New dawn at Dons didn’t last long...

Pittodrie fans not happy as the Steelmen storm to win

THE mood of unbridled optimism that has swirled around Pittodrie since the beginning of the season began to change just a little after the half hour on Saturday.

A goal down to Motherwell after permitting Blair Spittal to convert a Connor Shields cross, Aberdeen were fortunate to escape when Sean Goss, picking up an unconvincing attempt to clear from home captain Anthony Stewart, released a fizzing low shot that took the slightest of deflections and went just wide of home keeper Kelle Roos’s right-hand post.

The grumbles rose steadily within the home support. The exasperation over a disjointed performance was tangible. By the end of a match in which Jim Goodwin’s side could easily have conceded five or six goals, that restlessness had descended into plain old booing.

Suddenly, the brave new era is in danger of looking — and sounding — like some of the bad, old ones. After losing to Celtic on the opening day, Goodwin appraised August as a month full of ‘very winnable’ games. Saturday, then, was a clear exercise in failure.

Goals either side of the break from Bojan Miovski and Jonny Hayes had given the Dons a wholly undeserved 2-1 lead, but they were simply incapable of protecting it.

Within three second-half minutes, Callum Slattery and Kevin van Veen had put Motherwell in front and the Steelmen, energetic and impressive throughout under their newly confirmed manager Stevie Hammell, might well have stretched that advantage had Van Veen and Ross Tierney made more of great, late chances.

Goodwin, admirably honest about his side’s shortcomings, branded it a ‘reality check’ at time-up. He described some of the gaps across the back line as ‘criminal’. He wasn’t wrong on any of these counts.

Given his previous success with St Mirren, Goodwin was seen as a coach to come in and get Aberdeen organised. That’s why the level of disarray was so alarming. Stewart had a torrid time in the rearguard with the midfield giving little protection against a Motherwell side under orders from Hammell to get more runners into the box.

Aberdeen are a new team. There has been a huge amount of surgery performed on the squad of late. It will take time for the players to knit together. However, they should be better than this.

Straight from the start, they struggled to put passes together, knocked the ball out of the park under little pressure, failed to win second balls. Elementary stuff. With Goodwin now having won just three out of 15 league games as boss, the need to start delivering something more impressive on a consistent basis is becoming ever more pressing.

You cannot invest the money

Aberdeen have and ask for a season of settling-in. They need to be pushing for third this term and performances such as this are unlikely to get them there.

‘We didn’t start well,’ said goalkeeper Roos. ‘We didn’t get the ball moving. We didn’t play our type of way. It made it really tough.

‘When you play teams like this, you need to earn the right to play. You need to win second balls, you need to play as a unit. We didn’t do that.

‘We gave up too much space and we got punished for that. At this moment in time, though, it is too early to panic. We are a very new group. We have seen over the past weeks there is a lot of talent here.’

Roos’ words gave the impression the visitors overcame Aberdeen down to some kind of physical, rudimentary approach. That is wrong. They were simply sharper, faster and more cohesive from the off, with Hammell’s insistence on greater fitness clear.

Goodwin also suggested they operated largely on the counter. Considering they were easily the better, more dominant side in the first 45, it is also difficult to agree completely with that.

One thing is for sure. Whether Aberdeen are a rebuilt team or not, Van Veen still has the better of them the same way he did when Stephen Glass was the manager in the Granite City.

The Dutchman scored four times against the Dons last season and popped up again with the winner, heading home after Spittal had hit the crossbar when clean through. Yet, he insists he has to work on his sharpness to fit in with the demands Hammell is making of his squad.

‘I am still a bit off the pace in certain ways. I need to push myself to reach my potential,’ said Van Veen.

‘I think there is a lot more in me and I need to improve from last season.

‘I have to give more and do more to be absolutely causing havoc up top. That’s what I want to do.

‘We deserved the win. We set up in a way to let them play when they were not the strongest at playing out. There was a bit of frustration and the fans turned on them a bit.

‘It could have easily been 4-2 or 5-2. It shows I like playing against them. I get spaces in certain areas and they don’t really pick me up.’

Van Veen (right) already sees changes happening under Hammell and was happy to atone on Saturday for the performance that saw the side suffer a late defeat to St Johnstone the week before.

‘There is a fresh wind and all the boys are very positive about him,’ he stated.

‘We caught Aberdeen out so many times and it was all his game plan, so credit to him and the assistant manager for setting us up that way.

‘He wants quick football and it is working. The more time the manager gets, the better we will be.’

ABERDEEN (4-2-3-1): Roos 6; Richardson 5, Stewart 5, McCrorie 5, Scales 6; Ramadani 4, Clarkson 4 (MacKenzie 67); Kennedy 4 (Morris 30), Besuijen 5, Hayes 6 (Lopes 75); Miovski 6. Subs not used: Lewis, Watkins, Polvara, Duncan, Milne, Ramirez. Booked: MacKenzie. MOTHERWELL (4-4-2): Kelly 6; McGinn 6, Mugabi 6, Solholm Johansen 6, O’Donnell 6; Slattery 7 (Maguire 74), Goss 7, Cornelius 7 (Tierney 75), Spittal 7 (Efford 62); Van Veen 8, Shields 7 (Morris 74). Subs not used: Oxborough, Ojala, Johnston, Mahon, Spiers. Booked: Slattery, Morris. Man of the match: Kevin van Veen. Referee: Chris Graham. Attendance: 14,714.