WE HAVE A TITLE RACE!
Aberdeen had ended 2014 in second place in the Premiership thanks to a hard-fought 1-0 win at Caledonian Stadium, the winning goal owing as much to Carl Tremarco's brave aerial challenge on Josh Meekings as it did to Niall McGinn's subsequent retrieval work and Peter Pawlett's clinical finish.
It was McGinn again who was to the fore in creating the breakthrough against St. Johnstone. He played on the left, then played on the right, before making Simon Lappin look...um, ordinary...by checking onto his left foot and delivering the ball for David Goodwillie to hit a spectacular overhead kick and open the scoring.
From that moment onwards, the Dons were dominant. McGinn, Goodwillie and Jonny Hayes forced further saves out of the outstanding Alan Mannus, while Pawlett was denied a third goal in three games when his strike was disallowed for an earlier handball by Goodwillie. While the Saints occasionally threatened from set-piece play, they rarely looked likely to grab an equaliser.
Ash Taylor was the sponsors' Man of the Match, and deservedly so, capping a remarkable personal turnaround from the beginning of the season. Where once he attracted such adjectives as "dreadful", "generous" and "slack", he has now become an integral part of a defence which has now gone over 500 minutes without conceding a goal in the league. Taylor's last act was to release Adam Rooney on the counter-attack, allowing Rooney in turn to tee up the 19-year-old Cammy Smith to score Aberdeen's second goal in injury time. Was Rooney onside in the build up? By that time, frankly, nobody cared. The Dons fans were now in raptures, while the Saints fans likely just wanted to get on the bus home.
So much for the form book going out the window
The second Highland Derby of the season was a lot more emphatic an outcome than the first one. The mere two-goal advantage flattered Ross County as Inverness Caledonian Thistle were rampant for most of the match.
The result and its performance were vindication for John Hughes in sticking with the same team that lost to Aberdeen. It was, on the face of it, Yogi's best team available, (Ross Draper was suspended), and even after three straight defeats there was no need for sudden changes. Hughes' team has quietly evolved into a side that can apply itself to a variety of circumstances. They occasionally remain hamstrung by his zealous insistence on short passing - see the first half of the first derby for instance - but in this fixture his team thrived in mixing their play up.
The match was set up as one of attrition, with the respective midfield triangles competing directly against one other. It meant that there was precious little time afforded on the ball for anyone, but while that was County's plan they themselves had nowhere to go other than backwards. On the contrary, Caley Thistle were continually able to find Billy Mckay and Marley Watkins breaking behind County's high back-line, which gave their play more depth and put County under a lot of pressure early on. It set the tone for the match and County were fortunate not to be several goals down by the time Jim McIntyre made his two first-half substitutions.
It can be argued that McIntyre made a couple of errors before and during the match. The first was going with the same team that ground to a goalless draw at Celtic Park last weekend: with Brittain on the right flank and Terry Dunfield one of the two higher-placed central midfielders, County didn't have the team to take the game to their opponents. It was the wrong selection for the wrong strategy. Whereas Hughes can trust the same personnel to play for each other and get the job done, McIntyre is constantly needing to improvise to get the best out of his squad, sometimes without playing his best players in their best positions to get the best outcome.
The second was not introducing a winger to add something different to the game. Having Graeme Shinnie in central midfield in Draper's place actually improves Caley Thistle's progressive play, but it also exposes a weakness, with Carl Tremarco comfortably the poorest player in the team when deputising for Shinnie at left-back. Yet with Brittain tucking infield and McIntyre later switching to a narrow midfield diamond, Tremarco was unfussed throughout the match.
Had Darren Maatsen been trusted with his first start in nearly 18 months, he would have been a serious test for Tremarco that could have indirectly supressed the brilliant Aaron Doran, but he would also have given County the out-ball behind the defence that they so badly needed. Maatsen doesn't have the all-round game to control a match, but he has a trick, searing pace as well as a wicked shot: the situation was ripe for him to get an early yellow card out of Tremarco. The manager will rue not maximising his chances for taking something from the game.
Instead, Caley Thistle were too streetwise, too quick and too organised for County. It didn't play out like a derby so much as it did a match between sides at different ends of the league table. The better team won. JAM
GMS stars for imperious United
There is no finer way to bring in the New Year for a football fan than by thrashing your local rivals. And for a neutral, watching a 6-2 game is not too bad either.
Dundee have looked pretty good this season for a newly promoted team and although United are flying high, such a one sided contest was wasn’t necessarily expected. And although the home side have an exciting young squad their football under Jackie McNamara has often failed to find substance to back up their style.
