fourth since 2018. Rebuild or not, they must come third in the Premiership as a bare minimum next season when they are spending half-amillion pounds on a No 9.
If they can’t, it will be more than just the manager having to think up answers to explain what’s going on.
Goodwin does have things to prove, no doubt, but the entire upper echelon of that club is bang under the microscope — with no excuses to fall back on if this current level of investment fails to bring a greater level of return.