Aberdeen CEO Alan Burrows has stressed the club will only sign players in January who can positively impact the starting XI.
The Dons have been preparing well in advance of the upcoming transfer window as Jimmy Thelin aims to strengthen his squad.
Aberdeen already boast one of the strongest squads in the Premiership but are expected to spend next month in their attempts to tighten their grip on second place.
They’ve fallen away from Celtic in the title race and Rangers have closed the gap between second and third. With that, strengthening not just the squad but the starting XI is a priority in January.
Burrows says players have been identified by the recruitment team and confirmed the board are ready to back Thelin financially.
Aberdeen CEO on January transfer plans
He said: “The commitment from the Aberdeen board is to look to strengthen the team at every window. We always want to come out of a window in better shape than we went into it.
“This January window is no different to that. We’ll go into that window with a lot of work having been done already about identifying players for January.
“We have got areas we would like to strengthen the team in. The key emphasis is to make sure that if anybody is going to be brought in it is somebody who can really make an impact on the starting XI.
“That’s something Jimmy and our recruitment team have been looking at for quite some significant period of time ahead of this upcoming month. But January is also a notoriously tough window.
“If you look through the history of the January window, not just at Aberdeen but many clubs, the percentage of successes to failures are maybe slightly different as in the summer.
“So, we need to be quite specific on the areas we’re looking to recruit. The key is to improve the starting XI.”
How much could Aberdeen spend?
As Burrows alluded to, January isn’t a month when too many clubs can splash the cash. Top players are more difficult to come by and loans are usually better options than permanent deals.
But Aberdeen want to strengthen their starting XI futher, so loans are likely not going to be considered. The Dons spent over £1.5m in the summer and have plenty in the bank to add to that figure in January.
They raked in almost £6.8m from the sale of North Macedonian striker Bojan Miovski, so that can be ploughed back into the first-team if the right players can be brought to Pittodrie.