Smith's timely return

HAVING spent more time than he would like watching from the stand this season, Jamie Smith understands the Aberdeen fans' frustrations. Fickle performances, laudable one week, lamentable the next, are tougher to stomach when there is no way of influencing them.

The Pittodrie natives are growing increasingly restless now that UEFA Cup football is no longer an upbeat distraction from poor league results and their recent dismissal from the CIS Cup, but the attacking midfielder, who is fit again after his latest injury, refutes any suggestion that there is a lack of commitment in the camp.

"I can understand why they question it when we show we can perform against one of the biggest teams in European football, and perform to such a high level, but then, a couple of days later, they see the team giving nowhere near the same level of performance. We should be doing better – especially after we did so well last season – but no-one is more disappointed than the players with our league position. When you come off the pitch knowing that you've not got the result it's hard to take but it's not through a lack of effort. I would have something to say to anyone who questioned my commitment and I'm sure that most of my team-mates would be the same. As a team and as individuals we have set ourselves high standards after last season and after the way we have done in Europe we would expect to be doing better in the league but that's not been the case. We have four league games left before the split and they are all massive games."

Four victories would put them in with a good shout of squeezing into the top six and all are matches which, arguably, they should be expected to win, but the side have not managed to string together four league wins all season. The closest they came was three wins and a draw. The fact that came in the corresponding four fixtures in the first quarter of the season offers a sprinkling of hope. As does the return of Smith.

While the club has been hamstrung by inconsistency, he has been in and out the side with recurring hamstring strains. He trained this week and is expected to start against Celtic, in the Scottish Cup quarter-final at Pittodrie this afternoon, where his influence will be crucial.

The absence of key players, through injury, transfers and personal problems, is cited by manager Jimmy Calderwood as contributing to the topsy turvy nature of performances. Ally that to individual errors and he says the league position is understandable. That doesn't mean he likes it but he is more pragmatic than some in the stands who hurl abuse or others who have been ringing phone-ins or logging on to fans' internet forums demanding a change in management. They are unhappy at the constant tinkering with team selection and bewildered at the Jekyll and Hyde performances. He assures them they are not alone.

"I would love to stick to a 4-4-2 every week, with the same players because if I wasn't changing it, it must mean we were winning every week and that there were no injuries or suspensions," Calderwood says. "But, unfortunately, it doesn't happen like that.

"It is very, very difficult when all the players are not available or have not trained all week, others have a dip in form, and there is so much that goes in within a football club that the ordinary man in the street does not know about. One week alone I had four players in to see me with personal problems and people then want to know why they are not playing but it's difficult for me to come out and say why."

Add to that the on-off injuries to the likes of Smith, Derek Young, Jackie MacNamara and Darren Mackie and the loss of quality players such as Russell Anderson or the mid-season departures of first-team regulars Chris Clark and Michael Hart and a certain amount of re-jigging is necessary. But Calderwood, who has only recently signed a new deal himself, admits his own desire for the success the fans want, does prompt even more reshuffles.

"We want to get to where we want to get to quickly and if certain things happen or certain players can't take the demands put on them then it is time for us to make a decision."

Such demands and knee-jerk assessments are not foreign to the Pittodrie support. Having revelled in an era they fleetingly harked back to during the build up to and 90 minutes of the Bayern Munich match at Pittodrie, they have also been stung by some miserable memories over the past decade or so. But Calderwood has taken them forward. Even if this season there have been some stumbles along the way.

"We have been poor in the league but there are a lot of teams who would happily have been in our position; one semi-final, knock-out stages of the UEFA Cup, still in with a chance of top six and then we can see where that takes us and we are still in the quarter-final of the Scottish Cup.

"The fans expect us to be there challenging for the cups every year, in fact they expect us to be winning them every year, actually they expect us to be winning the league! In some ways it's marvellous but in other ways it's just an added pressure. But I don't like letting the supporters down. You see that atmosphere at Tynecastle a few weeks ago when we lost in the CIS Cup and it's not nice. But you also see the atmosphere in the last game of last season when we beat Rangers to get into Europe and hopefully we can give them more of that one. I know that this game against Celtic is just a quarter-final but if we win then we put the smile back on their faces for a wee while and they can all go home still dreaming of Hampden."

He will hope to do that after some tinkering with the team but as it's Smith who is likely to be coming back in, there are some alterations the fans will happily accept.