Defiant Dons in Hearts stopper

PROGRESS can be gauged in many shapes and forms. The purists may demur, but for the moment two gritty goalless draws against Rangers and Hearts will more than suffice for Aberdeen fans. Those who saw their spiralling decline as last season petered out will surely understand why.
This was the sort of game that, for too long now, has witnessed tepid surrenders from the Pittodrie side. The fact that they have not won at Tynecastle for more than five-and-a-half years is testimony to that. However, galvanised by the arrival of the two Jimmys, Calderwood and Nicholl, there was a gumption about the visitors which mutated into confidence and zestfulness.

Hearts still had the more purposeful look about them, but shorn of the potency that Mark de Vries lends to their attack, they toiled in the sun to make their superiority pay. But any talk of lack of resources inevitably draws one into the vortex that is the Edinburgh club’s financial predicament.

The start of a new League campaign at Tynecastle saw at least as much attention focused on the fate of the stadium itself as the fixture. On the narrow streets of Gorgie, supporters from the Save Our Hearts campaign found takers for their leaflets in volumes that Fringe show promoters on the Royal Mile would salivate over.

Played in the sort of balmy conditions which, for many of us, don’t seem natural for Scottish football, this could have been an occasion for short tempers. But apart from a brief moment of silliness in the first half, when Ramon Pereira and Zander Diamond were booked for a spot of on-the-ground arm-wrestling, the combatants were as cool as the day was hot.

Aside from some unorthodox entanglements, Pereira looks more than capable of harnessing nuisance value in the more conventional sense. Strong on the ground and in the air and possessing a useful first touch, he was easily the most threatening player on view. Two efforts from the Spaniard in a Hearts-dominated first half provoked real palpitations in the visiting ranks, a header was somehow cleared off the line by a stretching Russell Anderson and a snaking run ended with a bullet of a shot just clearing the crossbar. Shortly after the interval, another flicked-on header from Pereira brought out the best in David Preece as the Aberdeen goalkeeper tipped a net-bound shot clear.

“We had good opportunities in the first half and didn’t take them,” concluded Craig Levein, the Hearts manager. “That gave Aberdeen encouragement. But I never thought we were going to lose it.”

That Aberdeen denied Levein’s men was in large part due to their newfound steeliness down the spine of Calderwood’s recast side. Diamond and Anderson combined mobility with strength in central defence, while in the midfield Markus Heikkinen and Scott Severin provided a formidable barrier, with tenacious harrying of the likes of Paul Hartley. Severin naturally received a mixed reception on his early return to his former club. In his own inimitable way, Phil Stamp showed there were no hard feelings about his departure to Pittodrie with a full-blooded shoulder charge that sent Severin spilling into the trackside early on.

With Stamp and his colleagues doing a highly-effective job of their own in snuffing out the visitors, the game meandered on towards stalemate, but always held enough intrigue to arrest the attention. Aberdeen inexorably edged their way back into things after the break, as Calderwood was content to point out afterwards. And though it would have jarred somewhat, his side might even have snatched victory but for a fine clawing save from Craig Gordon to beat away a Derek Adams header. Getting the ball in the net is Calderwood’s next priority.

“On the positive side of things, that’s two strong teams we’ve held in the opening two games,” remarked the contented Aberdeen manager. “We’ve now got to start dominating games and creating things. But it’s great for our supporters, they came down in force and really backed us today. They’ll go up the road with a smile on their faces.”

Taken from timesonline.co.uk