Defence Archives - Page 5 of 6

Motherwell 1 Aberdeen 0 – Fir Park 24/9/11

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Sep 262011

Aberdeen are yet to win a game or even score a goal away from home in all competitions this season, and visiting third placed Motherwell was unlikely to yield any joy on this front regardless of the Dons midweek woes. Philip Sim reports.

The game itself came close to rivalling Aberdeen’s last away trip at Easter Road for sheer lack of entertainment. In truth both teams were fairly insipid in a game which was always looked like it would be decided by an individual error, and over the last few years those have been the Dons’ speciality.

Craig Brown named what might be his strongest starting eleven, the poor form of many of those players notwithstanding. Despite picking the right players – with the possible exception of perennially overlooked impact sub Peter Pawlett – Brown again insisted on deploying them in almost arbitrary positions.

Kari Arnason, the best midfielder at the club, started at centre half. Chris Clark and Richard Foster, the only full-backs in the team, featured in midfield. Although midfielder Ryan Jack filled in at admirably at right-back, it further emphasised the makeshift nature of the team.

Moving Foster into midfield again resulted in centre-half Andrew Considine playing left-back – a particularly odd decision given the fearsome pace of Motherwell’s Chris Humphrey. This was underlined when the speedy winger – albeit probably fouling Considine in the process – sped away to round David Gonzalez and somehow send his shot up and away off the crossbar. That said, Banchory-born defender Considine – one of Aberdeen’s better performers this term – seemed to have the beating of his man thereafter

It is difficult of course to argue whether playing Foster at the back would have been effective, as it was his blunder while filling in at left-back allowing Bob McHugh in for the only goal of the game. The Steelmen scored their goal pretty much straight from an Aberdeen corner kick – underlining the visitors propensity for getting into a promising position before finding a bizarre way to mess it up.

The Dons’ attack appeared as toothless as ever, despite trying out yet another front pairing in Scott Vernon and Rory Fallon. The theory behind this partnership is sound – Fallon can operate as a target man allowing Vernon to play his preferred role of penalty box striker, playing facing the goal. Whilst the two combined reasonably well on occasion there was precious little creativity in getting the ball up to the strikers, with the Dons often just looking for the agricultural long ball towards Fallon.

The failure of Vernon and Fallon to click is a microcosm of almost everything about the Dons this season. It deceives to look good on paper, and in many ways it should work, but it doesn’t.

Motherwell have not been on a good run of form of late – they were beaten 3-0 at home by St Johnstone and knocked out of the cup by Hibs last week – but for one reason or another Aberdeen cant buy a win right now.

The Dons’ next two matches, home ties against Dunfermline and Dundee United, will complete the first set of fixtures against all of the other SPL sides. So far, Aberdeen have scored against two, and beaten only one. If Craig Brown can not improve this run of form, his side are going to look increasingly like relegation candidates, albeit in a crowded field of struggling sides.

Brown insists that luck has been against his side so far, and he had better hope it turns before long or he may find his coat on a shoogly peg. His players often appear to be just on the cusp of getting it together, so it might not be time to start questioning the manager’s position just yet . That time nonetheless creeps closer with every poor result.

Dons Go Out On Penalties Following Extra Time Stalemate.

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Sep 202011

Aberdeen 3 – East Fife 3 – East Fife win 4-3 on penalties – 20/9/11

This latest embarrassment will not be altogether unfamiliar to those who sat through similar capitulations against Queen of the South, Queens Park, Dunfermline and Raith Rovers, or even the European humblings against Bohemians and Sigma Olomouc. Philip Sim reports.

It’s got to the point where it’s not even surprising any more. On each occasion Aberdeen appear poised to take a step forward, they take two backward.

No matter how many times it happens, it still hurts. So what went wrong? There was a lot more to this result than East Fife’s goalkeeper saving more penalties than Gonzalez for Aberdeen.

One attempt at an excuse is that it was a weakened Aberdeen team. Craig Brown has apologised for making wholesale changes to a side that played relatively well at the weekend – but many of them actually made sense.

David Gonzalez returned to the side after missing the weekend encounter with Kilmarnock due to his wife going into labour, and the return of the first-choice goalkeeper can hardly be said to have weakened the team.

That said, he looked distinctly flat footed at East Fife’s second goal although some would argue that Jason Brown would not have been tall enough to reach Matthew Park’s lob in any case.

Scott Vernon and Darren Mackie were partnered in attack – Brown’s tried and tested front duo – and while it’s debatable whether they have passed that test at least both of them have scored this season. By contrast, Mohamed Chalali has not scored at club level.

