SOLITARY strike gives capital side first back-to-back league wins since September
ABERDEEN 0
HEARTS 1
Nade 55AT THIS rate, Hearts might even achieve lofty top six status. A second straight Premier League win and a second straight clean sheet in the championship underpinned a first victory for a visiting si
de at Pittodrie since September – the same month Hearts last won back-to-back in the league. Until a desperate late flurry from Aberdeen, Stephen Frail's men never looked like surrendering the one-goal advantage earned through Christian Nade capitalising on a loose pass from Aberdeen debutant Stuart Duff.
The home side's cause wasn't helped by losing Derek Young, Scott Severin and Jamie Smith to injury at various points in the afternoon. It should not hinder their prospects for Tuesday's CIS Cup semi-final against Dundee United, however, with the three expected to shake off a back strain, a dead leg and a hamstring problem respectively.
Hearts will go into their semi with Rangers 24 hours later feeling better about themselves than at any stage of a hitherto cruel winter. Maybe there is something in a coach picking players as well as training them. Frail's consistency of selection has given Hearts a more solid look.
It was match that could not be predicted with any conviction. Aberdeen cruised past Falkirk in their Scottish Cup replay in midweek. Only days after they were hammered at Tannadice. Hearts, meanwhile, exited meekly from the cup against Motherwell. Only days after they ended their abysmal winless run with a, supposedly, confidence-building derby victory. Even Calderwood admitted recently his team have hardly played this season. His counterpart Frail would have to concede his side haven't even played that much.
The problems for the pair were laid out in a forgettable opening period. Neither team played particularly badly, or particularly well. Hearts made chances, but didn't take them, and both sides tended to operate in football twilight that offered too little in the way of illuminating play. They didn't lack good intentions. Once the orthodoxy, it was unusual to see two teams in 4-4-2 formation in opposition. Hearts' twin strikeforce of Andrius Velicka and Christian Nade, had a real edge over Jamie Smith and Lee Miller. Ultimately, a cutting one too.
Velicka has many admirers. The Lithuanian is often commended for his goals-to-attempts ratio; for making his relatively infrequent interventions count. Yesterday, the opposite was true. He was to be seen often in the opening 45 but his efforts lacked a zing. It was his partner Nade who contrived to miss the easiest opportunity of that period, however. In only the second minute, he side-footed wide of the far post with the goal entirely at his mercy.
A Nade cut-back set up Velicka shortly afterwards, only for the forward to scuff a shot from ten yards and allow Jackie McNamara to make a desperate clearance. The pattern of the encounter then settled into Aberdeen producing pitter-patter now and then, while Hearts engineered most of the goalmouth action worth noting.
The inconsistency that dogs Aberdeen was best summed up in the performance of Jamie Langfield. After a week when he was cruelly named keeper for Scotland's ugliest XI in one newspaper, and guilty of a goal-costing error against United, his keeping was immaculate. Velicka suffered, with Langfield sharp to save a powerful header from him and swift to throw himself to his right to block an over-head kick from the same player. He kept ahead in the personal duel with yet another fine block in the early minutes of the second half, Velicka then conjuring up classy first-time effort that seemed to be squeezing in near post.
Langfield was powerless to prevent Nade neatly lifting a shot over him for the warranted winning goal but the striker was a personal disaster for new signing Stuart Duff, brought from Dundee United this week. Sent on in 32nd minute to replace the injured Scott Severin only five minutes after Derek Young had been forced off with a knock, Duff himself would have suffered personal injury of the psychological kind after he failed to control a pass and in doing so played Nade in to score.
It was just about the final contribution from Nade, who was replaced by Andrius Ksanavicius after an hour, with the lesser-spotted Ricardas Beniusis sent on for Velicka with quarter of an hour remaining. The moves weren't obviously cautious, but Hearts became so. They need not have been so fearful. Aside from a Andrew Considine header and a Smith run and shot, the home side posed no real threat. Smith was at the centre of all that was neat about the home side's play and on several occasion looked as if he might be able to provide the creative spark. But when he was lost to a niggle, Aberdeen's forward forays began to lack focus.
They may have endured misfortune when referee William Collum adjudged that Lee Miller had been offside when finishing off a fluent move in the 57th minute. A fizzing 25-yard effort from Richard Foster that Stevie Banks brilliantly turned over the bar in the 85th minute represented Aberdeen's first real effort on target. A few scrambles ensued in the Hearts goalmouth, but the visitors stood strong and recorded back-to-back league victories to send them within a point of rivals Hibs.
The full article contains 917 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
