Image source, SNSTopi Keskinen excelled in attack as Aberdeen grabbed their 12th consecutive win in all competitions.
The Finnish winger got the best of Dundee defender Billy Koumetio twice in the first half, allowing him to assist striker Kevin Nisbet for the opener before lashing home his side's second of the afternoon.
Image source, SNSPape Habib Gueye has five goals in five league appearances this season
Jimmy Thelin is not aware of how serious Premiership top scorer Pape Habib Gueye's injury is.
"He unfortunately picked up an injury," the Dons boss told BBC Scotland.
"We are waiting for an assessment from the experts. We expect a clear answer by Monday.
"He has been really good and an important player for the team. The most important thing is that he gets back fit and healthy. We have to find solutions now."
Image source, SNSAberdeen skipper Graeme Shinnie (left) returns to the XI
There's a shock amongst Aberdeen's two changes as summer g Pape Habib Gueye, who has five goals in five league appearances this season, is absent from the Aberdeen match day squad this afternoon. The in-form forward is replaced by Finnish winger Topi Keskinen.
Club captain Graeme Shinnie returns to the XI following the Dons' League Cup quarter-final victory over Spartans - a move which ousts Ante Palaversa.
Returning to the match day squad is previously AWOL forward Duk, who has not played for the club since 19 May 2024.
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Dundee: McCracken, Ingram, Portales, C Robertson, Koumetio, Larkeche, Braybrooke, Sylla, Cameron, Murray, Tiffoney.
Substitutes: Carson, Astley, Mulligan, Main, Adewumi, F Robertson, Palmer-Houlden, Fraser, Vetro.
Aberdeen: Mitov, Devlin, Rubezic, Molloy, MacKenzie, Heltne Nilsen, Shinnie, McGrath, Clarkson, Keskinen, Nisbet.
Substitutes: Doohan, Duk, Besuijen, Palaversa, Sokler, Morris, Milne, MacDonald, Ambrose.
Image source, SNSDundee defender Jordan McGhee drops out with a calf injury but Scott Fraser, Charlie Reilly and Clark Robertson are back in contention. Joe Shaughnessy (knee) is a long-term absentee.
Aberdeen could have Duk in their match-day squad for the first time this season while Dante Polvara remains sidelined with a hamstring injury.
Seven games, only one start - with no goals - into his Aberdeen career, Pape Habib Gueye found himself so out in the cold he was shipped across the North Sea to the west coast of Norway.
As Bojan Miovski continued to rise above the Dons' managerial problems and poor form to win a summer move to La Liga with Girona, the 25-year-old Senegalese striker was plying his trade on loan to newly-promoted Kristiansund in a 4,400-capacity stadium.
The last of his four goals there came in a 3-1 win over Sarpsborg in June and, when he rounded off his 16-game stay in a 2-0 defeat away to Viking a month later, there were few signs that Gueye would be capable of filling the gaping hole left by the departed North Macedonia international.
However, six goals in eight games since, the striker who arrived last summer from Belgian club Kortrijk, has found a new lease of life under Jimmy Thelin and been central to Aberdeen's 11-game winning run under their new manager.
Indeed, he leads the Premiership scoring charts, his five goals being the most by a player in their first four league starts since Marc McNulty for Hibernian in February-March 2019.
Gueye will be relishing the opportunity to face a Dundee side on Saturday who have gone 10 league games, and seven overall, without a clean sheet and who have gone from nine games unbeaten to four without a victory.
However, the Dons have not won at Dens Park in their past three visits, their 1-0 defeat in March helping Dundee remain unbeaten in their three meetings last season following two draws at Pittodrie.
Winning this one would be the kind of result Gueye and Aberdeen, behind leaders Celtic only on goal difference, need to show they have what it takes to mount a surprise title challenge.
Image source, SNSAberdeen midfielder Leighton Clarkson is "excited" to face former Liverpool teammate Billy Koumetio when the Dons visit Dundee on Saturday.
The 22-year-old made his first start in nearly two months on Saturday as Jimmy Thelin's side advanced to the semi-finals of the Scottish League Cup with a 4-0 win at home to Spartans.
He is hoping to keep his place in the team this weekend and test himself against a familiar face in Koumetio, whom he spent five years with in Liverpool's academy.
"He's a lad that I know really well, I've played with him since I was about 16," said Clarkson.
"He's a good centre-half and I know all the qualities he can bring.
"When I heard he was coming up here, I spoke to him and I told him he's going to play football and learn the Scottish game.
"It's a good move for a lot of the English talent to come here. I'm excited to see him tomorrow."
Koumetio ed Dundee in the summer on a permanent two-year deal from Liverpool and took advice from a couple of his academy teammates before making the switch.
"This weekend, a player who I know [Clarkson] is playing for Aberdeen," said Koumetio.
"I have seen how he is performing in the league and how his game is going up and up and up.
"Before I came, I also spoke with Owen Beck, who did a good year, we all know that.
"I was on the phone with Owen before I came and everything he said I just saw it, I experienced it, so Owen was the one I took counsel from."
Image source, SNSJimmy Thelin has been speaking to the media in advance of Sunday's visit to Dens Park to face Dundee in the Scottish Premiership.
Here are the key lines from his press conference:
First team coach Peter Leven has been granted permission to speak to St Johnstone about their vacant managerial position.
Thelin wants him to stay at Aberdeen, but is happy that he is getting recognition for his good work from other clubs.
The decision is now up to Leven.
Thelin recognises that Dundee have a good coach in Tony Docherty. He expects a tough challenge and insists Aberdeen must be very competitive for 90 minutes.
The Swede believes that Docherty's side are "unified" and have quality and a clear identity. They are also quite direct and strong in second balls.
