Talking points from the Premiership

Aberdeen's statement of intent
On reflection, it was striking how closely this match mirrored the first fixture at Pittodrie between Derek McInnes' Aberdeen and Ronny Deila's Celtic.  Even before the teams kicked off, where last November there was a minute's silence for Remembrance Sunday, on Saturday there was a minute's applause for former Don and Scotland international Graham Leggat, who sadly passed away last month.

This time, though, it was the champions that struck first.  A superb ball from Charlie Mulgrew was controlled by Leigh Griffiths, and Andrew Considine - who had earlier muffed a couple of chances himself from inside the opposition six yard box - pulled Griffiths back to stop him getting inside his own six yard box.  It was a dumb penalty to concede, and the defender's yellow card could have been red.  Griffiths hit it into the bottom right corner, leaving Danny Ward no chance.

Adam Rooney did score against the champions once again - this time it was the equaliser, and that was a penalty too. Minutes after Aberdeen had claimed that Mulgrew had handled in the box, Jonny Hayes slipped a through ball to Graeme Shinnie in the penalty area and Dedrick Boyata clumsily challenged him in a position of little threat.  Rooney's penalty was also low and hard into the bottom right corner, sending Craig Gordon the wrong way.

This time around, it was Aberdeen that were reduced to ten men rather than Celtic.  After losing the ball following a mazy crossfield run by Hayes, Mikael Lustig intercepted and Hayes flew into a challenge to try and win the ball back. Both players were actually off their feet as they slid in for the ball, but for me the Hayes' challenge looked very similar (and no worse) than the one Craig Paterson was sent off for at Hamilton a fortnight ago, a red card that was subsequently rescinded.  I would not be surprised if the Dons appealed this one either.

Yet, as with last November, the side with a man advantage went on to lose the game, and this time it was Celtic who conceded a goal to a badly defended set piece.  Almost immediately after going down to ten men, Deila sportingly brought on Efe Ambrose to address the disparity and the Nigerian Nightmare duly obliged by providing by needlessly bundling Niall McGinn out of play.  McGinn floated in the free kick and Paul Quinn volleyed home, inexplicably unchallenged, from four yards.

There was still time for a late chance to equalise this time around, as goal hero Quinn almost turned villain by mucking up a headed clearance. Griffiths pounced and rounded Ward, only to be denied by a goal-line clearance from villain-turned-hero Considine.

Mercifully, we were spared a 'Derek Din' after the full time whistle, McInnes determined to make a more measured response.  It is still early on in the season, but there is no doubt that if Aberdeen was going to more closely challenge Celtic this season they would need to start getting results against them, and in that respect alone this win was an important marker to lay down. MI

Hearts need to show discipline

Friday night football returned to Inverness who secured their first win of the season thanks to goals from Scottish Cup hero James Vincent and recent loan signing Miles Storey either side of a red card for Hearts left back Juwon Oshaniwa for striking out at Tobi Sho-Silva.

After a largely forgettable first half Caley Thistle sparked into life when Ryan Christie, now on loan from Celtic of course, skipped by two Hearts players and fired the ball across the penalty area for Vincent to scramble in. It was the home side's first goal of the season in Inverness and the relief was obvious for fans and players alike.  Caley Thistle have struggled up front so far this season; John Hughes placed his faith in Spaniard Dani Lopez who, it was claimed, would hit double figures this season.  Unfortunately for ICT fans Lopez has struggled so far looking slow, unfit and extremely wasteful when playing as a striker.  The rest of the team didn’t seem be on the same wavelength and whilst the season isn’t over by any stretch of the imagination it looks unlikely that Lopez will make that ‘double figures’ target.

As a result supporters have been clamouring for reinforcements up front and on deadline day ICT snapped up two youngsters from England on loan, the aforementioned Storey and Sho-Silva.  The former, on loan from Swindon, started on Friday night and turned in a very encouraging performance capped with a goal.  It was by no means a perfect showing but the manner in which he buzzed about the pitch was heartening to the home supporters especially after the somewhat laboured performances to date from Lopez.  Storey showed great composure to create space to grab the second goal after the chance was seemingly gone.  Whilst he will need to work hard to get up to full fitness his arrival and performance was a welcome boost to an ICT side that had been flagging badly in that area of the team.

As for Hearts it goes without saying that keeping 11 men on the pitch will do wonders for their chances of success.  Two games in a row now the Edinburgh men have had a player sent off, although Patersons red card against Hamilton was rescinded, and they now find themselves topping the disciplinary tables with 14 yellow cards and 2 red cards amassed already.  Hearts quite often found themselves in hot water regarding disciplinary issues in the past and Robbie Neilson needs to keep his players under control.

Although they were already losing against Inverness when Oshaniwa was sent off Hearts appeared to lose their cool and on a couple of occasions launched themselves into some pretty hefty challenges. Had Hearts maintained their composure it was perfectly feasible that they could have snatched a point especially given that Caley Thistle weren’t all that great on Friday night and still looked pretty uncertain at the back.

Having Hearts back in the league is, at least from my perspective, a great thing. They bring a vociferous and large travelling support, curtailed by the Friday night kick off time, but whilst it is great to see Hearts back in the league and near the top end of the table Neilson will no doubt be keen to ensure that a return to the top of the disciplinary table does not also follow suit.

St. Johnstone's new philosophy reaps rewards

Scoring goals, as the cliché goes, is the hardest thing to do in football. That was certainly the case for St Johnstone last season when they somehow managed to finish fourth despite only St Mirren scoring fewer goals.  A solid, defensive team is to be admired, but as I can attest after writing about a fair share of their games last season, it’s not particularly enjoyable to watch.

