Cos grove confident as Hearts slump worsens
Sam Cosgrove shot Aberdeen into second place but it will only be a happy new year if they head into 2019 level on points with Celtic.
The Dons striker’s double made it six goals in four straight wins that has sent the Dons soaring up the table.
Now beating the champions on Boxing Day and Livingston on Saturday will see them at least finish the old year level on points with Brendan Rodgers’ side.
Cosgrove is desperate to continue his personal purple patch but insists there will be no carry over from the fallout when they met in the Betfred Cup final.
Aberdeen manager Derek Mcinnes confronted Mikael Lustig on the park after the 1-0 defeat and his captain Graeme Shinnie claimed the full back and Scott Brown lacked class.
But Cosgrove claimed:“We will be motivated enough for the fixture as it is, we don’t need any extra pressure really.
“It’s three points up for grabs regardless of who were are playing and we go in wanting those three points and are massively determined to do that.
“We’ve stormed up the league recently and another win will only push us on even further.
“We have put in some great performances against a good Celtic side this season and if we do that again we give ourselves the chance to win those games.
“Confidence-wise it couldn’t be better as we’ve won four games in a row now in a short space of time.”
In fact it’s an impressive run of eight wins in ten league matches since losing at Tynecastle in October and the contrast in fortunes couldn’t be more stark.
Hearts have hit a slump with only two wins since which has seen them go from 13 points ahead of Aberdeen to now trailing them by six points.
They were hammered 5-0 by Livingston last time but if manager Craig Levein spent the week on a plan to stop giving away cheap goals then all that work was undone in under two minutes.
The Jambos gaffer made five changes including a debut for Colin Doyle but the veteran Irish goalkeeper’s first touch was to pick the ball out of the net.
Aberdeen clearly sensed their opponents fragility after recent results and flew at them straight from kick-off culminating in Cosgrove’s early headed strike from a Stevie May cross.
The Dons played a high tempo pressing game that Hearts struggled to counter at times with Doyle looking especially nervous when closed down by May.
At least Hearts showed some invention from set pieces that was lacking in a lot of their open play and were unlucky not to level in 32 minutes.
A slick interchange of passes involving Olly Lee, Sean Clare and Oliver Bozanic left the Dons defence dazed and confused but Joe Lewis was alert enough to prevent Steven Mclean scoring.
Then just before the break another Lee free-kick was deflected in amongst a host of bodies and Christophe Berra couldn’t quite stretch far enough to steer the ball in.
That was about it in attacking sense for a team that have now scored only seven goals in this dismal run although they had two penalty claims turned down.
Aberdeen put the result beyond doubt when Cosgrove scored from the spot in 68 minutes after Berra bundled over Scott Mckenna in the box.
Hearts misery was compete when Demetri Mitchell was sent off for a second bookable offence near the end.