Martindale rues Livi naivety as Aberdeen take full advantage
Red card proves to be turning point for Goodwin’s side as five-star Dons make visitors pay for mistake
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T was a Dons dismantling job aided and abetted by a naive Livingston as their game plan came crashing down with a firsthalf ordering off of Jack Fitzwater the turning point.
If the visitors thought they could play the ball out from the back as the clock ticked down towards the break, and at a time when they were on top, it was, as their manager underlined, naivety in the raw.
With goalkeeper Shamal George playing a slack ball to Fitzwater in their own penalty area, the chance was presented to Vicente Besuijen, the effervescent and energetic Aberdeen attacker, to pounce.
Cue a frustrated Livi defender, perhaps angry at his sloppiness, and down went the man in the red shirt while referee Colin Steven flashed the red card.
And so, with Bojan Miovski’s conversion tucked away four minutes shy of half-time, the Dons, until then the poorer side, and Fitzwater probably still kicking himself in the dressing room, were given the green light to start their demolition of the opposition.
David Martindale knew there was no gloss to be put on how his team was filleted with ease.
He said: “Up until the sending off we were the better team. [With] 11 v 11 we were good value for money, but then we make an absolutely stupid mistake. We’re not ready, we’re not set, players weren’t in their positions. We were naive.
“And one mistake leads to another, Jack Fitzwater wasn’t prepared. He could have kicked the ball out for a throw, he could have let the boy go through, but one mistake leads to another and we go 1-0 down.
“We get to half-time and we think about trying to consolidate. We talked about making a change of shape at a certain point of the game.
“But to do that you still have to be in the game.
“The second goal is an unopposed clearance to Ross McCrorie. It’s a great finish, to be fair.
“At the third we try to clip the ball out from the back again and we get caught out.
“It’s naive defending again and whether it’s a penalty or not I don’t know: I don’t even care.”
Livingston face Dundee United in the Premier Sports Cup on Wednesday and while Martindale will have to unscramble his thought by then, Aberdeen manager Jim Goodwin will not expect Annan Athletic to trouble his side in their tie in that competition on Tuesday night.
He’ll want Miovski, who now has five Premiership goals to his credit following a sizzling strike in the 63rd minute, to increase his tally, although he was not altogether pleased that the man he signed from MKT Budapest for £535,000 in the summer, handed the ball to Besuijen when the Dons were handed a second penalty kick a minute before he grabbed his second goal.
Goodwin said: “I wasn’t in the loop on that one and it probably wasn’t something I would have encouraged before the game.
“Miovski is our penaltytaker. I love the fact he wants to give his team-mate a goal and it is very supportive of him, but he is the one who
should have took it and I think he will probably be regretting it later on when he is sitting at home thinking he should have a match ball beside him on the couch.
“I don’t mind who scores, but that will not be happening again.
“This kid Miovski could be anything he wants, honestly.
“He has just turned 23. We have made a significant investment in bringing him to the club and we all believed we could continue his development at Aberdeen.
“He looks like scoring every week and, if we keep creating the kind of opportunities we have been, he will be our main man this season.”
It could all have been so different had Joel Nouble, a problem player for the Reds centre-backs, seen his glancing header from Andrew Shinnie’s free-kick hit the back of the net, but Pittodrie shot-stopper Kelle Roos produced a wonder save to rescue his side.
The floodgates had opened after McCrorie smashed home a thunderbolt of a strike from 16 yards in 58 minutes while Aberdeen the Dons extended their lead with two further strikes in the 62nd and 63rd minutes.
The first, from another penalty kick, this time converted by Besuijen after what looked like a soft award after a tackle on him by Philip Cancar, was quickly followed by a second strike from Miovski as Livi went to pieces and Martindale showed his displeasure.
Aberdeen’s fifth came under the category of “fluke” as substitute Ryan Duncan, wide on the right, tried a speculative cross into the Livi area. Everybody, including a demoralized George, stood and watched as the ball found its way past the keeper and into the net with three minutes to play.