Stockley and Christie enter stage left to sink Thistle
IT IS a familiar and defiant refrain that can be heard drifting from terraces up and down the land on a weekly basis, but it is rare to hear a player joining in with the chorus. Though as Aberdeen moved into second place in the Premiership with a hard-fought win over Partick Thistle at Pittodrie on Saturday, super-sub Jayden Stockley was adamant: we shall not be moved.
The Pittodrie side eventually took full advantage of the latest crisis engulfing the south side of Glasgow. And it was manager Derek McInnes who was due most of the credit for changing shape and going for the jugular as the game seemed to be listlessly stumbling towards a stalemate like a drunk on the cobbles of the Castlegate.
He withdrew defenders Shay Logan and Mark Reynolds, throwing on Stockley and Ryan Christie with a little over 25 minutes to go of a contest that had been entertaining in the first half with chances at either end. But it had long since succumbed to the difficult conditions both overhead and underfoot, with a swirling wind and a bobbly pitch doing nothing for the standard of the fare on offer.
Fast-forward half an hour, though, and the home players were taking the acclaim of the crowd after both substitutes had found the net: Stockley showing determination to head a Niall McGinn corner home before assisting Christie to put the icing on the cake with a composed finish in the dying moments.
Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together? The home crowd certainly did, particularly as many of them had been displaying signs of rigor mortis in the freezing stands before Aberdeen belatedly turned up the heat.
The warm glow imbued in them by their team was only stoked further as the tannoy announcer informed them of the final score from Ibrox. With the knowledge they were up into second place acting like a wee hot toddy as they shuffled out into the cold night air.
For goal hero Stockley and his teammates, the mantle of second-best team in Scotland is one they value highly, and he left their rivals in little doubt that it is not a perch they are keen to vacate any time soon.
“There is confidence within this squad that we can finish second and reach another cup final,” Stockley said.
“We really want to get hold of second spot and make it ours and I believe we have the quality to do it.
“We wanted to challenge Celtic more this season and play in cup finals. Celtic have pulled clear which is disappointing but we reached the League Cup final although it didn’t turn out how we wanted it to. I’m still convinced this squad is capable of really good things.
“It was good for me to get on and score and Ryan did well when he came on too. The lads were quite tired after the Celtic game and we had to dig deep, but I’m just happy to get on and score as I’m desperate to succeed here.”
For Partick Thistle, who slip to ninth in the bottom half of a table that perhaps only the Granite City’s Haudagain Roundabout can match for congestion, it was a wearily familiar tale of a decent performance being stripped of its relevance by poor finishing.
The showing of dynamic midfielder Ryan Edwards was a microcosm of Thistle’s entire afternoon. He was their best player as he harried, tracked, tackled and passed well, only for him to fluff a glorious opportunity that came his way with the game goalless.
Ade Azeez also missed a great chance to level things up after Stockley’s opener when through on Joe Lewis, but his effort clipped the outside of the post on its way past. Azeez is a striker who has everything in his locker, with strength in his body and pace in his legs. Unfortunately, he does not yet possess that vital component that all great strikers need: ice in his veins.
And so yet again, Thistle were left to rue what might have been, and there was a familiar ring to much of what Edwards had to make of it all.
“It has a similar feeling to the start of the season where our performances were really good and we couldn’t get the result we wanted or our performances deserved,” he said.
“We said after the game we have been in this situation before, at the start of the season, and we just have to keep going because we will get out of it. We need to be more clinical.
“It is a different story if we haven’t performed well and we have lost 2-0. We were brilliant up to when the first goal went in. We had really good chances, myself as well. It is just frustrating they are not going in at the minute.
“If you look at the league it is crazy with how close it is at the bottom. “You don’t want to let others get away so we need to fix things and to start winning again quickly.”