Transition Risk

Aberdeen players badly let down their manager, but can Celtic learn from the risks exposed?

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I’ve been sceptical of Jimmy Thelin and what he is bringing to Aberdeen tactically. Generally, I don’t really see an identity or a coherent approach. None of that is necessary if you are continually winning football matches with an adaptive approach. But they are not. The Scottish Cup final penalty success was an outlier, given the team's five wins and seven draws in 29 league matches. Only one of those was against a top-six side – a 1-0 win versus Hibernian in April. That is relegation form.

However, I will credit him with a sensible approach to the matchup with Celtic last weekend.

Thelin set up his side in what I’ll call a Six-Four split. The four defenders, plus Graeme Shinnie and Sivert Heltne Nilsen, basically sat in as a defensive block. The other four were the counterattacking spring. The Dons set up in a midblock and pressed aggressively whenever a Celtic player received the ball with back to goal. Shinnie and Nilsen would man-mark the Celtic eights Reo Hatate and Benjamin Nygren when they came into their area; otherwise, it was a zonal configuration.

This shows how compact they were, and how the four nominal attacking players set up in a line waiting to break.

Aberdeen would not press Celtic in their half, waiting for them to cross the halfway line. Also, they tried not to drop too deep, maintaining a midblock.

Once the ball was recovered, Aberdeen would try and break with the four forwards – Adil Aouchiche, Nicolas Milanovic, Topi Keskinen and Kusini Yengi. They, sensibly, did not expect Shinnie and Nilsen to try and be box-to-box midfielders.

As we will see, with the way Celtic are now set up in rest defence, this was a thoughtful approach, in theory.