Dons have hapless Hearts on red alert

HEARTS are falling apart again. That was the song from the Red Shed of Pittodrie at the end of a resounding Aberdeen win that should have been even more emphatic and it certainly looked like that was the fear among the stragglers left from a 1700-strong away support let down in spectacular fashion.

Not so long ago, the Tynecastle outfit appeared red-hot favourites to close out third place and guarantee more UEFA millions. With just two wins and a draw from their last seven league games, though, things look very different from the afternoon two months ago in which they scudded the Dons 5-0 at home in the closing weeks of Jim Goodwin’s time in the north-east.

They feel very different too. Robbie Neilson got a bit of stick from his own following at the end of this, but more worrying was the sight of defender James Hill arguing with punters after the majority of the visiting side had walked across to the away end after time-up and having to be ushered away by team-mates.

It’s bad enough that the side are capable of a performance as lifeless and disjointed as this. If fissures start to open between players and supporters, things can unravel very quickly. Neilson needs to nip that in the bud sharpish.

That Hill felt the need to bite back does not reflect well on him. If he’d been anywhere near as fast in reacting when Luis ‘Duk’ Lopes stole a march on him to head home his second goal of the game, chances are they might not be in the situation of only being four points clear of the Dons at the tail-end of a season in which the Granite City’s finest have dumped a manager and gone out of a tournament to Darvel.

Duk benefited from an afternoon of atrocious defending from the visitors with the opener after five minutes and his second midway through the opening period. Mattie Pollock then made it three with his first goal for the club before the half-hour.

Asked if he could understand the frustration from the away fans, Neilson said: ‘I certainly do because I was as frustrated as they were. They paid their money to come up here, it’s a long journey on the train, expensive… to go and watch that.

‘I thought that we were miles off where we need to be and where we have been as well. That was a massive frustration and Aberdeen were up for it and we weren’t.

‘It rocks us when you lose such an early goal, but, to be honest, all three goals were very sloppy.

‘The first we let him down the line, the second we have three centre-halves and we don’t pick him up. The third one is just really poor so it was a frustrating game and I would rather be playing tomorrow than having a two-week break now.

‘We have two teams behind us showing a bit of form while we have been huffing and puffing and we need to get back to it now.

‘When you play at Hearts you’re expected to win every game, and when we go to Kilmarnock we’ll be expected to go and win there. We need to bring a positivity to the game.’

In their Scottish Cup hosing at the hands of Celtic last weekend, Hearts simply failed to switch on and put themselves behind the eight-ball by losing a goal after two minutes. Here, they only managed to hold out for three minutes longer in another disastrous opening.

It was such a cheap goal to concede as well. Graeme Shinnie did really well when skinning Barrie McKay on the left touchline, but his low ball into the area was nothing terribly special.

However, Alex Cochrane made a hash of attempting to clear it, sliced it to Duk and his right-footed volley took a deflection off Orestis Kiomourtzoglou to leave goalkeeper Zander Clark flat-footed before hitting the net.

From there, it just got better and better for Aberdeen. And much, much worse for a dreadfully porous Hearts.

With 21 minutes on the clock, Pollock delivered a most enticing cross in from the right, Duk got the run on a slow-to-react Hill and sent a sweet glancing header into the net.

Number three, shortly before the half-hour, was just as straightforward. Leighton Clarkson sent a free-kick into the danger area and Pollock turned from provider to poacher to stoop low and head home. Easy-peasy.

Indeed, it could well have been 4-0 at the interval. Duk released Ylber Ramadani on the left with a clever reverse pass and the Albanian should really have done better than sending his shot into the side netting.

Robert Snodgrass did have a chance to make things semiinteresting early in the second 45 when being sent clear by a diagonal pass from Toby Sibbick. His 35year-old legs looked like they were running through treacle, though, and he eventually sent a shot wide of Kelle Roos’ left-hand post after Angus MacDonald had recovered sufficiently to put on a bit of pressure.

Other than that, though, it was all about Clark keeping the score down at the other end. He saved a Duk shot from distance then produced a brilliant near-post stop to deny Pollock a second goal.

The Dons then saw the ball come off the crossbar after a corner had caused havoc and resulted in Clark getting a hand to another Pollock effort. ABERDEEN (3-5-2): Roos; Pollock, MacDonald,

Scales; McCrorie, Ramadani, Clarkson (Myslovic 84), Shinnie, Hayes (Coulson 41); Miovski (Watkins 70), Lopes (Duncan 84). Subs not used: Lewis, MacKenzie, Barron, Markanday, Richardson. Booked: Miovski, Ramadani, Watkins.

HEARTS (3-4-3): Clark; Hill, Sibbick (Grant 76),

Rowles; Smith (Halliday 90), Kiomourtzoglou (Forrest 46), Snodgrass, Cochrane (Kingsley 34); Shankland, Ginnelly (Humphrys 76), McKay. Subs not used: Stewart, Devlin, Neilson, Kuol. Booked: Shankland,

Hill, Sibbick.

Referee: David Dickinson. Attendance: 16,278.