'Thelin will arrive at Pittodrie with positivity in the air'
For Aberdeen fans, the highs of this season were some of the best they will have experienced in recent years. However, the lows of a frankly baffling campaign are what will be remembered.
An insipid start set the tone for a disappointing bottom-six Premiership finish. The Dons failed to win any of their first five league outings, winning just three of their opening 14. They were on the back foot from the start.
However, during that run there was a victory away to Rangers, a League Cup semi-final win over Hibernian with 10 men and there was Dante Polvara’s equaliser in Frankfurt.
The return to European group-stage football for the first time since 2007 provided a welcome distraction at the time for the supporters.
Much like the season as a whole though, what promised much, ultimately delivered little. It is still bamboozling as to why then-manager Barry Robson made a triple substitution when the team was cruising at 2-0 up with 17 minutes to play against PAOK before imploding and losing 3-2.
The League Cup final was also a big opportunity missed for the club. Against a Rangers side they had already beaten in Glasgow, and who had played an energy-sapping Europa League game in Spain less than 72 hours earlier, Aberdeen approached the game with real timidity and got what they deserved.
Robson’s post-match comments went down like a pint of warm, out-of-date milk with Aberdeen fans.
Robson left just over a month later with just six wins in 21 league matches and Peter Leven stepped in for a credible draw with Celtic where a deflection denied them a long-awaited victory over the champions.
The Neil Warnock show arrived the day after and was an ill-advised error in judgement by the board. The veteran Englishman failed to win a league game during his brief tenure though he was responsible for the arrival of Junior Hoilett.
Leven took over again, but his ship-steadying came too late to sail the club into the top six.
He did almost mastermind an unlikely Scottish Cup semi-final win over Celtic. Ryan Duncan’s penalty in the shoot-out might have gone differently had Kelle Roos not made him wait for several minutes as he struggled with cramp in the penalty area.
The conclusion to the season has at least ensured that new manager Jimmy Thelin will arrive with positivity in the air, and how he must hope that he will get the chance to work with the club's player of the season and top-scorer Bojan Miovski.
The North Macedonia international has two years left on his contract and it will take a huge fee to chisel him away from Pittodrie this summer.
The legacy of this campaign will be a place in the League Cup group stage in July. It will be the likes of Forfar instead of Frankfurt, and Hamilton instead of Helsinki, but those who follow the club on a weekly basis will hope that lessons have been learned and stability lies ahead.
