Fans short-changed but Craig Brown is content

Frank Gilfeather at Pittodrie

If there was sympathy for the players endeavouring to produce something resembling decent football amid the gusts of Grampian, pity the poor supporters, deprived of the game as it should be played and a few quid out of pocket into the bargain.

This was a game to forget, and while Aberdeen manager Craig Brown insisted his side did well in the circumstances – and they did – Hearts' Paulo Sergio would not have been unhappy to have hit the A96 with a draw to add to his team's recent surge.

"My players gave me 100%," said Brown. "Our goalkeeper was never threatened and we had chances which we didn't take, which has been the story of our season so far. It was very difficult for the players in such conditions and I think they all did well.

"Looking back on 2011, we are certainly better than we were, and while I would like to bring in new faces, I still have to persuade some to move out, and that could well be problematic."

Brown gave Darren Mackie and Rory Fallon starting places, the strikers replacing Josh Magennis and Chris Clark, both dropping out from the side beaten at Inverness at the weekend, with Isaac Osbourne moving from midfield to right-back to allow Ryan Jack into the centre of the pitch, where his manager feels he is a bigger force.

Brown has 12 players out of contract at the end of the season and is taking every opportunity to decide which he would not be sad to see leave Pittodrie. Last night was perhaps not the best time to make such judgments.

For the visitors, there were starts for Darren Barr, Rudi Skacel, David Obua, Andrew Driver and John Sutton, some of whom have not been flavour of the month at Tynecastle at various times this season. The changes, however, highlighted the numbers available to Sergio.

As in other games last night, the power of the gales which swept Scotland was as much a talking point as anything else going on inside Pittodrie, though Rory Fallon's inability to connect with Scott Vernon's cross into the Hearts six-yard box did set tongues wagging for a while.

There were further flurries at each end, but it was Jack's 23rd-minute volley from 15 yards as he took a neat pass from Richard Foster, a constant threat down the left wing, that provided Marian Kello, the Hearts goalkeeper, the chance to warm himself up with a good diving save.

While the conditions were a major factor, there was a paucity of clever thinking by both sides, at least in the first half, to combat such a difficulty. However, after the break the home side found new energy and peppered Hearts for long spells without creating too many real problems for Kello.

Sergio's recognition that little was happening to allow his front men opportunities, not to say the influence Jack enjoyed in the first 45 minutes, brought a change of plan in the second half as Ian Black replaced Skacel. But it was a low and powerful 25-yard drive from Kari Arnason early in the second period that almost broke the deadlock, the ball passing only a few inches past the left-hand post of Jason Brown, while moments later the goalkeeper had to be quick off his line as Driver tried to capitalise on a sloppy pass-back from Rob Milsom without success.

By the final stages of this fiasco, as comparisons to BBC's Frozen Planet were murmured around Pittodrie, it became clear that only something akin to a catastrophic error would prove a decisive factor. Or would a point apiece satisfy the manager and the fans of the respective teams?

The home side certainly eschewed that view. Twice in the closing stages they almost snatched the points, with Jack being involved each time. First, he fired in a blistering 20-yard drive which looked headed for goal until Vernon deflected the ball past. Next, his cross from the left was headed down by the energetic Milsom in front of Kello before bouncing high over the bar.

Mercifully, Brian Winter, the referee, concluded the game soon after and talk, once more, turned to summer football and why the ruling bodies continue to reject it.

Taken from the Herald