Christian Ramirez: Aberdeen have say on American's Pittodrie future in wake of social media post

Ramirez has been one of Aberdeen’s few bright points this season after scoring ten goals but he was dropped for last Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat to Livingston. The loss means Aberdeen still have work to do to secure their top-flight safety.

The Pittodrie side are five points clear of 11 th placed St Johnstone as they prepare to host bottom club Dundee tomorrow.

They have won just once since Goodwin replaced Stephen Glass in February while Ramirez has still to score under the new manager.

The striker was named on the bench last Saturday – for the first time he had not featured in the starting XI since a League Cup defeat at Raith Rovers in August.

He came on in the second half and Goodwin said he wanted to have “as many attacking players on the pitch as possible” against Dundee as Aberdeen bid to secure a vital three points.

But a question mark over Ramirez’s future emerged earlier this week when his wife Valerie posted a photo of herself and her husband on Instagram alongside a comment including the observation that living in Scotland “was hard”.

Many Aberdeen supporters interpreted this as a farewell message. There has already been speculation linking Ramirez with a return to Major League Soccer or else joining a club in England. The striker has another year of his contract to run.

Goodwin stressed that the 31-year-old has not communicated any unhappiness to him. “As far as I’m aware, Christian is under contract 'til the end of next season and he’s not come to tell me that he’s not happy or he’s not enjoying life at Aberdeen.

“Until that conversation is had, I’ll just assume that he’s quite happy here and giving his all for the team. He scored a number of important goals in the first half of the campaign. Since I came in, we haven’t given the big man maybe enough opportunities.

“But hopefully, between now and the end of the season, he’ll be able to go and score another couple of important goals and help us get back to winning ways.”

Goodwin suggested that Ramirez would return to the starting XI this weekend. “He’s had a great reaction (in training),” he said. “I actually thought he had a great reaction when he came off the bench against Livingston.

“The 20-25 minutes he had on the park, I thought he looked quite sharp.

"In fairness to the big man he has played a hell of a lot of football in the last 12 months. He has not had any break. Since joining from the MLS, he has played right through. I think that is probably having a bit of an impact on him.

"We are going to have to manage him as best we can between now and the end of the season. He is one of our more natural goalscorers and Saturday is a game we need to go and try and win.

“So we will try and get as many attacking players on the pitch as possible and give ourselves a chance of getting our noses in front.”