Jimmy Thelin insists he can turn things around at Aberdeen despite winless start and mounting pressure

Jimmy Thelin remains steadfast in his belief that he can help Aberdeen overcome their dire start to the season and save his job.

The Swede is under heavy pressure ahead of Saturday’s trip to Motherwell as his side languish bottom of the William Hill Premiership with just one point and no goals from their opening five matches.

Although Thelin led the Dons to Scottish Cup glory in May, the fact he has overseen just five league wins since last November, while also exiting the Premier Sports Cup and Europa League this season, has led to speculation that his days in charge are numbered.

The embattled manager, however, is confident he still has the backing of chairman Dave Cormack.

“In football, in life, it’s not always easy, and it’s more how you react to this and what you do about things,” said Thelin. “We can control parts, how we work, what we need to change.

“Sometimes it’s tough, sometimes things go smoother, but there’s always hard work behind, so nothing has changed there.

“I am the responsible person, I am the manager of the football club, but I also have good staff, I still have the same procedure with my chairman. We talk more or less every day, and everybody is aligned how we want to fix this, and we still believe we can.

“That’s the most important, when you have this strong belief that we’re going to find a way out, then it’s just a case of doing the work to get the right results.”

Asked if he had been set any targets by Cormack with regard to saving his job, Thelin said: “No, no. We just focus on the games ahead of us.

“There’s a lot of noise, and again, you have to respect that, because we haven’t delivered results we expected ourselves, so of course the frustration, discussions, everything outside accelerates in these moments.

“You have to be stable, and you have to focus on the right things, so we don’t have to think about this and this, we focus just on what we need to do now to be better in the next training and the next game.”

Thelin acknowledged his players may be feeling the pressure of their situation but he has urged them to ignore the outside noise.

“For us it’s about how we want to be recognised as a team when our fans are talking about the team,” he said. “They should be proud of the intensity, the competitive side of the team, and that’s what we need to give them now. I feel like we haven’t reached that level yet, and we can’t wait for that.

“It’s a quite easy thing to fix if you just focus on the right things. Sometimes you have to respect that there can be pressure, and there can be noise, it can be media, it can be social media, and the players just need to focus on what they can control.

“The rest we can’t control. So we have to give our fans more about that on the pitch, and don’t get so infected with the noise.”