The last two games and results have been as hard to bear as any we have suffered this season. There are different reasons for that but the underlying reasons are the same. Saturday against Hamilton with their half busload of supporters was just about the worst game on record - it certainly felt that way at the time, with the players failing to turn up individually or as a team. Against Kilmarnock, they looked miles better in the first half but the same old defensive failings hit us hard in the second and as in so many games this season, once the team hit a little adversity they were incapable of fighting back.
They didn't really crumble in either game, the first because they hadn't gelled in the first place and in the second they just couldn't find the nous to do anything about the setbacks.
The entire support is alive with theories of why it has all gone wrong this season, many of which will be close to the mark and many that will be utter tosh. This blog has a view and doubtless it won't be shared by everybody, but it is going into the ether anyhow:
First -The team and squad that was shaped by Jimmy Calderwood was okay up to a point, it was able to grind out enough results to get us into the top six (usually late in the season so that home crowds were falling away which cost the club valuable income). The football, though, was mostly very, very boring. Of course there were games that were exceptions and they can be acknowledged and remembered with some pleasure, but there were not loads of them.
Second - Because that same squad was plodding along without ever being in danger of relegation or of challenging for more than a European place, the players slipped into a massive comfort zone. They had an easy life with the certainty of a steady training regime with few extra sessions and loads of opportunity for a comprehensive social life that now they find hard to break away from. In other words they had it easy.
Third - Because of the above, the players were stagnating, never a good thing in a football club with ambitions to do so much better.
Fourth - When Mark McGhee took over he had completely different ideas about training, quality of football and ambition. He saw that there had to be a massive repair job done and set about doing it as quickly as possible. The trouble was that many of the players, enough to upset the plans for change, could not and would not adapt to a more demanding regime. That underlines the lack of true professionalism in their heads. People can draw their own conclusions about which players were the worst offenders, but we have to trust the manager to weed them out and bring in men who will conform to the work ethic that will be demanded of them.
Football careers are short but very well paid. If a player wants to get the best out of his time in the game he should be prepared to train and practice hard and to a large extent abandon a social life outside of his team-mates. Within the group they need to socialise to a degree for team building reasons, but other than that a quiet night out with the wife or girlfriend should be enough. We don't need to see players dancing on tables at Private Eyes of a night-time or whooping it up at city centre night clubs. There will be plenty time for all that when they stop playing, but if they are at all serious about having a successful career at the top levels of football they should be prepared to do whatever is necessary to achieve the ambition.
This message is especially important for all the young Dons who are now pushing towards first team places. They have grown up with the club so should, in theory, have much a much stronger feeling for it than guys who are brought in for a couple of seasons on their way elsewhere. These youngsters need to be developing a strong work ethic, learning respect and discipline. If they don't show the necessary dedication at seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, most of them won't make it in the game. The world of football does not owe them a living, they need to earn it and they will earn it best by mastering their trade and playing the kind of football that people want to see. Not much to ask - is it?
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