Aberdeen’s tactics prove pitch perfect
A QUALITY goal from the home team’s captain produced the right outcome at Pittodrie as Aberdeen earned another visit to the national stadium, where they will hope they find themselves on a surface that gives them more of an opportunity to perform.
They were unquestionably the better team, as Thistle’s manager Alan Archibald, who had seen his side win their previous four matches, was the first to acknowledge.
However, it was workmanlike qualities that ultimately saw Derek McInnes’s side through as they dealt with the robustness that had helped Thistle get the better of Dundee four days earlier to get through this quarterfinal tie, as they had been expected to, in spite of their own midweek mishap at Hamilton.
“It was hard fought. We expected it to be tough,” McInnes (right) s aid after wards. “Our attacking play was more pr om i nent and we deserved to win.
“The first goal was always going to be important against a team who don’t lose too many goals, but we deserved to be in front.
“Joe [Lewis, Aberdeen’s goal-keeper] didn’t have a save to make but you can see how Thistle have been getting results. They are tough to play against.” All the more so when confronted by what would be considered a leveller of a pitch, rather than one that would provide true home advantage for a side looking to play a lively game. Overcoming the surface should only have added to the sense of satisfaction, and that seemed to be the case. “It was torrential here all day yesterday, we spiked the pitch because there were puddles on it but it dries out really quickly,” McInnes said, explaining the odd-looking decision to water it pre-match when it had been flooded less than 24 hours earlier. “There’s not too much grass on it, so we tried to make the best of it, get some pace into it. We wanted pace in the game – that’s why we played (Peter) Pawlett, [Niall] McGinn and [Jonny] Hayes. We didn’t want it slow and predictable, we wanted it open with pace. “Our movement did that for us. We moved them around a lot, their big central defenders. We were energetic.” For all the difficulties they faced from opponents whose determination to make their presence felt earned a yellow card count of 4-0 – the last of those ending Danny Devine’s involvement since it was his second – the Dons’ approach was what made the difference. McInnes registered no complaint about the nature of the questions asked of his men
“It’s a quarter-final that both teams are desperate to win. You have to deal with the physical side, but it didn’t boil over,” he observed.
His counterpart, Archibald, matched that in readily accepting that Devine’s dismissal had been deserved while, for all that his team – which was understandably unchanged following the win at Dens Park – had set out looking as confident as might be expected, he accepted that they had been out-played. In doing so, the Thistle manager also seemed to suggest that he might have done better to find some way of freshening things up.
“I thought we started well enough and were the better side for the first five or 10 minutes, but we fell out of the game after that,” was his fair summation of proceedings.
“It was one game too much for some of our players.
“We’ve got to pass it better. Our delivery was poor, whereas Aberdeen used their big boy up front [Jayden Stockley] very well.”
He noted that included Stockley laying off the ball to set up the opportunity that his skipper, Graeme Shinnie, took so well in teeing the ball up for himself with a couple of deft touches as he moved infield from the right before wrapping his left foot round the ball and sending it across and beyond Tomas Cerny, but just inside the goal-keeper’s right post. Cerny had already made a fine save from a powerfully-struck volley from Niall McGinn, who was probably the most influential figure on the day, and for all that he was far from overworked, he had a good deal more to do than Lewis.
Admittedly, as Thistle lifted their energy levels in the closing stages, they did get close to undeservedly taking the match back to Firhill, not least when a Callum Booth free kick from the right was met at the far post by his captain, but Abdul Osman was unable to get it on target when he probably should have done better – albeit the very same accusation could have been levelled at Aberdeen sub Anthony O’Connor a little earlier.