The BLIND spot
Saints baffled as ref Muir’s selective vision keeps them in bottom three
Ferocious winds shook Pittodrie to its foundations, but it was referee Alan Muir who was in the eye of a footballing storm. Towards the end of a poor first half, the match official enlivened proceedings by awarding a penalty kick when Aberdeen striker sam cosgrove was felled by the lightest of touches from st Johnstone defender shaun rooney.
seconds earlier, Muir had waved aside a marginally stronger claim from the Dons when a shot from Andy considine bounced off the arm of an unwitting callum Booth.
saints boss callum Davidson (below) was left ‘baffled’ by the decision to give the penalty against rooney. it was duly converted by cosgrove himself to make it 1-1, allowing an out-of-sorts Aberdeen a route back into the match.
Perth defender Jamie Mccart shared his manager’s disbelief at referee Muir’s intervention.
‘i don’t know what he has given the penalty for,’ shrugged Mccart, after st Johnstone slumped to their fourth straight Premiership defeat.
‘shaun was marking him and, having seen the video back, there was virtually no contact made. it’s disappointing.
‘Hopefully we can maybe see these kind of refereeing decisions starting to go our way in the next few weeks.
‘We need to get a bit of the luck that other teams always seem to be getting against us.
‘But, regardless of what happened, we still need to find a way to win games like that — or even draw them. it’s on us to put it right.
‘it (the league form) is a wee bit concerning but we know in that changing room that we can get up the table.
‘The gaffer has got belief in us, too. it’s about finding the right balance — scoring goals when we are on top as well as cutting out the sloppy goals that we are conceding.
‘But i’m sure we will be okay. The next two games are massive for us against Hamilton at home and then ross county away.’
it had all looked so bright f or a wellorganised saints side when they took a first-half lead in the Granite city.
Liam craig swung over a free kick to the back post to t he unmarked Liam Gordon.
The defender’s header bounced off the turf and looped over Aberdeen keeper Joe Lewis and into the net.
it was a freakish effort but Gordon couldn’t have cared less about that as he celebrated the first goal of his pro career after 113 games.
Aberdeen were much improved after the break, however, and following that controversial equaliser t hey secured all three points after Lewis Ferguson’s cross struck craig at the edge of the six- yard box. Defender Ash Taylor reacted quicker than anyone else to prod the loose ball home, ensuring Derek Mcinnes’ side leapfrogged Hibernian to reclaim third place in the league. st Johnstone brought on attacker callum Hendry in a bid to find a leveller. But instead he ended up seeing red late on after two yellow cards in nine minutes for fouls on Ferguson and Matty Kennedy. it brought a miserable end to a match for saints that started with left back scott Tanser falling to t he deck f i ve minutes in with nobody near him, with what looked a serious knee injury.
Afterwards, Aberdeen keeper Lewis admitted the windy conditions had made the game a lottery.
‘Three points like that are huge in such horrendous c onditions,’ he said.
‘When i looked at the forecast before the match, the wind was up to 40 miles per hour at kick-off and then it was due to go down to 20 miles per hour by 6pm.
‘it made for a difficult game but we still could have played the conditions better.’
explaining his failure to prevent st Johnstone’s bizarre opener, he insisted: ‘The wind and the dry pitch were factors.
‘The boy headed the ball down and it bounced up centimetres over my hand and into the net.
‘ But i n the second half we adjusted well to come away with the three points, which we are obviously delighted with.
‘on a day like this, against a team who always make for difficult opposition, you j ust take the three points, you forget about the game and you move on. ‘Hibernian are still plugging away and it’s going to be a battle there. We’ve got to l ook at celtic as well and how they’re doing (in second) but it is still early days and we have got to focus on ourselves. ‘We will keep going and results like this are just as important as a flowing 3-0 win. ‘i haven’t seen the incident for the penalty back again but, in the build-up, there was a handball. ‘We’ve had a few penalty shouts go against us this season so whether it was a penalty or not, it was welcome, and sam cosgrove put it away well.’ Aberdeen have now won three and drawn one of their last four matches. That encouraging sequence comes off the back of a 4-0 defeat at ibrox and a Betfred cup exit at the hands of st Mirren. But Lewis feels the best is yet to come from Mcinnes’ side. ‘We had a sticky spell three or four weeks ago,’ he nodded. ‘There have been some disappointing results and poor performances but there has recently been some really good play — and there’s still a lot more to come from us.
‘Home games are important and we are six games unbeaten in the league now and we want to keep that run going.
‘The teams who do best in the league are the ones who put runs together and this is a run we want to continue.
‘it’s certainly not beyond us to do that and we feel we’ve got some confidence now and we’ve got a winning momentum.’