Presumably, there will be an open top bus parade after this. Aberdeen’s much-maligned barren spell had been going on so long, it was just about getting to the point where footage of their last goal was only available in the fusty archive section of the British Pathe newsreels.
After five league games without a goal – a sixth would have been the club’s worst run in 117 years – the Dons finally quenched their drouth with a much-needed 3-1 win here at Hamilton.
The regulars in Aberdeen’s Foundry bar probably had a good gargle too after the landlord announced he would be serving up a drink on the house if the Dons actually scored. The only thing louder than the sigh of relief generated by Curtis Main’s duck breaker after 15 minutes would have been the publican’s groan of despair at the lost takings.
“It almost felt as if a weight had been lifted when Curtis scored and you could see the confidence in the team,” said Aberdeen manager, Derek McInnes. “The tenacity has been there but the output in the final third has fallen way short. Tonight was much more like it. We scored three goals but I would have taken any sort of win tonight.”
In the build up to this affair, Hamilton manager Brian Rice had called for wind meters to be drafted into the domestic game in the wake of one or two gust-dominated cup kerfuffles.
McInnes’s tenure, meanwhile, had been subjected to some gale force turbulence of late. Both teams have had to negotiate some choppy waters recently and you half expected this match to appear on the Shipping Forecast.
McInnes certainly needed to chart a new course to ease the building pressure on him so he made three changes to his starting XI in a re-jigging that included dropping 21-goal Sam Cosgrove to the bench.
“I just felt for his benefit he had to come out of the team, noted McInnes. The tinkerings reaped a rich harvest as Aberdeen rediscovered their clinical edge and had this one wrapped up by half-time. The hefty burden building on the shoulders of McInnes’ misfiring men was finally lifted after just 15 minutes. Andrew Considine sent Main scampering clear and he dinked a tidy finish past Luke Southwood to end the dismal drought. For the 1,218 souls who braved a dour old night it was almost an ‘I was there’ moment.
The old cliche about waiting on buses was being spouted eight minutes later as the visitors doubled their tally. A nicely engineered move led to Lewis Ferguson laying the ball off to Niall McGinn who prodded in a second. The plunder would continue and on the stroke of half-time, a rampant Aberdeen made it three as Connor McLennan headed home Considine’s cross.
Main had an effort chalked off for offside in the second half while Marios Ogkmpoe’s well taken consolation in the last few minutes was a mere footnote in proceedings as Hamilton sagged to a fourth league defeat in the last five. “I thought we were horrendous in the first half,” lamented the Hamilton coach, Guillaume Beuzelin, of a wretched night which saw club captain Brian Easton taken to hospital with a shoulder injury. “If we want to compete against that calibre of team, we have to do the basics right. We knew Aberdeen would be like a wounded animal and the manner in which we conceded those three goals was terrible.”
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