Yesterday’s performance, though, was full of pace and energy that Dundee could not cope with. Gary Mackay-Steven in particular was a joy to watch as he launched himself up and down the field all day. It begs the question of why he hasn't been in the side recently, and his freshness may give his side a real kick in the next few months.
Teams rarely score goals purely as a result of great attacking play however, and Dundee’s defending was at times woeful. They clearly suffered as a result of a late change in goal (Kyle Letheren was injured in the warmup, and was replaced by Milo out of '24') but they will have to get their act together quickly at the back if they don’t want to spend the second half of the season looking nervously over their shoulder.
But seeing the top teams in the Premiership separated by 5 points is a very nice way to start 2014, and Dundee United certainly look like they have the tools, January departures permitting, to keep up a challenge for the title deep into the Spring. IM
Reviewing the Willie Collum Show
Yes, there was also a football match at St. Mirren Park, but it was just a rather dull subplot to the main attraction, which was the latest edition of a sitcom so slapstick that it puts Mrs. Brown's Boys to shame. After a horrendous opening half, the second part was heavily reliant on plot twists which were too zany to be believed by anyone watching. Here's the main moments in summary...
1) Killie's first penalty. Marc McAusland wins a header just inside his box, under pressure from Josh Magennis. Magennis tried to back in to the defender, only to discover McAusland wasn't there to back into, and fell over. By Willie Collum's rules, 'not allowing the striker to back in to you' is a penalty, apparently.
2) Kenny McLean's red card. Maybe Collum's eagle eyes saw something that the cameras didn't see, or more likely, saw something that simply didn't exist. The footage I've seen shows a little bit of argy-bargy between a few players, barely worthy of a yellow.
3) Killie's second penalty. Possibly the only half-decent moment of Collum's afternoon. Mallan definitely trips Magennis, though the St. Mirren player is caught out by the forward's stumble just beforehand and mistimes his tackle. Mind you, the lousy camera angle for the highlights gives the impression that a Killie player was a mile offside in the build up.
4) Craig Slater's red card. Did Slater, off-camera, actually go into the away fans? The clips I've seen show him going close to them, and then getting an almighty manhug from a supporter who jumped over the wall to grab him. Worth a second yellow only to the most petty of officials...so it shouldn't be a surprise that one was shown here.
5) St. Mirren's penalty. As crazy as Killie's first spot-kick. Jim Goodwin does a triple twist and spin that would get him thrown out of ballet class for being too elaborate. Manuel Pascali's crime appears to have been to breathe on him.
A couple of wonderful stats from Thom Watt on Twitter - Collum has awarded more than a quarter of all red cards, and more than a quarter of all penalties, in the Scottish Premiership this season.
One hopes The Willie Collum Show will get cancelled very soon. It's almost as terrible as Dapper Laughs. LS
Motherwell overrun by rampant Accies
Hamilton have now beaten Motherwell 4-0 and 5-0 in the league this season, with a narrow cup win thrown in for good measure. Why do Accies have such a great record in these games? Well, firstly Motherwell aren't particularly good at coming from behind - the last seventeen league games in which they've conceded the first goal (going back to last February), they've managed only a single point. Their lack of pace leaves them open to counter-attacks when they're chasing the game, and Accies are as good as anyone at exploiting that.
But this match was probably lost as a result of a first half substitution, when the visitors lost Simon Ramsden to injury and replaced him with forward Lee Erwin. Ramsden had started the game alongside Keith Lasley in central midfield; the change in system, with Erwin going up front alongside John Sutton, left Lasley massively isolated, as Josh Law and Lionel Ainsworth are hardly defensive-minded players. Lasley, hardly mobile enough to break into a sprint these days, was overwhelmed by his buzzing opponents, with Ali Crawford, Dougie Imrie and Tony Andreu running riot. By half-time, when Ian Baraclough brought Chris Cadden on to partner Lasley, it was 2-0 and the game was lost.
This could have been so much worse than 5-0; Mickael Antoine-Curier was hugely wasteful up front for the home side, spurning numerous chances. Even his goal summed up his day - clumsily staggering through Fraser Kerr and Dan Twardzik with the benefit of some fortuitous ricochets. The way the bumbling striker troubled Kerr and Stephen McManus will be worrying for Baraclough, who has a lot to do on this showing to make Motherwell competitive again.
As a sidenote, the BBC Alba highlights were practically unwatchable due to the wet TV camera. Can no-one at BBC Scotland afford a wee shammy to wipe the lens with? LS
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's fanzine.
John A Maxwell (JAM) is co-editor of Tell Him He's Pele, the acclaimed website focused on Scottish lower league football. He is an authority on all things Ross County. Legend has it that the 'A' stands for 'awesome'.
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.
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