Grading Aberdeen's Recruitment

Reviewing the last three seasons of signings

The Dons welcomed their first three recruits of the summer transfer window earlier this month in Gavin Molloy, Peter Ambrose and Dimitar Mitov. With every press announcement, every special podcast hopes rise. On most occasions, the curse of the football supporter - eternal optimism, strikes and we convince ourselves, Jayden Richardson, is Cafu in waiting.

But how can past signings over the last three seasons predict the future success of our new summer recruit? What does the data say?

It is a story of peaks and troughs. for every Or Dadia there is a Bojan Miovski. For every JET there is a Jamie McGrath.

First, a note on data. This is Dave Cormack’s Data Dons after all. I’ve used a highly scientific method to calculate the success of each signing, that is a scale from 1 to 5. With 5 being an outstanding piece of business and 1 being Jack Gurr.

Rankings By Season

Aberdeen have made 30 permanent transfers in the last three seasons. For the purposes of this post, I’ve excluded loan signings. This does mean that last season’s data is skewed as it avoids the disastrous spells of Rhys Williams and the aforementioned Dadia. Though these are not cheap mistakes, the club were able to cut their losses swiftly. There are no four year contracts to slowly run down.

2021/22

In Stephen Glass’s first transfer window the Dons signed 10 players for a total spend of €627,000¹. This was a season notable for the lack of recruitment director, with Darren Mowbray taking up his position once the summer window had closed.

It’s hard to make any kind of case for these two windows. Only Polvara and Besuijen are still with the club. The former has yet to fully establish as a first team player but there were positive signs this season and the little sticky toffee pudding Dutchman has made a grand total of 19 SPFL starts with his last appearance for the club in the final throes of the Goodwin era (5-0 defeat at Tynecastle).

Ramirez enjoyed a great start and was probably harshly treated in the end although he did seem to throw the toys out of the pram when Glass left. Brown was certainly over paid but he showed quality and professionalism for the most part. Watkins was Watkins. We will all have our own ‘special memories’ of JET and Jack Gurr.

2022/23

Jim Goodwin got the chance to make his mark on the squad and he did so with a hot iron. It would be easy to give the kudos to the recruitment and analytics departments for the good and blame the Dundee United manager for the bad but it does seem like Jimmy G was particularly keen on a couple of our dismal recruits. Although he does seem to be very keen to take credit for Miovski’s success.

The obvious standout is Miovski who has been a consistently excellent performer and will earn the club a healthy profit. Perhaps even by the time you read this. His teammate from MTK gave a solid year of performances and the club a 10x return on their investment.

Perhaps I am still thinking of the unstoppable Duk of 2023 and not the transfer requesting, out of shape, version we now have in our squad but for his contributions in helping us achieve third in those glorious few months of Robson’s interim tenure and the joy he brought us all, he gets a 4 out of 5 from me.

MacDonald had a strange 23/24 but finished strong and galvinised the defence when he joined in January of 2022. Roos has divided opinion and not been without issue but given our goalkeeping problems when he arrived, he was an upgrade on what had went before.

And then there were four. If anyone needs reminding who Cal ‘Geordie Messi’ Roberts is, then so do we. the winger managed four appearances for the Dons, totaling 99 minutes. 11 of which were against Darvel.

Anthony Stewart seemed an honest pro but was completely out of his depth both on the field and as captain. His inability to pass the ball made him the target of opposition pressing schemes and his red card in the cup semi-final was the last nail in his coffin. He has now left the club.

Still with Aberdeen are the speed merchants Richardson and Morris. Brought in as ‘raw recruits’, neither has been able to develop a first touch and if Thelin can turn them into solid SPFL players, he deserves the freedom of the city for that alone. If you’re looking to avoid waking up in a cold sweat, do not look at what we paid for the two of them.

2023/24

Hopes were high with European group stage football guaranteed and what seemed like a competent management team that Aberdeen could enhance the squad. Plans were thrown into some disarray as Mowbray left to join Southampton.

Jamie McGrath, seen as the most underwhelming transfer, turned out to be the most successful. McGrath, technically, came from Wigan but was a proven SPFL player who had spent the previous season at Dundee Utd.

On the whole, it was a slightly better window in terms of the average level of player but there were still a number of players who the jury is still out on. Richard Jensen and Ester Sokler made little impact, Clarkson and Shinnie struggled to replicate the impact of their loan spells although both certainly contributed, the former particularly under Peter Leven.

The two big misses were Pape Habib Gueye and James McGarry. The New Zealand full-back did struggle with injuries but looked inferior to Jack MacKenzie. Sympathies lie with Gueye, who struggled to adapt to live in Aberdeen as has been well documented. He is having a successful loan spell in Norway, so perhaps he should not be written off completely but at half a million and with only 7 appearances to his name and 138 minutes of football, none of which set the heather alight, he goes down as a very expensive mistake.

Conclusion

In summary, shock, horror, its unlikely that every signing we make this summer will live up to our expectations. Though a reshaping of the team is required, some of the noises coming out of the club, both from Jimmy and the management team seem to suggest a more measured approach in terms of numbers this year. Whilst we all get excited about a new face, you don’t need to read this article to recognise there was as many hits as misses over the past three years.

If we are truly to give Thelin time, that may need to extend to the transfer window too. There are healthier numbers than in the previous seasons, and a good crop of youngsters waiting in the wings. Or maybe, we’re just being teased and Viking longboat full of the next Cato Guntvieit, Thomas Solberg and Arild Stavrum is making its way across the North Sea as we speak.

1. I’m using the Euro as this is what Transfermarkt uses. With a number of deals announced as undisclosed, hopefully this presents a somewhat accurate picture despite the currency conversion. There are some I added in myself e.g. Shayden Morris.