Aberdeen Revival: A Real Recipe for Success or Just Unsustainable Good Fortune?

Is the Aberdeen Revival Truly a Recipe for Success or an Unsustainable Run?

For the last few weeks, Pittodrie has rediscovered an old favourite tune. One-nil to the Aberdeen. Say it often enough and it starts to sound like a mantra rather than a scoreline — and that’s exactly what’s happening in the north-east. Sunday’s gritty victory at Livingston was the Dons’ fourth 1–0 win in six Scottish Premiership matches, a run that has sparked cautious optimism, raised eyebrows, and forced a legitimate question: is this Aberdeen revival a genuine recipe for success, or are these narrow wins simply unsustainable?

Manager Jimmy Thelin has certainly shaken things up. The switch from a 4-2-3-1 to a 3-4-2-1 has injected stability at the back and confidence throughout the team. Five clean sheets in seven domestic outings tell their own story. So does the league table: Aberdeen, once rooted to the bottom, now sit seventh, just three points off a top-six place. Only Celtic and Rangers have collected more points across the last eight league games. For a club that spent September and October searching for identity, this has been nothing short of a revival.

And yet, as with any unexpected purple patch, there’s a flip side.

Defensively solid. Offensively blunt. A pattern so clear you could trace it with a ruler.

The Steel Behind the Aberdeen Revival

Thelin didn’t hide his admiration for his team’s defensive character after edging out Livingston. And he was right not to. For much of the first half at Almondvale, Aberdeen were hanging on. Livingston — winless since August but energetic and aggressive — dominated possession, created chances and forced the Dons backwards. Ten shots, seven inside the penalty area, and a clear lack of composure on the ball from the visitors created an uneasy storyline.

But Aberdeen stayed in the fight. They dug in. They refused to buckle.

“That defending gave us a chance,” Thelin admitted afterwards. “Even when Livingston were better, we stayed in the game and found balance in the second half. The character was important.”

The back three of Nicky Devlin, Jack Milne and Mats Knoester have formed the backbone of this revival. All three players represent different stages of their careers, but together they’ve become the stabilising force Aberdeen were crying out for.

Milne, only 22, continues to grow in confidence, offering a mix of bravery and positional awareness. His collision with the post to stop what looked like a guaranteed Livingston goal said everything about the current attitude in this Aberdeen side. Knoester was a magnet for danger, ending the match with an astonishing tally of 12 clearances and seven aerial wins. Devlin, meanwhile, not only threw himself in front of Livingston striker Tete Yengi at one end but scored the winner at the other. It was an utterly committed performance from a player who has been one of Thelin’s most reliable pieces this season.

The contrast with early-season Aberdeen is stark. Back then, they were porous, uncertain, out of sync. Now they sit behind only Hearts and Celtic for clean sheets. Thelin insists that Europe, fixture congestion and squad transition played a part in their earlier stumbles — and he’s not wrong. But the real test lies ahead. Aberdeen now enter a brutal run: six games in 18 days. Character, resilience and organisation will again be the foundations if points are going to keep coming.

Is the Lack of Punch Going to Cost Them?

But here’s the part Aberdeen fans cannot ignore: the team is scoring too few goals to make this style sustainable for long. The numbers don’t lie. Ten league goals in 13 matches — only one team has scored fewer. They haven’t scored more than once in their last nine games. They rank ninth in the Premiership for open-play chance creation, and nobody puts fewer passes or crosses into the opposition box. To make matters worse, when they do cross, the accuracy is the worst in the division. Their shot conversion rate? Just 6.4%. Only St Mirren convert fewer.

In other words, Aberdeen are not just lacking volume in attack — they’re lacking quality as well.

This is where the debate becomes interesting. Thelin, during his successful spell with Elfsborg, relied heavily on wingers for creativity and goals. But in the current 3-4-2-1, his natural wide players — Nicolas Milanovic, Topi Keskinen, Jesper Karlsson, Kenan Bilalovic — are either coming off the bench or playing in congested central zones where they can’t run at defenders or stretch the pitch. Instead, the width must come from wing-backs.

That’s fine in theory. In practice, it has been difficult. Emmanuel Gyamfi has struggled to stay fit, leaving Alexander Jensen and even captain Graeme Shinnie playing out of position on the left. Dylan Lobban has been a breath of fresh air down the right — energetic, brave and willing to take risks — but relying on a 20-year-old to be your primary creative outlet is far from ideal.

The return of Sivert Heltne Nilsen at Livingston raised eyebrows among supporters. At 34, and often criticised for his lack of mobility, he seemed an odd choice for a system built around counter-attacking and energy. Perhaps it was rotation. Perhaps it was necessity. Perhaps it was trust. But either way, it highlighted the reality: Aberdeen do not currently have enough midfielders consistently performing well enough to make selection difficult.

Passing accuracy dropped to 72% at Livingston, and dipped to just 60% in the final third. Thelin keeps preaching composure, responsibility, calmness — traits Aberdeen show defensively but rarely in possession. For long stretches, they struggle to string together sustained attacks.

And with an exhausting fixture list ahead, the question becomes this: can Aberdeen improve their offensive fundamentals in the middle of such a demanding schedule?

So… Success or Unsustainable?

The truth is that both can be true. Aberdeen’s defensive transformation under Thelin is real. The work rate is real. The desire is real. Their ability to suffer through difficult moments and still take points is a quality top-six teams usually possess.

But the lack of attacking threat is also real — and without improvement, the 1-0 wins will dry up.

The next three weeks will reveal much. St Mirren visit Pittodrie on Wednesday. Then come the festive fixtures. The games will be fast, the recovery time minimal, the pressure unrelenting. If Aberdeen can keep grinding through this period, they’ll earn the right to strengthen in January from a position of stability rather than desperation.

Right now, the revival is real. But whether it becomes a true recipe for long-term success — or fades as quickly as it arrived — depends on what happens next.