10 Reasons for Aberdeen's Poor Start to the Season Under Jimmy Calderwood, the Dons Had a Great Season in 2004-05. They Finished Fourth On Goal Difference and a Real Buzz Returned to Pittodrie. But Despite Some Signings, the Team Haven't Pushed On the Way the Fans Might Have Hoped.

Summary

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THE question is not so much what has gone wrong at Aberdeen as what has stopped going so right. A season ago, the impetus of Jimmy Calderwood's arrival helped the club to 22 points from the first quarter of their SPL season, a campaign which ended with them behind Hibs and a European place only on the flimsiest of goal differences.

When chairman Stewart Milne sanctioned GBP500,000 (on this week's evidence, approximately five weeks' of his wages) on Barry Nicholson, Steve Lovell and Stevie Crawford during the summer, the homebuilder must have hoped his football manager would be able to construct something even more formidable upon those solid foundations. Instead Aberdeen currently lie off the pace, equal seventh place and a full nine points behind third-placed Hibs, to whom they lost 1-0 at home yesterday.

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Extract

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10 Reasons for Aberdeen's Poor Start to the Season Under Jimmy Calderwood, the Dons Had a Great Season in 2004-05. They Finished Fourth On Goal Difference and a Real Buzz Returned to Pittodrie. But Despite Some Signings, the Team Haven't Pushed On the Way the Fans Might Have Hoped.

To hijack the words of Winston Churchill, as far as Jimmy Calderwood is concerned, this is not the end, nor even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.

Aberdeen are the kind of club who consumes an entire community, and there is rarely a middle ground between success and failure. Already a multitude of theories...

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