'Down to all Dons to help Yengi flourish'

BBC News

4 hours ago

Aberdeen full-back Nicky Devlin says it is down to all of the squad to help struggling striker Kusini Yengi get to grips with life at Pittodrie.The summer arrival from Portsmouth had another testing afternoon against Celtic and a poor Scottish Premiership debut against Hearts the week prior, with his side losing both games 2-0.The 26-year-old arrived at Aberdeen on a free transfer on the back of a barren second season in front of goal with Portsmouth, although he did net twice for Australia in a World Cup qualifier against Bahrain.Devlin said: "It's probably important for the rest of us to give him more opportunity. There were times he was having to feed off balls that weren't great quality into him."He was fighting against two big centre-halves, which was obviously making it difficult for him. I think we have to probably get the ball in better areas, play more to his strengths."It's his first taste of being up here, it's only his second game in the league. It's probably more about other people doing a wee bit more to support him and getting the ball into areas that we know he can be dangerous."We've seen it in training already, we've seen it in some of the pre-season games. We have to play more to his strengths at times, get the ball into areas that we know he's going to hurt teams."We wanted to start the first home game with picking up points, but ultimately I don't think we've done enough in the game to trouble Celtic."Aberdeen now face a wait to return to top-flight action and climb off the foot of the table, with their next fixture on August 31 against Falkirk, owing to their League Cup and European commitments.