First-touch Hendry ends Dons’ drought
Callum Hendry ended Aberdeen’s goal drought after 573 miserable minutes to pile on the agony for former manager Tommy Wright.
The on-loan St Johnstone striker’s last Premiership goal was for the Perth club 11 months ago when Wright was still in charge.
Now Hendry’s first for the Dons leaves Kilmarnock without a goal in 508 minutes and without a single point from their last eight games.
Wright now faces a tough test to make sure Killie don’t end up outside the top flight for the first time since 1993.
Only Ross County and Hamilton are below them in the table now and both of them have games in hand.
For Aberdeen there was the relief of making it just two wins in the last 11 games to stay within four points of thirdplaced Hibernian.
However it’s back to Celtic Park for them next Saturday and under-pressure manager Derek Mcinnes knows this
must be the start of a better run of results.
He said: “I told the players before the game we are the fourth-best team in the country but to get to being third-best we have to start winning games.
“We have to win more games. We have to score more goals.
“We are better than most teams. We are not as bad as people say”.
Hendry’s goal that finally broke the Dons drought was actually down to a mixture of bad and good luck.
It was bad luck for Fraser Hornby in 19 minutes after a dazzling piece of play.
The Scotland Under-21 international burst clear from halfway as the home side counter-attacked at pace after Joe Lewis has saved a Gary Dicker shot at the other end.
Hornby spun clear of a couple of challenges at the edge of the penalty box before curling a shot just wide of Colin Doyle’s left-hand post.
Unfortunately, he damaged a thigh when twisting to shoot.
His misfortune turned out to be a break for Hendry and Aberdeen. Within two minutes the man on loan from St Johnstone lost his marker to head home Niall Mcginn’s perfectly flighted free-kick.
You could almost see confidence surge through the Aberdeen players with Flo Kamberi, who won the freekick, linking play well.
Kilmarnock weren’t helped by Clevid Dikamona being forced off injured in 28 minutes to be replaced by Zech Medley.
However, the real problems remain in the forward areas where their best chances either side of the interval fell to an-out-of-sorts Nicke Kabamba.
On 35 minutes the striker found himself in the clear but the acute angle made it a comfortable save for Lewis.
Then, within five minutes of the restart, Kabamba got into a good position down the right but was caught between a shot and cross, doing neither effectively.
Even the half time introduction of striker Kyle Lafferty from the bench failed to spark much life into the Ayrshire side’s lacklustre attack.
Mitchell Pinnock did force Lewis into a serious diving save on the hour mark but defending remains a strong point of Aberdeen’s game.
The back three of Tommie Hoban, Andrew Considine with an impressive Ash Taylor between them dealt comfortably with their opponents efforts to score.
By contrast, the Dons created the better of a few chances with Lewis Ferguson flashing a shot across the face of Doyle’s goal.
Then Ross Mccrorie saw a ferocious drive cannon back off the cross bar with eight minutes left but it always looked like being first-goal-the-winner.