We Need To Relax At Home

Nov 4 2007 By Euan Mclean

JIMMY NICHOLL reckons Aberdeen have been hopeless at home this season because players are still suffering the mental scars from the bad old days at Pittodrie.

The Dons assistant boss swelled with pride as the boys who had been accustomed to heavy defeats while breaking through under Ebbe Skovdahl became men in the Ukraine when they overcame Dnipro to make the UEFA Cup group stages.

But while Nicholl believes they should relish stepping on to their own pitch he insists the fear factor is holding them back.

The midweek 4-1 League Cup thumping of Inverness was just Aberdeen's third win out of eight home games in all competitions this season, excluding yesterday's clash with Dundee United.

Now their toughest test yet looms on Thursday with Lokomotiv Moscow arriving on UEFA Cup duty - and Nicholl (below) says success depends on the players banishing Pittodrie's ghosts.

He said: "In each of the three years Jimmy Calderwood and I have been here these boys have made progress. We have a seam of lads - Michael Hart, Zander Diamond, Andrew Considine, Ricky Foster, Chris Clark, Darren Mackie and Derek Young - who all camethrough at a young age.

"After all they endured so early with the threat of relegation and taking regular hammerings from Celtic I'm delighted to see how far they have come. They became men that night in the Ukraine against Dnipro.

"But there is still apprehension at Pittodrie and perhaps that is mental scarring from what these boys went through early on.

"In our first year here teams didn't respect us and we were actually the counter-attacking side at home. The second year opponents saw our boys were getting a grip of themselves and were hard to break down.

"Now you have to pick the right pass and if you have two bad ones the fans are down your throat which makes the players jittery. After finishing third last year the lads should be confident and put this apprehension behind them. But we've been hopeless at home.

"We have come a long way but it's still not right at Pittodrie although I'm not blaming the fans. It's up to the players to relax more in home matches."