He added that competition for places is very high with players pushing each other in training every day. The league season doesn't finish until May so he wants all of the squad to contribute.
Image source, SNSJimmy Thelin has won all his games as Aberdeen manager so far
Aberdeen manager Jimmy Thelin's "distinct style of play" is what fans have been craving, says The Athletic's Jordan Campbell.
The Swede has won all of his first 11 matches in charge at Pittodrie and his side are level on points with Celtic at the top of the Scottish Premiership.
"Some of the fallacies sometimes about Scottish football fans is that there's such a lack of patience, that they won't buy into a long-term plan," Campbell told the BBC's Scottish Football Podcast.
"If we can see the idea and we can get behind it, then the fans will come with them.
"I think with Aberdeen, you've seen that already. They look like a really well coached team.
"I always think that results can go against you, but as long as you've got the performances and some consistency there, then the fans will get behind you.
"You're seeing Aberdeen with this high energy pressing and it's really causing teams a lot of problems.
"Aberdeen don't need to be able to beat Rangers and Celtic, they just need to be able to beat the best of the rest.
"That's what they're doing just now."
Dundee avoided defeat in all three of their league meetings with Aberdeen last season (W1 D2), picking up five points – as many as they had in their previous 17 such games against the Dons beforehand (W1 D2 L14).
Aberdeen have lost two of their last three league visits to Dundee (D1), this after winning six such trips in a row beforehand.
Dundee haven’t kept a clean sheet in any of their last 10 Scottish Premiership matches (23 goals conceded in this run), the longest ongoing streak of any side in the division.
Aberdeen have won all five of their league games this season and could become the first non-Old Firm club to win their opening six matches of a Scottish Premiership campaign since Aberdeen themselves in 2015-16 (first eight).
Aberdeen’s Pape Habib Gueye is the top scorer in the Scottish Premiership this season with five goals – the most by a player in their first four starts in the competition since Marc McNulty in February-March 2019 (also five).
Aberdeen manager Jimmy Thelin believes every player in his squad will be called upon this season. (Press and Journal - subscription), external
Liam McLeod
BBC Sport Scotland Commentator
When Aberdeen defeated Clyde in the Scottish Cup on the 19 January, it was their 11th victory of the season. This term, that feat has been achieved before September’s out.
That in itself is a stunning return and the fact they’ve all been strung together is all the more remarkable.
It is a feat that has only been achieved once before in Dons history, when Eddie Turnbull led the club to 15 on the bounce 54 years ago. It was something that eluded even Sir Alex Ferguson’s all-conquering side.
The last time they opened a league season with five successive wins was in 2015 -when they were victorious in their first eight - in what looked like a title challenge in the making, only for an inexplicable collapse during the autumn denting Derek McInnes’ hopes of toppling Ronny Deila’s unconvincing Celtic side.
Are things about to get trickier? Having watched a lot of Aberdeen this season, despite a relatively kind fixture list to kick the campaign off, they look like a side that knows exactly what it’s doing with a trip to face Dundee up next in front of an away that will be in excess of 4,000.
If Jimmy Thelin emerges from Dens Park victorious yet again, he will equal the Scottish record of 12 successive victories set by Martin O'Neill in 2000 when he went on to win a treble in his maiden season at Celtic Park.
After that, and ahead of the October international break, will be a visit from managerless Hearts who haven’t won at Pittodrie since 2016.
It was interesting to read that striker Kevin Nisbet feels the team hasn’t yet got to top gear. Certainly by the end of next month, the Dons will be hoping to have quietened down some sceptics in the media who have suggested they have yet to be truly tested.
Meanwhile, the League Cup win over Spartans on Saturday means they will return to Hampden to face tournament favourites Celtic in the semis, a team they haven’t beaten at the national stadium since 1992 when Eoin Jess took them through to the final of the same competition they will clash in.
There will be a sense of revenge in the air for some of the Aberdeen squad after last season’s Scottish Cup last-four thriller, which saw Brendan Rodgers’ side eventually prevail on penalties - an outcome that made it nine Hampden meetings without success over Celtic for Aberdeen.
Thelin will look at the next five league games ahead of that semi-final and feel he will know exactly what his side are made of by the end of them, with a trip to Celtic Park and Pittodrie battles with rivals Dundee United and Rangers before October’s over.
Image source, SNS"I hope he does well, but not too well. I don't like seeing Aberdeen too high up the table."
Former Rangers defender Joachim Bjorklund is "proud" of his compatriot, Jimmy Thelin, for the start he's made to his Aberdeen career and hopes he can set a template for future Swedish managers.
Thelin has 11 wins from 11 games, and is eyeing up Martin O'Neill's Scottish record of 12 successive victories in 2000.
Bjorklund, who is assistant manager at IFK Goteborg, told the BBC's Scottish Football Podcast Thelin has "developed a lot" as a manager.
"He did a really really good job at Elfsborg where he was for six or seasons before he left for Aberdeen," Bjorklund said. "Especially the last couple of years, they were one game away from winning the league. They met Malmo in the last game of last season and probably should have won it but squandered it away probably more the second last game so he nearly won the league here.
"Then he moves to Aberdeen in the summer and as you said, he's had great success and it's good for Swedish coaches because there's not too many out there, so if he's doing well, it might help all the other ones who wants to try a bit of international football as well.
"We are proud of him, and hope he's doing well, just not too well, because I don't like to see Aberdeen too high up the table, just for the sake of old rivalries!
"He's a good man. He did really, really well in Elfsborg, and I think he'll continue to have success in Aberdeen."
Listen and subscribe to the Scottish Football Podcast on BBC Sounds here
Aberdeen manager Jimmy Thelin has confirmed he wants to secure right-back Nicky Devlin on a new contract, with the 30-year-old's current deal expiring at the end of the season. (Press & Journal), external
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