ABERDEEN closed the gap on second-placed Rangers to two points - at least until lunchtime today - with this hard-fought, narrow but wholly deserved win over Hearts. They will still have a game in hand on the Ibrox club as the SPFL goes into its winter shutdown, and, while they lost there on their last visit, on this form they appear certain to take the fight to be best of the rest all the way into late spring.

On this evidence, the major doubt about the challenge from Derek McInnes’ team is their inability to close down games in which they have been dominant. They could and should have been a couple of goals to the good by half-time, but in the end they had to wait until the 66th minute to secure the points through Jonny Hayes.

Hearts went into the match on a four-game unbeaten run against Aberdeen, and had played some attractive and effective football at times in their 4-0 win over Kilmarnock three days earlier. But Ian Cathro’s side were altogether less impressive here, and less coherent too. Even allowing for Aberdeen’s virtues, Hearts looked a lot less energetic than they had done on Tuesday, and struggled to mount coherent attacks.

Aberdeen pressed high from kick-off and succeeded in confining Hearts to their own half for a time, with their early attacks coming down the left as they looked for space in which Hayes could run at Liam Smith. The visitors should have taken the lead after quarter of an hour when Niall McGinn delivered an excellent corner from the left to the back post, but Mark Reynolds headed wide.

Hearts threatened only intermittently, though they did have two half-breaks halted illicitly, one producing a booking for Shay Logan for a foul on Jamie Walker, and the other leading to Ash Taylor being yellow-carded for an offence on Bjorn Johnsen.

The free-kick resulting from the latter offence gave Hearts their first scoring attempt of the evening, but Walker delivered straight to Joe Lewis in the Aberdeen goal.

Midway through the half Kenny McLean was on target with a header from a Hayes cross, but Jack Hamilton got across his goal to parry. A low Perry Kitchen shot reminded Lewis that Hearts were not entirely absent as an attacking force, but Aberdeen continued to create the better chances, and Hearts again had Hamilton when he kept out a sliding effort from McGinn with his feet after a tempting cross from the left.

In the last 10 minutes of the half it still seemed just a matter of time before Aberdeen would score. It looked like Graeme Shinnie had done exactly that three minutes before the break as his low shot beat Hamilton, but it rebounded off the post and Adam Rooney could do no better than stumble into it and send it behind.

To an extent the difference between the teams could be ascribed to continuity.

McInnes was able to name the same line-up for the third match running, having won the last two, against Hamilton on Tuesday and Motherwell two days before Christmas. Cathro, by contrast, had to start with Smith in place of Callum Paterson, who is expected to be out of action until late 2017 because of the knee injury sustained against Kilmarnock on Tuesday night, and also brought back Don Cowie in place of the injured Prince Buaben.

Hearts will miss Paterson for a number of reasons, but it was his physicality above all that they could have done with here. Aberdeen won the bulk of the 50-50 challenges and in general looked a stronger, more mature team - unsurprisingly, given they have had longer together to develop.

The opening stages of the second half were far more even, with Hearts if anything shading them, and certainly being far more assertive than they had managed in the first 45. But they still found it hard to break down a well-drilled defence, and it was nearly 20 minutes before they had their first real chance, a header that Smith glanced wide from a Cowie corner.

Two minutes after that, Aberdeen were in front at last. McGinn ran on to a ball on the right, and Hayes timed his run perfectly to meet the low cross and score from close range.

Rory Currie replaced Djoum with a little over 15 minutes to go as Hearts strove to get back on terms, and with five minutes left they came close to doing so as Walker forced a good save from Lewis with a shot that was going to squeeze in at the bear post. A Cowie header in stoppage time was the last chance either team had, but it went over the bar. It would have produced a travesty of a result had it gone in, and, while they rued that chance to snatch a point, on balance Hearts could be thankful that their goal difference did not suffer a lot more damage.