From the heady days of late summer into autumn, when Aberdeen were riding high and lighting up the Scottish Premiership, a cold harsh winter has now enveloped Jimmy Thelin and his team.
Expecting them to maintain the stunning form of 10 wins and a draw from their opening 11 league games was always unrealistic, but the decline during this run of seven winless games has been stark.
The 6-0 trouncing at the hands of Celtic in the League Cup semi-final at the start of November and a first league defeat to St Mirren a few weeks later seemed to spark a crisis of confidence amongst a squad that had made a habit of winning.
That early season momentum has stalled and the meek 4-0 surrender at Kilmarnock on Boxing Day – a defeat that could have been even uglier were it not for some good saves from Dimitar Mitov – was alarming.
“They have fallen off a cliff, to be honest with you,” said Aberdeen great Willie Miller on Sportsound. “It was an embarrassing result.
“It is difficult to pin it down. Their midfield is running out of energy. They went from a side managing to win games, or at least not lose, to free-fall.
“There are a number of aspects Thelin must sort out. I think he will get support from the board during the window. They have said all along that it is a long-term project.
“He deserves a little bit of time to bring in his own players and turn things around again. It is not a great situation to be in.”
‘We must apologise to the fans’
Thelin is not a man you would want sitting across from you at the poker table. Whether his side are riding high or down in the dumps, the Swede portrays the same calm demeanour.
Just as he resisted any notion of getting carried away when Aberdeen made their blistering start to the campaign, in recent weeks he has been steadfast in his refusal to allow any panic to set in as the winning touch began to elude his team.
After the Rugby Park rout, however, the manager knew there were no positives to be taken from such a dismal display.
“You can win games, you can draw games, you can lose games. But the way we lost today was not resistant enough or competitive enough,” Thelin told BBC Scotland.
“We had a big away support here a day after Christmas. We did not do enough. We must apologise to our supporters. I hope this was our worst performance of the season and it will not happen again.
“We have to compete more and do much better. We were not good enough.”
You can point to any number of factors as to why Aberdeen have hit the skids in recent weeks.
Having averaged 2.2 goals a game in their opening 11 matches, they are now averaging just a goal a game in this wretched winless run.
The defensive stats do not make for any better reading. Having averaged a meagre 0.91 goals conceded when they were flying, they are now leaking an average of 2.1 a game.
It all adds up to a team that has lost the confidence and belief to carry them through tough games.
The lack of fight identified by Thelin is what will sting the players and infuriate the Aberdeen fans the most. Now the manager must find a way to rediscover what made his team such a formidable force in the early months of the season.
“This is football sometimes,” Thelin said. “Some bad periods and good periods. But today was too low. Hopefully this was rock bottom and we are on the way up.
“We can’t hide. We need to hold our heads high and prepare for the next game. It is our job to make the performance better.”
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