The record · Completed season
2024-25
A strong start, a long collapse and the Scottish Cup — the most extreme swing in the record.
Expectations
The baseline going in
A top-four baseline after seventh place, with a new manager and a squad rebuild expected to take time. The previous season's cup final and European campaign raised the floor of expectation.
Top four and a cup run, with visible progress in style. This is an analyst-set baseline, not a published club target.
Jimmy Thelin took charge on 3 June 2024. The season began with a long unbeaten run, then produced only five wins in 27 games before the Scottish Cup final. Bojan Miovski was sold to Girona for a club-record £6.8 million in August 2024.
Measured
The league record
Manager records are league-only. Cup and European results are curated exit rounds, not match-level manager records.
The season
Managers and the within-season split
| Manager | Dates | Pld | W-D-L | GF | GA | Pts | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jimmy Thelin | 2024-08-05 – 2025-05-17 | 38 | 15-8-15 | 48 | 61 | 53 | 1.39 |
Interim spells are separate records. A match in a gap is not assigned to the nearest manager.
Cups
Domestic runs
- Scottish Cup · Winners won Beat Celtic 4-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the final on 24 May 2025.
- League Cup · Semi-final eliminated Lost 6-0 to Celtic at Hampden in November 2024.
Europe
Continental runs
Not in European competition.
Recruitment
What came in and went out
Estimated net is a range from public/reported fee anchors and a transparent age, position and market model. It is not an audited balance; free transfers count as zero fee and loan fees are excluded.
Source market
- scotland · 5 arrivals 26%
- england · 3 arrivals 16%
- europe · 10 arrivals 53%
- other · 0 arrivals 0%
- unknown · 1 arrivals 5%
1 arrival has no resolved source market.
Age at arrival
Median 23 · average 23.3 · coverage 100%.
Disclosed fees only. Undisclosed is never zero and is excluded from the totals. Age is shown only where a birth date is known.
Key business
Key business includes Bojan Miovski's club-record sale to Girona, Dimitar Mitov's arrival, Sivert Heltne Nilsen's arrival and Kevin Nisbet's loan. The full set is in the transfer register; key business is linked below. Full transfer register →
Style
How the season looked
Opponent-unadjusted team proxies from league match rows. Not xG and not a tactical model. Possession is provider-reported only.
The strong start and the long collapse are both part of the measured record. The page does not use the cup win to explain away the league run, or the league run to erase the cup win.
Possession is not shown unless the provider team-statistics backfill is available; it is never inferred.
Selection
Who played, and how old they were
Formation mix
- 4-2-3-1 · 41 fixtures (82%)
- No grid · 5 fixtures (10%)
- 4-4-2 · 2 fixtures (4%)
- 4-3-3 · 1 fixtures (2%)
- 5-4-1 · 1 fixtures (2%)
Top by starts
| Player | Starts | Mins |
|---|---|---|
| G. Shinnie | 40 | 3745 |
| N. Devlin | 34 | 3088 |
| D. Mitov | 33 | 2926 |
| T. Keskinen | 33 | 2741 |
| S. Heltne Nilsen | 33 | 2701 |
| J. MacKenzie | 31 | 2596 |
| L. Clarkson | 29 | 2618 |
| J. McGrath | 27 | 2334 |
| G. Molloy | 26 | 2314 |
| S. Rubežić | 26 | 2243 |
| K. Nisbet | 25 | 2274 |
Formation is the kick-off shape. Ages use the season roster or a known birth date; missing ages are excluded, not filled. Top-by-starts is not a claim that those players started together.
The lineup archive is available from the current career-role backfill for 2024-25; selection metrics are published where coverage allows.
Academy
Youth pathway
Curated debuts
No curated academy debut is recorded for this season.
Measured new players
- D. Mitov · 13 Jul 2024
- S. Heltne Nilsen · 13 Jul 2024
- G. Molloy · 13 Jul 2024
- P. Ambrose · 13 Jul 2024
- T. Keskinen · 25 Aug 2024
- K. Nisbet · 25 Aug 2024
- A. Palaversa · 25 Aug 2024
- K. Tobers · 15 Jan 2025
- J. Okkels · 15 Jan 2025
- A. Dorrington · 15 Jan 2025
- A. Jensen · 15 Jan 2025
- M. Knoester · 15 Feb 2025
- Oday Dabbagh · 15 Feb 2025
Curated debuts are explicit club/academy records. Measured new players are first appearances in the covered history, not career debuts.
Off the pitch
Staff changes
- 31 May 2024 Peter Leven · Interim manager OutInterim interim_end
- 3 Jun 2024 Christer Persson · Assistant manager In
- 3 Jun 2024 Jimmy Thelin · Manager In
The read · fitba assessment
An assessment, not a measurement
What worked. The Scottish Cup was won, the club sold Miovski for a club-record fee and the new manager produced a start that briefly looked like a step change. The cup final performance showed the squad could compete with the best team in the country.
What did not. The league run after the start was poor: only five wins in 27 games. The League Cup semi-final was a 6-0 defeat. The season did not produce a stable style or a settled league position.
The trade-off. The cup win and the league collapse are not separate stories. A squad good enough to win a final can still be too thin, too young or too inconsistent to hold a league season. The trading model's upside and its variance appear in the same season.
This is the record's central case. A fan can point to the Scottish Cup as proof that the project works, or to five wins in 27 as proof that it does not. Both are true descriptions of the same season. The value of the record is to keep them together and ask which parts are structural and which are variance.
Look ahead. The 2025-26 season would bring European league-phase football, a cup defence and a relegation worry, ending with Thelin's dismissal and Stephen Robinson's appointment.
Coverage
What is measured, curated and missing
- League record: available
- Manager records: league only
- Transfers: audited
- Lineups: partial · 50/51 fixtures
- Unattributed league matches: 0
League-only manager records. Cup/Europe runs are curated exit rounds. Selection is measured where historical lineups exist.
Sources: wikipedia · wikipedia · afc_news · wikipedia · wikipedia
← 2023-24 · 2025-26 → · The record · Results and fixtures
Provenance
How this page is sourced
Dataset 2026-10-27T12:06:31+00:00-c598315. Sources and coverage are listed below; the page keeps its own source and uncertainty labels.
- Cormack-era historical record · mixed · active
- League results, historical · football_data_uk · active
- Published transfer register · curated · active
- Medium and long-term themes · derived · active
Definitions: history.baseline · history.coverage · history.defeats · history.scorecard · history.season · history.season-document · history.staff
Corrections and changes are recorded on Corrections and contact.
Cite this page
Cormack era. Dataset 2026-10-27T12:06:31+00:00-c598315, as of 2026-10-27T12:06:31+00:00. Sources: mixed; football-data.co.uk; curated; derived. Definitions: history.baseline; history.coverage; history.defeats; history.scorecard; history.season; history.season-document; history.staff.