ABERDEEN'S recruitment over the summer has been super-charged with seven new faces brought in to bolster their ambition to challenge for honours this season after flopping last term and finishing in 10th place in the Premiership.
But while manager Jim Goodwin isn’t finished in the transfer market, he brushed off suggestions that because Saudi-based Martin Boyle was in the Pittodrie stand to see his home-town team record their fourth straight win in the group stage of the Premier Sports League Cup competition, that the former Hibs attacker might be wearing red soon.
He did, though, hint he is ready to announce the arrival of a new attacking midfielder today as he expressed satisfaction with how his side dismantled Championship outfit Raith Rovers with goals from debutant Bojan Miovski, Ross McCrorie and Jonny Hayes.
Another front player and a left back, thought to be Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill, a former Arsenal youth player, who played in Holland last season, are also on the radar.
“We will hopefully have a bit of news on Monday on the attacking midfielder,” Goodwin said. “When Connor Barron is out of the team I think we look really short in there for creativity from the midfield area.
“I would like one more attacking player, one more attacking midfield player who is comfortable on the ball and I think we need a bit of left-back cover as well.”
As for Boyle and his £20,000-a-week deal with Al-Faisaly FC, he smiled and added: “As far as I’m aware Martin’s family are Aberdeen based.
"And we don’t have the money that the Arabs have, so we will not be able to match his terms I’m afraid."
Miovski’s opener in the sixth minute came from the penalty spot after he had been felled by Sam Stanton, but it was McCrorie’s 25-yard firecracker that was the game’s eye-catcher, the midfielder picking up a loose ball, taking a couple of strides and thrilling the crowd with his finish.
Raith found their rhythm only spasmodically with Jamie Cullen’s invention and energy causing the hosts trouble.
It was all over within seconds after the interval as Jonny Hayes raced on to a wonderful through pass from Vicente Besuijen to finish in style with the Kikrcaldy men doing well to keep the score to three down.
The Dons now face a trip to Annan for the next round of the competition, a draw that did not displease Goodwin.
He said: “Like the previous four games in this cup, the level of expectation will be on us because we are the Premiership team going down there. There will be no pressure on Annan. I’ve got a lot of respect for Peter Murphy, the Annan head coach. I know him well and he has his team playing really good football.”
Goodwin, determined there will be no repeat of last season, introduced other changes. He swapped dugouts in order to be closer to the stand-in assistant referee. He did not like how opposing coaches had more of an opportunity to try and influence the official.
He ordered his squad to warm-up, not in front of the Richard Donald Stand as usual, but at the other end of the pitch, hyping-up the fans in the so-called Red Shed, once known as the Merkland Stand. It’s there, the singing supporters are now housed in one choir. More extraordinary was removing the No. 9 shirt from Christian Ramirez and handing it to new boy Miovski with Ramirez wearing No. 99.
How might that move be viewed by the fans. Let alone the US striker?
“The conversations were easy and straight forward,” Goodwin insisted. “A number is a number. It doesn’t really bother me at the end of the day. I think people read too much into numbers.
“When we were having the negotiations with Bojan to bring him to Aberdeen, he wanted the number nine. It’s very straightforward.
“Christian is understanding of the situation and he’s got two number nines now so he’s happy.
“The way Bojan dispatched the penalty was brilliant. He’s only had two training sessions with the group. He was really tired at half-time but we just wanted to get another 10 or 15 minutes into his legs.
“He’s nowhere near as sharp as he needs to be. He needs to do things a little bit quicker at times in possession.
“But that’s only natural for a guy who’s so far behind the rest of the group.”