Indeed, after Vernon and Mackie were withdrawn for Chalali and Rory Fallon, the Dons seemed to struggle even more to find the way to goal. Only Josh Magennis looked lively – if not particularly dangerous. He found shooting space quite often but invariably shot straight at Mark Ridgers in the visitors goal.

Of the other changes, only Youl Mawene and Isaac Osbourne were missed as Rob Milsom’s recent form, Saturday’s game against Kilmarnock in particular, scarcely merited him a place in the side.

In any case, shouldn’t any eleven players on the first team books at Pittodrie be able to dispatch a side bottom of the second division?

Does this mean that Aberdeen’s second string players are not even second division standard?

To be fair, the Dons did fairly batter the Fifers’ goal. The home side recorded 25 shots on goal. However, too many were driven straight into Ridgers’ arms or sent tamely wide or over the bar. The Dons showed a complete inability to break their opponents down, often shooting from outside the box or even further afield.

Fair play to East Fife. They capitalised on the only three chances they had in the match. That Aberdeen scored the same number of goals from more than eight times the chances is testament to how poor the Dons’ finishing is at the moment.

Almost as much of a worry is the defence, a supposedly SPL standard defence which shipped three goals to a second division side. Oddly enough, Andrew Considine actually had a pretty good game at centre half, and while Rory McArdle didn’t look quite as composed, especially with the ball at his feet, he at least popped up with a goal. Aberdeen’s problems were at full-back.

Strangely this was the first game of the season that Aberdeen have started with two recognised full-backs in that position, rather than having midfielders or centre-backs fill in at one or both. Chris Clark played the majority of his games at Plymouth as a right-back, while left back is Ricky Foster’s strongest position – although Foster himself might argue otherwise. Despite this, the two looked completely and utterly clueless in defence.

Perhaps they were too focussed on going forward – both spent much of the game in the opposition half, swinging in crosses which never quite reached anyone. Whatever the reason, they provided absolutely no defensive cover. Foster usually bails out the centre-backs with his pace – against East Fife, Considine actually had to come to his captain’s rescue on several occasions. Clark looked weak. He dithered pathetically while the Fifers scored their third, and while he thumped into one or two tackles impressively he wimped out of far more.

After a similarly hopeless displays against Hibs and Kilmarnock, the Red Army will be beginning to wonder what happened to Clark while he was in England – and precisely why he’s been signed to a three year contract. It was no surprise to anyone in the stadium when it was he who missed the final fatal penalty.

The biggest failure was one of belief. As the second half wore on it became increasingly clear that the heads had gone down, and that the Aberdeen players simply did not believe they could win the game back. They were out fought and out thought by a team which lost 6-0 at home to Dumbarton a few weeks previously.

Maybe sometimes there has to be a shock result – a giant-killing – as these things simply happen in football. But why do they always seem to happen to Aberdeen?
Another year, another humiliation, and once again the Red Army are left with more questions than answers about just where their club is headed.

Aberdeen 2 Kilmarnock 2 – Pittodrie Stadium 17/9/11

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Sep 182011

Last week’s debacle at Easter Road raised the question of whether Aberdeen and Hibs were bottom of the league because they were playing badly, or if they were playing badly because they were bottom of the league. The question might be answered in that this weekend, against teams in the top six, both sides played out highly entertaining 2-2 draws. Philip Sim reports from Pittodrie.

The Dons might justifiably feel they should have won their match with Kilmarnock, but the fact they trailed 2-0 after half an hour will leave the Red Army more positive about the result.

Aberdeen dictated much of the proceedings, winning a string of corners and creating chances early on, but despite the home side’s dominance it was the visitors who took an advantage into the interval by scoring with their only two attempts of the half.
The Dons showed resilience to come back from two goals down, and pressed hard to find a winner in the closing stages.

At the outset, many of last week’s questionable tactics remained in place – Kari Arnason, the most composed player in Aberdeen’s overstaffed central midfield, was again deployed needlessly at centre back, pushing Andrew Considine out to left back. Another midfielder, Ryan Jack, featured at right-back, while full-back Ricky Foster was played on the left wing. The other wide position was filled by central midfielder Fraser Fyvie.

Jack and Arnason are convincing near enough wherever they play, but Fyvie is not a winger, nor is Considine a full-back. And what is there to gain by pushing Foster forward into midfield? He looks fine bombing forward to the byline to get a cross in, but when he cuts inside he looks rather lost and confused. All of the good things he does from left midfield he was doing anyway from left-back, as well as using his pace to cover the defence. Moving him into midfield only serves to shuffle other players around to compensate.

Despite being played out of position, big Andrew Considine played out of his skin. While he still displays all the characteristics of a centre half – strong physically on or off the ball, good in the air – he also showed great attacking intent, thundering forward at every opportunity and whipping in some excellent crosses.

