ABERDEEN and Hearts ground out a dull goalless draw in their second Ladbrokes Premiership match of the season at Pittodrie this afternoon after both teams failed to capitalise on their chances.
Jayden Stockley, Wes Burns and Graeme Shinnie for Aberdeen and Tony Watt for Hearts were all unable to convert opportunities and give their teams the lead in front of a crowd of 13,559.
An often ill-tempered meeting, during which seven yellow cards were shown, between the second and third-placed teams in the top flight last season was short of quality football and finished level at the end of the 90 minutes.
Hearts had been “deeply disappointed” by the decision of an SFA judicial panel on Thursday to ban Jamie Walker for two games for an “act of simulation” in the game against Celtic at Tynecastle last Sunday.
The punishment meted out to the winger, who was absent from the squad yesterday, had clearly also incensed the Hearts fans. “There’s only one Jamie Walker,” they chanted as the match got underway.
The decision by referee Kevin Clancy to have a word with Hearts manager Robbie Neilson, who had been unhappy that no penalty was given to his team following a challenge by Shay Logan on Sam Nicholson, was also badly received by the travelling support. There was, though, nothing in the incident and the match official had been correct to allow play to continue.
The home team started the game brightly and created two decent scoring chances in similar fashion. Niall McGinn sent Peter Pawlett clear down the right wing in just the fourth minute and his team mate curled a decent cross into the opposition area. Stockley rose well to meet it, but his header drifted wide of goal.
In the 21st McGinn whipped a cross into the Hearts penalty box from the same area and Burns nodded it against the crossbar. However, Clancy ruled the midfielder had been offside when the ball was played.
The referee had a busy opening 45 minutes and booked four players. Prince Buaben, Faycal Rherras and Watt or Hearts as well as Shinnie of Aberdeen all went into his book. That led to a double substitution by the visitors at half-time.
Clearly sensing that Buaben and Rherras were in danger of being ordered off in an edgy encounter between two similarly-matched rivals, Neilson replaced them with Perry Kitchen and Liam Smith at half-time.
His opposite number Derek McInnes had, due to the number of games his charges have been forced to play of late in both domestic and European competition, left Kenny McLean and Adam Rooney on the bench and their introduction in the 58th minute was met by a huge roar by the Aberdeen fans. Stockley and Burns made way respectively.
But McLean and Rooney’s arrival on the field made little discernible difference to their team. Aberdeen certainly had the better of the encounter. But, try as they might, they were unable to find a way through their well-organised opponents.
McGinn set up Shinnie for a chance in the 71st minute with another ball from the right, but the latter’s glancing header finished wide of its intended target. Miles Storey was unable to make an impact after taking over from Pawlett.
Watt had a chance to snatch victory for Hearts with just over three minutes of regulation time remaining. But the former Celtic man snatched at a chance in the Aberdeen box and his attempt sailed high into the stands.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here