As the former Portsmouth striker’s Scottish difficulties persist, an Aberdeen defender jumps to Kusini Yengi’s defence, saying, “We’ve seen it.”
As the former Pompey striker’s difficult start to life at Pittodrie continues, defender Nicky Devlin has jumped to the support of Aberdeen teammate Kusini Yengi. The Australian has been the target of more criticism after his performance in Sunday’s 2-0 home loss to reigning Scottish Premiership champions Celtic, less than a week after former Celtic and Chelsea striker Chris Sutton criticised the former Fratton favourite for his performance in the Dons’ season-opener loss at Hearts.
The 26-year-old was replaced by manager Jimmy Thelin after just 55 minutes due to an unsatisfactory performance against Brendan Rodgers’ Bhoys, which included some terrible ball control late in the first half after some excellent work from teammate Topi Keskinen. Yengi, a former Western Sydney Wanderers attacker, played just over an hour in his complete debut at Tynecastle, which was seven minutes less than what he saw against Hearts. The next game for Aberdeen is the Scottish League Cup trip to Morton on Saturday.
It’s unclear if Yengi will start that match. Defender Devlin, meanwhile, thinks the forward has what it takes to be successful at Pittodrie. He maintained, nevertheless, that in order to capitalise on the striker’s strengths, he and his Dons teammates must perform better. “It’s probably important for the rest of us to give him more opportunity,” the full-back stated following Aberdeen’s 2-0 loss to Celtic, which drops Yengi & Co. to the bottom of the table. There were occasions when he had to be fed poor-quality balls. He was clearly having trouble because he was up against two large center-halves. I believe we need to play more to his strengths and get the ball in better areas.
It’s only his second game in the league, and this is his first experience being up here. Most likely, it’s more about other players helping him a little bit more and bringing the ball into situations where we know he can be dangerous. We’ve already witnessed it throughout practice and a few preseason games. Sometimes we need to play more to his strengths and get the ball into locations where we know he can cause problems for teams. “We wanted to start the first home game by accumulating points, but in the end, I don’t think we’ve done enough to cause Celtic any problems.”
After Pompey turned down the chance to prolong his two-year spell on the south coast by an additional 12 months, Yengi moved to Aberdeen this summer on a free transfer. The decision followed a forgettable 2024–25 season for the League One champion, who made just 14 appearances and failed to score for John Mousinho’s team due to injuries. The Australia international, who scored nine goals in 26 league games for Pompey when they were promoted back to the Championship in 2023–24, thought that moving to Scotland would be a wise decision.
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