JC Not Happy with Rior Spanking

Last updated : 27 September 2004 By Stand Free Ed
Since grabbing the BoS Manager of the Month award for August, Jimmy Calderwood has seen Aberdeen pick up four league points from nine, go out of the CIS Cup to Rangers, lose the BoS Young Player of the Month to injury for a quarter of the season, lose their first goals of the season and their unbeaten record to boot. While this is hardly a disaster (despite being an opportunity for the tabloid hacks to blow the dust off their "Dismal Dons" headlines) it is heartening to hear that boss Calderwood is far from pleased at the slide.

JC told RedWeb: "I've got to look at my own team who started really slowly. I don't know if it was a hangover from Wednesday night, but we didn't give Hibs enough respect and there were too many players well under the standard that has been set. We weren't closing them down and Hibs were knocking it about. We got in great positions to cross the ball but the crossing was atrocious and that usually happens when you start at the pace we did.

He added, "I can take defeats, but I was really disappointed with the manner of this one. Against Rangers in the CIS Insurance Cup in midweek, we did everything right and deserved the praise, but today we were very poor."

"I'm very disappointed with the players and I always am when they lose. We've got where we are through hard work, discipline and good football but we didn't have that today and too many of them took the day off without telling me. I hate getting beat but it's the manner in which we got beat that's the difference."

We can only hope that the players take those well-chosen words to heart, and an improvement is seen in the upcoming home fixtures against Dundee, ICT and Motherwell. With players like Heikkinen, Pasquinelli and Clark close to full fitness, there will soon be no excuses for poor performance, even the Curse of the Manager of the Month.