Can Aberdeen become Scotland's second force?

It's a long time since supporting Aberdeen has been this much fun

Talk of a real title race in Scotland this season is over-egging the pudding a wee bit.  Sure, Aberdeen trail Celtic by only three points, but they've played a game extra.  And, even with the Europa League to distract them, the reigning champions still have strength in depth that the other sides can only dream of.

But the challenge is rather sterner than usual, and that's not just a reflection on some mediocre performances earlier in the campaign, when the players were still getting their heads around Ronny Deila's philosophy.  Aberdeen are doing extremely well; for comparison, they have more points at this stage than did the Hearts sides that looked like title challengers in 1997-98 and 2005-06.  And it's no fluke.

Last season's League Cup triumph has revitalized the club and its support; forty thousand fans got their first taste of success for at least a generation (in plenty of cases, their first taste of success full stop).  The results and performances on the park have kept up the momentum.  Even the late season collapse that allowed Motherwell to nick second place in the table was easily forgiven, since it came as a result of a last gasp goal in the last game of the campaign that everyone in the stadium, bar the referee, expected to be disallowed.

2014-15 started with a couple of wins in the Europa League and a relatively glamorous tie with Real Sociedad, and league form has never dipped for a long enough period of time to allow negativity to crawl back in.  Off the park, the goodwill factor surely must have contributed to the deal struck in November to clear the club's £14.5m debts.

So they are financially stable once more, so much so that they were able to spend £300,000 on St. Mirren's Kenny McLean on Deadline Day - their biggest outlay on a player in more than fifteen years (Thomas Solberg, since you're asking).  The squad might not be comparable to Celtic's, which is understandable given that the wage bill is less than a quarter of the size, but it can just about boast two good players for every position - or it will do when Inverness left-back Graeme Shinnie joins in the summer.  The most talented players at the club are all contracted at least for next season and, in most cases, beyond.  The teams just below them in the table, in contrast, are watching their top talents fly the nest - Billy Mckay and the aforementioned Shinnie from ICT, Stuart Armstrong and Gary Mackay-Steven from Dundee United.

Oh, and don't forget the new stadium.  Stewart Milne suggested in August that the Dons could leave Pittodrie for a new state of the art ground at Loirston Loch by 2017.  And the club are in negotiations to purchase land from the local university to build a new training ground on.

Whether by accident or design, Aberdeen find themselves in a very strong position.  Celtic are miles ahead in terms of resources.  But with Rangers floundering (so much so that it's quite possible that they won't be promoted this season) there is a gap there for one of the so-called diddy teams to establish themselves as Scotland's second force.  At the moment, Aberdeen are in prime position to take that mantle.  If they can keep it, then they should be able to challenge Celtic next year, and the year after that, and maybe even get so close that there really is a proper title race.

It's certainly a far cry from the Mark McGhee era, isn't it?


Lawrie Spence (LS) has ranted and spouted his ill-informed opinions on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007.  He has a life outside this blog.  Honestly.