Success last season was built on the third best defence in the league and it is unlikely that they will be able to maintain that level this season.  Indeed, so far this term they have the third worst defence in the league.  That is why the return to fitness and form of Steven MacLean is so important.

After selling Stevie May last summer, a large burden was placed on MacLean as the primary goalscorer.  Unfortunately he didn’t get much of an opportunity to show that he was up to the task during another injury hit campaign.  St Johnstone will need him to stay fit and in the kind of form he showed on Saturday if they are going to come anything close to replicating last season’s form.

This game could easily have gone the other way though had Brian Easton given away a penalty and got the red card he deserved for his challenge on Carlton Morris.  Craig Thomson may have got the headlines at Pittodrie but the decision by AndrewDallas here was as bad as any made in the north east. IM

Muirhead offers Partick Thistle hope

Should Partick Thistle fans be worried?  The home defeat to Dundee, coupled with other results, leaves them propping up the table.  They've scored just twice in the league this season, both against Kilmarnock.

It wasn't for want of trying here, though; Thistle hit the woodwork three times and passed up plenty of other chances.  There is certainly reason for hope here; loanee Robbie Muirhead, making his debut, combined well with the streetwise Kris Doolan and the Jags looked far more dangerous as a consequence.  Muirhead is at Firhill till January; on this evidence, Dundee United shouldn't have let him move, even temporarily.

But if you can't win the game, at least don't lose it; Callum Booth became the latest in a long line of Premiership left-backs who have inexplicably oblivious of the dangers posed by Greg Stewart's left foot, and his failure to show the Dundee forward towards the right touchline cost his side a point. LS

TFFK? Or should it be TFFDU?

The fans at Tannadice - both sets - honoured the great Ralph Milne pre-kickoff; sadly for the home support, the Dundee United players didn't come close to doing so with their performance.  Going by the first month of the season, it seemed that the fans of a few clubs (including this writer) would be using the acronym TFFK - Thank F*** For Kilmarnock - a lot this season.  And yet United contrived to lose to Killie, at home, courtesy of Kevin McHattie's terrific late strike.

In truth, Jackie McNamara's side should have won with a bit to spare; whilst they were poor in the first half and trailed to Kallum Higginbotham's penalty, they were well on top by the time Billy Mckay equalized from the spot (no gimme, given the Ulsterman's terrible record with penalties in his latter days at Inverness) and spurned numerous chances in the final quarter of the match.  Jamie MacDonald made a string of terrific saves for the umpteenth game this season, but for the first time in a while they earned his team a result rather than simply keeping the score down.

Dundee United will probably play worse than this in the coming months and still pick up points.  The problem now is that the crowd no longer have the patience to accept days when their team are unlucky; they've watched their team win just four of their last twenty-five games stretching back to February, and they sent their side down the tunnel to jeers of "Jackie, get to f***".  United can turn this around - I still don't think we'll be changing the acronym to TFFDU before the end of the season - but things may now be so poisonous that a change in the dugout is unavoidable. LS

Motherwell nick a point at the death

The Staggies came into this one knowing a win would narrow the gap in the race for second place following Aberdeen’s outstanding 2-1 victory over Celtic in the early kick-off (come on, I had to get that in somewhere!!).  Motherwell, meanwhile, were hoping 3 points at home would edge them closer to the top 6 positions. 3,545 fans stumped up to see this rather dour affair, the lowest crowd of the season so far at Fir Park.

Since my brief sojourn helping out County in 2014 only one face remains in the starting 11 – Rocco Quinn (with Scott Boyd being the only other player remaining). Not entirely relevant to this game, but left me amazed at the sheer turn around in playing squad since Derek Adams, and his old man George, left County and sprung up as far away from Dingwall (could you blame them?) in Plymouth.

The Dingwall men opened the scoring in the first half, when a long diagonal free kick caused confusion in the box and Michael Gardyne was on hand to sweep home with his left peg from just outside the 6 yard box  Both teams huffed and puffed before Motherwell scored in the dying embers of the game; a cute reverse pass by Keith Lasley sent substitute free on the left and his fizzed delivery was met by Louis Moult for a tap-in.

The Steelmen left it late to grab a point and all-in-all both teams will be relatively happy – Motherwell, for the fact that they looked like getting nothing from the game until the death, and Ross County, for enduring the second longest away day trip in the SPL and making the journey back up the A9 a little more palatable.

How times change, though; even six months ago, dropping two points late on at Fir Park would have been considered as potentially the difference between staying up and going down.  This season however, it could be the difference between top six and bottom six.  That's how much County have improved. ST

Martin Ingram (MI) is our Aberdeen Correspondent.  Legend has it that he is the tallest man in the Red Army.  He writes regularly for Aberdeen fanzine The Red Final.

Iain Meredith (IM) is technically a Rangers fan, but these days he tends to support them ironically.  He only agreed to help with this blog because now he can tell his wife that he's "only watching the game to help a friend out".

Lawrie Spence (LS) has ranted and spouted his ill-informed opinions on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007.  He has a life outside this blog.  Honestly.

Andrew Sutherland (AS) occasionally writes for When Saturday Comes.  He would never miss an ICT match unless he was offered a date with the lead singer of CHVRCHES...who he would then take to said ICT match.

Stuart Taylor (ST) is Wick Academy's team doctor. He is an Aberdeen fan, especially now they're doing well again.