A GRAEME Shinnie double against St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park extended Aberdeen’s winning run away from home to seven games and moved his side to within two points of second-placed Rangers in the Ladbrokes Premiership at the same time.
Shinnie was watched by Scotland manager Alex McLeish in Perth and did his chances of being involved with the national squad in their opening Euro 2020 qualifying double header against Kazakhstan and San Marino next month no harm at all with his display.
The Dons captain struck in both halves to ensure that the Pittodrie club stretched their hot streak of form on the road – which started with the 1-0 win over Rangers at Ibrox back at the start of December – to seven in all competitions.
READ MORE: Brush with Orange walk in Glasgow transported Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers back to The Troubles
It also moved Derek McInnes’s side - who take on Rangers, who play Hamilton in the Premiership tomorrow, at home in the William Hill Scottish Cup quarter-final a week tomorrow - closer to Steven Gerrard’s team in the top flight table.
Tommy Wright fielded the same St Johnstone starting line-up as he had in the 0-0 with Rangers at Ibrox seven days earlier and his men picked up where they had left off in Govan.
Matty Kennedy had a shot blocked by Andrew Considine, Liam Craig had a close-range effort saved by Joe Lewis and Max Lowe did well to clear a Kennedy cross into his area.
The Aberdeen goal was very much against the run of play. But Shinnie did brilliantly after receiving the ball from Dom Ball on the edge of the St Johnstone penalty box. He stepped inside Sean Goss and curled a shot with his weaker right beyond Cammy Bell and into the bottom right corner of goal.
Shinnie wasn’t a popular scorer with the home support. The Aberdeen skipper was fortunate to escape a caution from referee Euan Anderson for a succession of typically robust challenges in the middle of the park.
READ MORE: Rodgers' European record signals worrying decline
When Chris Kane was subsequently booked in the 32nd minute for a foul on the midfielder after being dispossessed just as he was about to shoot it did not go down well with the Saints fans.
Bell, standing in for the injured Zander Clark, did well to palm a powerfully-struck first-time volley from Gary Mackay-Steven clear after the winger had got on the end of a Connor MacLennan cross.
MacLennnan should have put the visitors further in front in the 51st minute after Shinnie had supplied him with a cut back. But he ballooned his shot high over the crossbar despite having time and space to steady himself.
Wright put on Tony Watt for Liam Craig in the 55th minute and St Johnstone almost levelled shortly afterwards when Mikey Devlin inadvertently turned a Kennedy cross onto his own post.
But Shinnie sewed up another three points for his team with a wonderful individual effort in the 75th minute. His low left foot shot from 20 yards out left Bell with no chance and sent the travelling supporters behind the goal into raptures.
READ MORE: Kilmarnock manager Steve Clarke fears football will never be rid of sectarianism
Shinnie, who is reportedly interesting Wigan, is out of contract in the summer and has not yet agreed to an extension despite Aberdeen offering him the most lucrative contract of any player in their history. This 90 minutes underlined his importance to the north-east club.
McInnes revealed before the game that Shay Logan, the right back who limped off in the William Hill Scottish Cup win over Queen of the South a fortnight ago, requires ankle surgery and could be out for the remainder of the season.
He is considering bringing in a free agent to cover for the player as well as centre half Tommie Hoban, the Watford loanee who suffered a cruciate ligament injury, in the remaining months of the 2018/19 campaign.
"It will be touch and go if we can get him (Logan) back before the end of the sea-son," said McInnes. "We were hoping we might be able to him manage him through to the end of the season but on Thursday afternoon it became clear he needed some work done. We will look to maybe try and bring in another defender on the out of contract list.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel