Long way to go

Thoughts on Dundee

Be careful what you wish for. Last week I let my inner-Jack Charlton awaken as I bemoaned the rather tame Aberdeen display at home to Hearts, suggesting that we might have ‘put ‘em under pressure’ a bit more.

The verdict was ‘room for improvement’ but it was the opening day, against a team that, lest we forget, were only a few minutes away from winning the league title a few months previous. And we did win the game, in the most enjoyable and dramatic fashion. Alarm bells may have been ringing but only to awaken sore heads on Sunday morning.

I’ll save the ‘what a different a week makes’ segue. We all know what happened vs. Dundee, but it’s the words of another early 90s international football icon that Marius Muller may well have been saying to Stephen Robinson at Dens Park on Saturday.

Anyone for Seconds?

Stephen Robinson’s post-game interview caught the headlines:

I thought they ran all over us physically, the two boys in midfield. It was always my fear when Brad and Conor were out that we'd lose a physical element and we did.

This is from RedTV. The Lyons comments were the ones picked apart online. I thought the below was quite telling though:

Scottish football is about winning second balls and getting control of the game. We never had control of the game.

This may be true in some grounds of the SPFL. It may not in others. Times they may be a-changing. However, I think it tells us a little about Robinson’s view on the game. Last week I suggested that he has more in his locker than perhaps we give him credit for (referencing his time at Motherwell) and Saturday’s performance doesn’t change any of that but it may well highlight where his footballing philosophy sits in 2026.

In my opinion there were two options when Robinson was appointed, following the ‘successful’ end to last season, i.e. not going down.

1. Supercharged St. Mirren: I don’t know if this exists but you just copy and paste the same model, stick it into chatGPT and upgrade the profiles with the extra budget. Horrible to play against, probably horrible to watch. Would it work at Pittodrie when teams sit in? Who knows but we seem to be experimenting every other season with a new method so maybe give this a go. After all - Scottish football is is about winning second balls and getting control of the game.

2. Moray Cup Aberdeen: Become the Scottish equivalent of a Red Bull club. Marry the best elements of the intensity of Robinson’s Buddies and his ball-playing Motherwell-era supported by Lutz setting the wider playing philosophy, insight from the BPTC review, Darren Mowbary picking up foreign gems with experience in those systems combined with some good old SPFL know-how signings. Robinson perhaps steadies the ship, builds the base and a young German go-getter comes in, in a couple of seasons.

We’ve been sold #2.

The concern I have and we’re only two games in and this may well be a total overreaction to Saturday but it feels a bit like we’re trying to play Paisley-Ball without the guys to do it.

Muller Foot Corner

Here’s the big masked man’s pass map from the first half. White - found an Aberdeen man, Red = did not.

That only tells a little bit of the story, because, again, Scottish football is about winning second balls. If an Aberdeen man gets a flick on and it lands at a Dundee man then, it’s not really successful. Same works on the opposite side.

So with a little help, I looked at all of Muller’s long balls and whether Aberdeen had possession of the ball after 10s. I specifically focused on the first half. I was actually quite surprised.

Marius Muller long balls first half vs. Dundee

On 10 out of the 26 occasions, Aberdeen actually had possession of the ball after 10 seconds, 38% of the time. As you will note Dundee won the ball most of the time. Smart readers will likely note that in many cases Aberdeen’s possession was the result of a Dundee clearance or an attack being stopped. And you’d be right. Statistics, mini skirts - not our first rodeo.

Break it down into meaningful ball possession in the Dundee half and we have four out of the 10. So now we’re at 15% ‘success rate’. Here they are (and if you want all the data, just let me know).

19:50: This is actually a Dons break, that leads to a corner, so Armstrong’s unsuccessful pass is actually a bit harsh. However, this was considered a ‘long ball’ based on distance but it was actually a throw-out from Muller.

23:41: was actually this clearance from the keeper that, somewhat fortuitously landed at Aremu’s feet.

