Dons thrashed days before Betfred Final
The alarm bells will be ringing at Pittodrie after this desperately poor performance. Aberdeen now have just seven days to work out what went wrong here and how they can put it right against Celtic in the Betfred Cup Final a week today.
On this showing, they might be better off not turning up and taking a 3-0 defeat because if Motherwell can put that many past you then it’s frightening to think what an in-form Celtic might do on the wide open surface at Hampden.
For the home side, though, it was their first back-to-back league wins at home since September last year and further eased the relegation worries which had been with them just a few weeks ago.
“It was a good performance and a good reaction from what happened in the 7-1 defeat against Rangers a few weeks ago,” said manager Steven Robinson. “I thought we were well organised, physical when we had to be, but we had the quality too.
“We’ve worked with Danny Johnson and we knew he was a goalscorer.
“We wanted to improve his game and he’s done that.
“I believe he can get even better and that was his best performance for us.
“And you won’t fluster David Turnbull. I don’t think even an earthquake could do that. He’s the most calm boy around.
“We need to try to get 90 minutes at that intensity from him, like we do with Allan Campbell. We’re really pleased with David but there is more to come from him.” Aberdeen started promisingly enough and keeper Mark Gillespie, making his debut, had to beat away a fierce drive from Stevie May. However, skipper Graeme Shinnie was then guilty of a glaring miss.
Left-back Max Lowe, one of the few players Mcinnes could have been happy with yesterday, burst to the by-line and pulled the ball back for the Scotland star, perfectly positioned just 12 yards out.
If it had fallen for his left foot it would surely have gone in but Shinnie had no option but to shoot with his right and he screwed his effort wide of the far post.
Another error, this time from Irishman Niall Mcginn, gifted the opening which led to the breakthrough. His slack square ball was punished by Danny Johnson, who ran 30 yards with the ball, shook off the challenge of Shay Logan and then bent a shot inside the bottom left-hand corner of the net from 18 yards.
The Dons were still reeling from that setback when Motherwell scored again.
Goalkeeper Joe Lewis did well to turn behind Gael Bigirimana’s free-kick but, when Curtis Main helped on the Burundi midfielder’s corner, Johnson was allowed a free run and headed high past Lewis from close range.
Gillespie was enjoying himself and he excelled again with a fine save low to his left to keep out a netbound drive from Lowe.
James Wilson has failed to convince since joining on loan from Manchester United and he was hooked at half-time, replaced by the physical presence of Sam Cosgrove.
That switch did nothing for the Dons’ dozy defending, however, and they were three down nine minutes into the second period. Midfielder Lewis Ferguson smacked a clearance against the back of Main and it spun into the path of David Turnbull, who drilled it low behind Lewis to make it game over.