Mallan keeps the five alive
Hibs extend unbeaten run as under-strength Aberdeen see off Livingston.
ABERDEEN go into their Europa League first-round qualifier in better spirits at the end of 90 difficult minutes than they did at the half-time break.
Livingston, perennial underdogs, showed they were not prepared to be the whipping boys in this fast-paced encounter, although manager Gary Holt was dismayed at the end that his brave side could not take responsibility in the second phase of the game.
For Dons boss Derek McInnes, however, there was pleasure that, despite midfielder Craig Bryson pulling-up during the warm-up and vacating his seat on the bench in favour of Curtis Main, himself returning from several weeks on the treatment table, and star defender Scott McKenna feeling sick during the break and sitting-out the remainder of the game, all of his squad will be available for Thursday night’s Pittodrie clash against Faroese outfit NSI Runavik.
A penalty-kick conversion by Lewis Ferguson, taken down in the area by Craig Sibbald four minutes after the interval, settled Aberdeen and their opponents were still reeling from that set-back when Scott Wright hit a second six minutes later, the attacker latching on to Ryan Hedges’ superb through pass to fire the ball past Robby McCrorie, the Livi keeper, whose twin brother lined up for the opposition.
“We didn’t expect it to be easy,” McInnes conceded, “because every time we have played Livingston we have never had it easy against them. Even when we have been all signing and all dancing.
“In the first 10 minutes or so we were very good and we got Marley Watkins [a weekend loan signing from Bristol City] into the game. I thought he had a very good debut and you saw the speed in the team.
“Then we stopped playing and got sucked into a game that we didn’t want it to be. We had our hands full with them as they got the ball forward quickly and asked the questions.
“They were in our face and we were too concentrated on trying to deal with that. So we forgot to keep passing and playing.”
Certainly, after Scott Pittman’s retaliatory strike 16 minutes from the end – the assist provided by Jack Fitzwater’s eye-catching run down the right – Holt’s men looked as if they might just grab the draw their first-half performance merited, but it wasn’t to be.
The overall performance, however, brought criticism from the visitors’ boss.
“I’m angry,” he said. “We played so well in large spells of the game but if you give a team an opportunity to go two goals up, you’re fighting an uphill struggle.”
Holt, who thought they should have been awarded a penalty for a handball, would have been just as miffed that golden opportunities early in the game passed his outfit by. Alan Forrest, well inside the area, was about to pull the trigger with only Joe Lewis to beat, when Shay Logan, favoured over Ronald Hernandez at right-back, arrived from nowhere to put the front man off his stride.
Then, as Nicky Devlin stole in ahead of Matty Kennedy and surged down the right before laying-off the ball for Scott Robinson, the Livi dugout tensed with anticipation. Robinson’s attempt at side-stepping Lewis required just the final touch, but the Dons keeper somehow got a foot to his shot to rescue his side. It was such a crucial stop by the Pittodrie skipper, but the defensive flaws from the Reds must have worried McInnes.
Perhaps McKenna had already felt sick by then.
Still, it all ended well for the Dons, gaining their second win in three days following their gutsy, if uninspiring show at St Johnstone last Thursday night.
The hammering they took when eight first-team players went out on the town following the opening day loss to Rangers then found themselves quarantined for two weeks after two of their party tested positive for Covid, is now behind them.
“We’ve watched everybody else’s season get up and running with envy,” McInnes said. “We had pre-season of sevenand-a-half weeks and were desperate to get going.
“We want to get some positivity again and the best way to do that is to win games. We scored two today and could have been more comfortable but at this stage of the season it’s about getting the three points and the improvements as the season goes on.”