At your service on and off the park

“Faiss has taken me under his wing and looked after me ...

Not just charged with feeding on loan Aberdeen player Bruce Anderson with goalscoring opportunities, Faissal El Bakhtaoui is also responsible for cooking for his new flat mate. After only a fortnight at the club the young Don said:-

“Faiss has welcomed me in and is looking after me. All the boys have been brilliant with me since the first day. I am settled in so well now it feels like I have been here for a while.

“Faiss has taken me under his wing and looked after me. I have no complaints. Living with him and learning off him can only be good for my game. He cooks all these fancy foods and I just sit down and eat it.

“I will learn from everyone here, hopefully me and Faiss can build up a partnership. When we played together for the first time (against Ross County) I really enjoyed it. I feel that we had an instant connection there.

Bruce hopes that his move to Dunfermline will get him more minutes on the park. In seventeen appearances this season for the Aberdeen first team he has started only once, all his other appearances have been off the bench. Consequently the 73 minutes he played on his debut against Ross County is the longest period he has played first team football since December 2017 when he was on loan to Elgin City. He expanded:-

“At Aberdeen my time on the park has been limited, I just want to play games and I think this is the right club for me to develop at this time in my career. I am here to play games and here to score goals.”

The striker has scored twice for Aberdeen this season and he scored in their Under 20s Irn Bru Challenge Cup tie against Raith Rovers in August. He highlights the physical side of the game as the main difference he faced stepping up from Reserve League football to the first team level.

“That is something that I need to get better at if I am to push for a first team starting spot at Aberdeen. At Youth Academy level you are playing against the same players over and over. This is a different challenge for me.”

Bruce was happy to get off the mark with a goal on his Dunfermline debut but the shine was taken off it as Ross County fought back to win 2-1. The 20 year old hopes that he can score on Saturday against Inverness and help his new side climb what is an extremely tight and competitive division.

“I want to see if I can come and score goals here and be knocking on the door for a first team starting place.

“I am not fully developed yet, I will get bigger and I think coming here I will learn different sides of the game.

“I like to see myself as a winner and hopefully we can win more games than we lose. Obviously Aberdeen were used to winning more games than not so I am trying to bring that mentality with me.”

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