Aberdeen

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• Aberdeen have failed to score in 13 of their 29 games, only Ross County (15) and Livingston (14) have failed to score more often in the Scottish Premiership this season.

• Dundee have beaten Aberdeen for the first time in the Scottish Premiership since 16th October 2021, a run of four games without a win.

• Dundee have scored in their last six games in the Scottish Premiership, their joint longest scoring streak this season.

• Luke McCowan has scored eight goals this season, more than any other Dundee player in the Scottish Premiership.

• Aberdeen have lost their last four games in the Scottish Premiership, their last joint longest losing streak was from 17 December 2022 to 28 December 2022.

Gary Scott
Fan writer

Just where to start with another crazy week as a fan of Aberdeen?

A comfortable 3-1 win over Kilmarnock on Saturday that saw Aberdeen progress to the Scottish Cup semi-finals felt like a natural launchpad for the Dons. A result they could take confidence from and start to put some results together in the league.

Instead, interim manager Neil Warnock walked out the door in the immediate aftermath and what has followed has been an unmitigated disaster.

A hastily cobbled together statement on Saturday indicated that the search for a new manager was “at an advanced stage”.

Just a day and a half later, another club statement advised that interviews were only due to commence this week with a view to an appointment being made during the upcoming international break.

The contradictory nature of those statements sum up the last four years when it comes to decision making and communication.

Dave Cormack famously stated that “we may be wrong, but we’d never be confused” when it came to decision making. Right now, it’s hard not to form the view that the club’s senior hierarchy are indeed confused and wrong.

Every major decision on the football side of the club in recent years has been procrastinated over, muddled and botched.

The decision to appoint Stephen Glass and provide him with little in the way of support from a recruitment perspective, the decision to leave Jim Goodwin in charge following the ignominious defeat to Darvel, and then the dithering to replace him which forced the club's hand into giving Barry Robson the job on a permanent basis.

Spare a thought for Peter Leven. He previously indicated to the board that he didn’t want to take on the interim role for longer than the Celtic game that he oversaw in the immediate aftermath of Barry Robson’s departure; now he has been landed with the role again for at least two games – one of which saw a desperate Aberdeen performance on Wednesday evening as the Dons were extremely fortunate to leave Dens Park with just a single goal defeat.

Leven was visibly angry and called out the squad in his post-match interviews but it is worrying that only now does this expensively assembled squad realise they are in a relegation fight.

Many of us have been saying since mid-December that we were sleepwalking towards a relegation battle. County’s late equaliser against Hibs on Wednesday now puts Aberdeen well within striking distance for the Staggies as we head for home.

You can find Gary Scott on ABZ Football Podcast, external.

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Aberdeen have expressed their disappointment after a failed request for an even split of tickets for their Scottish Cup semi-final against Celtic.

The Dons will receive 19,000 tickets, with Celtic taking around 25,000 supporters to Hampden Park.

The club say the decision from the Scottish FA was "based primarily on historical ticket sales at this stage of the competition".

The match is to be broadcast on BBC One Scotland, with a 12:30 BST kick-off on Saturday, 20 April.

We asked for your thoughts after Aberdeen slumped to yet another league defeat, this time away to Dundee.

It's fair to say you weren't best pleased:

Niall: I've now run out of positive comments on this Aberdeen squad. With so much at stake the performance was so insipid, yet another very soft penalty and another loss. The pre-split games against Ross County and Livingston will now define how severe the Dons plight will be. It's a truly sad situation but reality now.

Paul: What is it going to take to get these players interested? Absolutely awful from every single one of them. Right now we are going down as I can't see this spineless lot turning things around.

Adam: These players are absolutely pathetic. They don't deserve the backing of the fans who have spent so much hard-earned money to watch this shower of rubbish week in week out. They clearly don't care about getting relegated so why should we care about backing them.

Mikey: Absolutely pathetic performance. No heart, no soul, no creativity. Couldn’t string two passes together the whole evening. The penny needs to drop real soon from the board to the coaching team to the players. This is getting abysmal.

Mike: Bereft of any confidence. I fear for the team, and cannot see us winning another game. We look doomed, too many years of poor management from Dave Cormack has caught up with us - we’re the worst team in the league right now.

Euan: All credit to Dundee who were by far the better team. Aggressive, disciplined and committed. All the things Aberdeen were not. Cormack has to pull the trigger on the current set-up and bring in proper Scottish footballing people to work with the new manager.

Andy: Anyone who thought we would get a bounce from Saturday's cup win was sadly mistaken. Yet an another meek performance. At half-time the stats showed that the Dons had committed only one foul, and this is from a side battling relegation. Some might point to the VAR decision but that's grasping at straws. It's a side with no fight in them.

