Speaking after Friday night’s 3-0 loss at Hamilton Accies, a disappointed Derek McInnes said: “First and foremost we need to make ourselves difficult to score against.”
All Aberdeen fans will agree with McInnes that the team need to do better defensively, however, when the Dons boss previously tried to make the team difficult to score against, he did so by deploying only one striker – will Friday’s result convince him to return to that system?
Since switching to two up front the Dons have been great to watch, Goodwillie and Rooney have linked up well with each other and Peter Pawlett, Niall McGinn and Jonny Hayes have all threatened from deeper.
But while McInnes’ men have looked good going forward, they have struggled at the other end of the pitch.
Goals in numbers this season
- Playing 4-5-1 Aberdeen scored an average of one goal a game.
- Playing 4-5-1 Aberdeen conceded an average of one goal a game.
- Playing 4-4-2 Aberdeen have scored an average of 2.1 goals a game.
- Playing 4-4-2 Aberdeen have conceded an average of 1.5 goals a game.
As we can see from the above figures, the number of goals has increased at both ends of the pitch since the change of tactics.
Playing 4-4-2 Aberdeen play a more open game which most feel is better to watch, however, it does put more pressure on the Dons defence and just now, particularly with Russell Anderson missing, the defence do not seem able to deal with that additional pressure.
