JIMMY Calderwood insists he is excited at the prospect of working with a new squad of players next season at Aberdeen.
The manager is making wholesale changes following the disappointing league campaign and has been scouring England and Holland in his search for replacements. Jackie McNamara’s departure yesterday for family reasons created another vacancy in the first-team squad but Calderwood is relishing the task of finding at least 12 new players.
He said: “It will be exciting to work with new players next season. My aim is to have all the new players here for pre-season and I would hope most will be here before I go on holiday.
“I would hate to start pre-season with 14 players. We are well down the road of recruiting two or three players. We are aiming to have 18 senior players next season and eight under-21s who will form the first-team squad.
“The under-21 players will be the standard of Sone Aluko, Chris Maguire and Josh Walker but that will be easier to arrange than bringing in experienced players.â€
Calderwood believes the lack of players at the club this season has been a factor in the inconsistent league displays and highlighted the problems reserve coach Sandy Clark is having in putting a squad together for today’s game against Motherwell at Glebe Park as an example.
He said: “Jamie Smith, Jackie McNamara and Darren Mackie have been out for five months this season while Richie Byrne has been out for longer. That has brought our squad down to 20 straight away. We have had players playing for the first team on a Saturday and then the reserves on a Tuesday which is not ideal. We have 40 players at the club to cover three teams and right now we have 13 injured.â€
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