Craig: The club is in disarray. Every decision from managerial hires, signings, internal structure changes have always been reactive, never proactive. The club have never had a manager with real pedigree and proven success at a good level under Cormack. He needs to identify one and spend big to get him in.

IF Elfsborg manager Jimmy Thelin is a contender for the Aberdeen job, with the Pittodrie board weighing up an approach for the 45-year-old Swede. (Scottish Sun), external

Aberdeen are to demand a 50/50 split of tickets for their Scottish Cup semi-final with Celtic at a meeting with the SFA this morning, having been denied a similar allocation for their League Cup semi with Rangers in December by the SPFL. (Press & Journal, external - subscription required)

Read the rest of Thursday's Scottish gossip.

Image source, Getty Images

Were you at Aberdeen's 1-0 loss at Dundee or following the match from home? Either way, we want your views on the game – have your say here.

Aberdeen interim manager Peter Leven: "Not good enough. Started poor, our passing was poor, decision making was really poor. We never picked up second balls.

"Second half, started bright, created a few chances and obviously the VAR decision went against us and it just killed us.

"We look nervous, we look panicky on the ball. We've won games in Europe and the cups and then inconsistent form in the league has killed us this season.

"We're in trouble. We've got a massive game on Saturday [against Motherwell] but the games are running out."

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Andy Campbell
BBC Scotland

Manager Neil Warnock's whirlwind spell in charge of Aberdeen lasted eight games, including two cup wins and none in the league. The overall stats do not make good reading for the Dons with 0.93 points per league game after 29 fixtures.

Leadership is needed both on and off the pitch with a relegation fight an increasing prospect following Ross County's draw at home to Hibernian. Aberdeen also have a Scottish Cup semi-final with holders Celtic on the horizon.

Bojan Miovski was too isolated in attack but still managed to create openings and win set pieces for his side. Servicing and supporting the prolific striker will be crucial if caretaker Peter Leven or his successor are to make something of the season.

Former Aberdeen striker Lee Miller reflects on Neil Warnock's short tenure at Pittodrie.

Tyrone Smith
BBC Sport Scotland

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Aberdeen defender Angus MacDonald says he found out that manager Neil Warnock was leaving an hour before Saturday's Scottish Cup tie with Kilmarnock.

Warnock, who was appointed at the start of last month, announced to the media that he would be moving on in the immediate aftermath of the Dons' 3-1 win.

However MacDonald described how the news was broken to the players ahead of the crucial game.

"There were rumours," MacDonald said. "[Warnock] came and did his team talk and announced it but the lads have been brilliant, they have been brilliant all season, we stayed focussed.

"You don’t really get that too often - to hear the manager is leaving before you are about to go out and play quite an important game.

"We all just thought like ‘right we all need to stick together'. Managers come in all the time, managers go all the time, we are all professional athletes and we have got to stick to our job first and foremost."

Aberdeen are now looking for what will be their third manager of the season.

MacDonald insists the uncertainty off the pitch will have no impact on it, as they look to reignite their faltering league campaign at Dundee on Wednesday night.

"This season we are used to it as a team," he said. "We have had a lot of uncertainty with the manager, but the lads have dealt tremendously well with that.

"We know we have got two massive games to hopefully go and turn our season around."

Liam McLeod
BBC Sport Scotland

The headlines were stolen by Neil Warnock’s bamboozling 33 days in charge coming to an end almost as bizarrely as his appointment in the first place, but Aberdeen’s journey to a second semi-final of the season should be noted for two reasons.

The first being that it is a return to Hampden Park for a third time in what has been a strange campaign of progress in the domestic knock-out tournaments yet huge regression in the league. And secondly, it may be the spark they needed to finish what could still be a very memorable season for the right reasons.

The 3-1 win over Kilmarnock was deserved and was their best performance by some distance since the 3-0 victory at Ross County at the start of the year which promised much for the second half of the campaign, promise that has dissolved week upon week in the Premiership ever since.

The Dons have come in for massive criticism in recent weeks and months, and that has generally been deserved, but this was much better.

The performances, in particular, of Jack MacKenzie, Junior Hoilett, Killian Phillips, Connor Barron, Jamie McGrath and captain Graeme Shinnie were a real driving force behind the victory against a side they hadn’t scored against let alone beaten in three previous attempts.

It turned out to be Warnock’s parting gift as, barely half an hour after the final whistle, he was off for reasons unknown and through a haar of mixed messaging.

The 75-year-old intimated that a successor was close to being appointed, saying “they need to get a new manager in now” and “they’re well down the line”, before the club issued a statement suggesting that interviews were still to take place.

Peter Leven will take charge for Wednesday’s massive encounter at Dundee with the prospect of being just a point above the play-offs a possibility if Ross County beat Hibernian at the same time.