We saw some controlled possession, a decent run from Armstrong and and a ball into the box for Yogane to attack. Again, though, not sure this should be considered part of the long-ball strategy that was clearly being employed.

29:33: This was actually a lovely chipped pass from the German keeper to Armstrong. Its one of the shorter passes on the list at 39yard.

Again some nice play between Armstrong and Aremu results in this pass to Brieldl who doesn’t get any contact on it and Dundee clear. Long ball football though? Not really, this is actually some smart beating the press, counter-attacking stuff. Just no end product.

33:08: Ding ding - we have a winner. Dundee win first ball, and Westley mis-controls the ball, Nesta Guinness-Walker steps in for a shot of ping-pong, and the Dons gain some territory in the Dundee half.

Yogane ends up winning a corner and given that’s how we create most of our chances, talk of the former-Brentford man not providing end product should be perhaps reconsidered.

To Conclude

I used the Whoscored data to get the list of on-ball events and I appreciate I did not give all the ‘unsuccesful scenarios’ the full treatment (what do you think I am some kind of nerd?), so I could have missed a couple on the flip side but if you take the three out that were either a throw, a clearance or a chip then we’re at 1 out of 23. 4% for those in the back.

The aim of course in football is to score more goals than the opponent. In order to do that, you need to get the ball into their half. Going long is obviously the simplest way to do that, it just seems like Aberdeen are not setup to succeed as currently built.

I’ve done a ton more here on his St. Mirren team which I’ll have to save for next week as I’ve given myself a deadline but essentially it highlights what they had and what we don’t have.It will have wait.

In short I think most of us would like to see us playing like Motherwell for example, maybe even Dundee or Falkirk, the point is not necessarily that going long all the time is a bad tactic (it might be) but if you are going to do it, give yourselves the best chance to succeed by playing players that fit that mould.

Afeez

An example I think that illustrates perhaps some of the disjointedness, was Aremu dropping in to get passes. It may have gone a little out of fashion but the old #6 dropping in to receive from a goalkeeper whilst two centre-backs open up was quite a common means of progressing the ball forward with control. It’s hard to tell but here’s Afeez offering himself up to Muller. This is 1m 30in.

Within a couple of seconds, Dundee win the ball and it lands at one of their strikers. Aremu is neither challenging for first ball, second ball or covering forward pass. He’s a little bit in no-mans land.

And here’s another one, little bit harder to see but you can hopefully see the ball launching over Aremu’s head.

Within a few seconds, the ball is back over his head.

So my questions here might be:

1. Why is Aremu offering short if we’re never going to pass to him? Is he being coached to do this or doing it off his own accord? I don’t think it’s to bait a press and there’s enough space for him to receive a ball.

Here’s the pass map for the match. Very little passes to Aremu from GK or centre-back.

2. If we’re going long and want to win second balls, wouldn’t it be better to be more compact as a group and get the defensive line up? Are we worried about pace in behind?

And I suppose the questions that I was really meandering around earlier were:

1. If we’re going long why are we hitting it up to Nisbet versus two strapping centre-backs only backed up Yogane and Olusanya?

2. Are Brad Lyons and Conor Ronan infinitely better at winning duels and second balls part than Stuart Armstrong and Alexander Briedl?

Saturday

To wrap this up in some kind of neat conclusion. Saturday will be very interesting (will it?). You would say that despite the defeat Robinson holds the cards in the coaching battle. Pressley is less likely to change a winning team and our manager can use the weekend’s game to prepare a response to Dundee’s tactics. Aberdeen are at home, last week

It’s a cup game, and it’s about getting through. Could we see Supercharged St. Mirren? Ntelo and Nisbet up top? Knoester back in the line up giving us a back three and of course, Nick Berry himself, Brad ‘Heartbeat’ Lyons winning those second balls.

Maybe we will get what we were promised in the video below and we’ll smash Dundee, get the season back on track and look forward to our next league match on August 30th. COYR.