How Jimmy Thelin’s Aberdeen Tactics Exposed Philippe Clement’s Rangers

Aberdeen faced Rangers in the 10th fixture of the 2024/25 Scottish Premiership season and won 2-1.

This match enabled Aberdeen to join Celtic at the top of the standings with 28 points each.

Holding the top spot alongside Celtic with just the goal difference favouring The Bhoys represents a very positive overall start of the season for Aberdeen as theyve won nine games, drawn once and succeeded in avoiding losses until now.

These results make them concrete challengers for the league title, which they have not won since 1984/85 under Sir Alex Ferguson.

Therefore, winning against Rangers and drawing against Celtic in this first phase will surely impact Jimmy Thelins team positively and make them believe further in their ability to challenge seriously for the title in the playoffs, as they were already able to win and draw against the top teams of the league.

The teams challenge, however, is to know how to remain consistent until reaching the playoffs in order to achieve the same positive results during that phase, too.

This would bring them closer to reaching the title or holding a position that qualifies them for one of the European tournaments.

Another test will await the team on Saturday to further evaluate Aberdeen’s powerful start to the season.

The team will face Celtic once again, but in a different tournament: the Scottish League Cup semi-final.

If Aberdeen succeeds in knocking Celtic out of this tournament, it would consolidate the idea that Aberdeen is a concrete challenger for the league title this season.

However, for Rangers, things are not as good as for Aberdeen since the team has already lost three games against Kilmarnock, Aberdeen, and Celtic.

They hold the third position with 19 points, nine points away from both Aberdeen and Celtic.

This means that Rangers will have to recover as soon as possible, make up for their three losses by putting on more convincing performances, and avoid dropping more points in the remaining portion of this first phase.

It should be noted that Rangers’s UEFA Europa League journey is still blurry as well since they won against Malmö, lost 1-4 against Lyon at home, and won 4-0 against FC Steaua București.

Rangers will need to be more consistent in terms of results both in the Scottish Premiership and in the UEFA Europa League to regain their confidence and improve in both the defensive and attacking phases.

In this tactical analysis article, we will explore Aberdeen’s strengths and how they beat Rangers.

The analysis will also examine the Rangers’ tactics to address their issues and focus on what they need to fix to avoid losing similar games in the league.

Aberdeen Vs Rangers Lineups

Jimmy Thelin succeeded in surprising most of the Scottish Premiership followers with the results he achieved at the start of this season so far and with the convincing performances the team has put on thanks to the constant 4-2-3-1 formation with Dimitar Mitov as a goalkeeper, Nicky Devlin, Slobodan Rubežić, Gavin Molloy and Jack MacKenzie in defence, Graeme Shinnie and Sivert Heltne Nilsen as central midfielders, Topi Keskinen and Duk as wingers, and Jamie McGrath as an advanced playmaker behind the team’s striker, Ester Sokler.

On the other hand, Philippe Clement’s side failed to win the game, knowing that he started it using the 4-2-3-1 formation as well with Jack Butland as a goalkeeper, James Tavernier, John Souttar, Leon Balogun and Neraysho Kasanwirjo in defence, Connor Barron and Nicolas Raskin as central midfielders, Ross McCausland and Nedim Bajrami as wingers, Tom Lawrence as an advanced playmaker and Cyriel Dessers as a striker.

Rangers Issues & Needed Improvements

With 14 shots, three of them on target, Rangers did not trouble Aberdeen’s goal.

On the contrary, Rangers did reach the box on numerous occasions but failed to score when they needed to, as Philippe Clement himself said in his post-match interview,  We have to be clinical in the final third.”

Rangers were predict