With a trip to Motherwell to come after Dens Park before focus returns to the international scene, Aberdeen could be 10 points clear of trouble and looking up the table with a new manager in post or in deep trouble.

Aberdeen defender Angus MacDonald wants an even allocation of tickets for the Scottish Cup semi-final against Celtic. (Press & Journal), external

Read the rest of Wednesday's Scottish gossip.

Image source, BBC Sport

There are no fresh injuries for Aberdeen, with defender Slobodan Rubezic about four weeks away from returning to action.

Trevor Carson remains unavailable for Dundee after sitting out the draw with Kilmarnock with the recurrence of a knee injury, with Josh Mulligan has picked up a hamstring injury.

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• Dundee have won just one of their last 26 league meetings with Aberdeen (D7 L18), a 2-1 victory in October 2021 under James McPake.

• Aberdeen are without a win in their last seven away league visits to newly promoted opponents (D3 L4) since a 3-1 win at Ross County in November 2019. Two of these seven winless away games came against Dundee, losing 1-2 in October 2021 and drawing 2-2 in April 2022.

• After losing three consecutive home matches in the Scottish Premiership between November and February, Dundee are since unbeaten in their last three (W2 D1) and are looking to make it four on the bounce without defeat at home for the first time since October 2023 (run of seven).

• Aberdeen have lost each of their last four away league games, conceding two goals in all four defeats and could lose five successive such games for only the second time since the start of 2011 (also did so between October 2022 and February 2023 – 7 games).

• Aberdeen’s Bojan Miovski has netted 13 times this season, with only Hearts’ Lawrence Shankland (20) and Rangers’ James Tavernier (14) scoring more than the Macedonian.

We asked who you'd like to see named as the next manager of Aberdeen following Neil Warnock's shock departure on Saturday.

Here's a taste of what you had to say:

Gordon: We need a proper football coach who understands modern styles of play and can procure players who fit the team pattern. Mark Fotheringham's CV looks excellent, let's give him a try. If not, Michael O'Neill has coached some good sides. Not Stephen Robinson after the Jim Goodwin fiasco.

Paddy: I have said it since Derek McIness left, Alex Neil is the man for the job.

Colin: Don't care who it is as long as it isn't Neil Lennon and they have experience of managing good clubs.

Anon: I think we need someone who can get us out of this mess we are in. I would go for Neil Lennon.

Alison: Jurgen Klopp would do nicely.

Marti: If it's Neil Lennon then I know a lot of people won't be back as I heard lots of disgruntled opinions about him on Saturday. We can't take a chance with Mark Fotheringham. It needs to be someone who either is proven in Scottish football or go abroad. Dave Cormack NEEDS to get this one right or walk himself.

Sandy: Get the humble pie out of the freezer and grovel to Derek McInnes and give him the money the other managers got. Definitely not Neil Lennon.

Joe: Son of Fergie, Darren Ferguson is the man for the job. Proven managerial record, knows the expectations and would relish the challenge. Surely one to consider. Forget Lennon - Celtic through and through.

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Aberdeen caretaker manager Peter Leven says he "learned a lot" from his short time working with Neil Warnock.

The Englishman was at the Dons for just 33 days for his spell in interim charge, but Leven says he benefitted from the experience and revealed Warnock's parting words.

"[Warnock] said, ‘go and do your thing, you are a top coach and I loved working with you', and he is always there if needed," Leven said.

"I learned a lot from him in a short time, his man managements skills. A lovely man and I wish him all the best.

"Him and Ronnie were great with me and just to spend that time with him, someone who has been in the Premier League for so long, in the Championship, all the games he has managed, just to get that information from his for the time he was here was really good."

Tyrone Smith
BBC Sport Scotland

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Aberdeen caretaker manager Peter Leven has been speaking to the media ahead of Wednesday night's Scottish Premiership trip to play Dundee.

Here are the best bits from his press conference:

• Leven said he is "a little bit" surprised to find himself back in caretaker charge.

• Said he is happy to step in to the breach: "I said I would always help the club in any way I can, and obviously it is my second time this season."

• Revealed he has been "told to take the next two games", as the club continues to go through a "rigorous process" to find the next permanent manager.

• Leven wished Neil Warnock "all the best" and says he "learned a lot from him in a short time".

• Says the mood around the place is good and "spirits are high", pointing out that despite the latest managerial change, the core of the coaching staff is still there.

• Leven wants the players to take the positives from Saturday's cup win over Kilmarnock into the Dundee game.

• Team news: There are no fresh injuries; Slobodan Rubezic is about four weeks away from returning.

Aberdeen fans, with Neil Warnock's tenure as interim boss lasting just 33 days and rumours swirling over who might replace him at Pittodrie, who would you like to see brought in?

Send us your thoughts here.