His goal was brilliantly taken, especially given it was with his weaker right foot, a finish that few of the Dons front line could have conjured in the current drought.

That said, the Dons featured an all-new strike pairing against Killie, with Rory Fallon and Mohamed Chalali both handed their first start in a red shirt.

Chalali showed good intent with some direct running at the visitor’s defence, and while Fallon won everything in the air the pair didn’t quite click as a partnership. Too often the Algerian directed his runs the wrong way to meet the Kiwi’s flicks, and after being moved out to the wing it was little surprise when Chalali was hooked at half time for the ultimately equally ineffective Peter Pawlett.

Fallon looked the part as a traditional target man, something the Dons have lacked this season, and almost gave his side the lead with a second-half header which rebounded back off the crossbar. This came after he was ludicrously booked in the first half by referee Iain Brines, supposedly for simulation – while the challenge in question may not have merited a penalty award, it certainly wasn’t a dive.

Brines gave Fallon absolutely nothing all afternoon, leading some to speculate that the whistler’s wife may have run off with a Kiwi.

In a way Craig Brown should thank Brines for his blunder, as that was the turning point in the match – after the second Killie goal, the heads had gone down, and it was only after the penalty controversy that the Dons looked fired up and hungry for vengeance.

Aside from the defensive lapses for the goals – one a missed header by Youl Mawene, who made amends by heading the equaliser, the other an instance of the entire midfield going to sleep at once – the main disappointment for Aberdeen was the attendance, a paltry seven and a half thousand. Although perhaps thanks to the quality of the match and the questionable officiating, the crowd produced one of the best atmospheres Pittodrie has seen this season.

The dwindling gates might have more to do with the accumulated horrors of the last couple of seasons than Aberdeen’s performances this term, but Brown‘s side could get the numbers heading in the right direction with a couple of wins.

Hopefully a good performance against lowly East Fife in the cup next week will generate some interest in the next home match, an experimental Friday night encounter with Dunfermline, and get the faithful flocking back to Pittodrie.

Aberdeen 0 Hibs 0 – Easter Road Stadium 11/9/11

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Sep 122011

Sometimes nil-nil can be a deceptive scoreline, masking an exciting encounter between two evenly-matched sides. Sometimes, though, there are simply no goals because neither team is good enough to score any. This was a match almost completely devoid of incident, a scrappy bottom of the table snooze-fest from which neither team even deserved a point. Philip Sim reports from Easter Road.

The grim performance on the pitch induced a funereal atmosphere in the stands, as it slowly dawned on supporters of both sides that they’d just paid in excess of twenty pounds to be bored and depressed.

You could be forgiven for initially assuming that at this stage of the season, Aberdeen and Hibs are in false positions at the bottom of the SPL.

However on Sunday’s evidence the position is more than deserved – few teams in the league could conspire to serve up such dire, uninspiring fare.

At times the game was a comedy of errors – an Aberdeen player would walk the ball straight out of play, only for his Hibernian counterpart to send the throw-in straight back to a red shirt, inevitably ending in another aimless long-ball to no-one in particular. An actual football team could have run riot against either side.

The Dons lined up in a less than ambitious 4-5-1 formation. Really, such a formation should see a team dominate the midfield, but Aberdeen rarely managed to string three passes together in the middle of the park, let alone control it. Isaac Osbourne was effective as usual in spoiling opposition play, but Fraser Fyvie and Rob Milsom appeared completely incapable of retaining possession. Ricky Foster’s pace and drive down the left provided a few meagre highlights, but on the other flank Chris Clark put in an absolutely dreadful performance, with the Dons looking characteristically short on width or creativity.

The failings of the five were compounded by those of the one, with lone striker Scott Vernon looking increasingly isolated and starved of service. In a functional 4-5-1 the midfield is supposed to push forward to support the striker, maybe turn into a 4-3-3 when attacking, but the Dons showed little offensive invention or ambition save the occasional foray forward from Fyvie.

Vernon is a penalty-box striker, not a target man. He is not the man to win flick-ons or hold the ball up for his team-mates – he’s a finisher, not a creator.

He prefers to play facing the goal, rather than with his back to it, so in short he could not be less suited to the lone striker role. This does not however explain why he spent two thirds of the game at Easter Road offside.

At the other end of the park, Hibs had more of the ball but offered few real threats, mostly being restricted to long-range efforts. Garry O’Connor conspired to make Youll Mawene look quick, and what the Hibs front line conjured up was easily dealt with by David Gonzalez.

The home side’s toothless attack is one of the reasons they’re bottom of the league, so really there was no need to move Kari Arnason back into defence. He strolled through the game as usual, and his composure and presence could have made a huge difference to the Dons midfield, which was relatively transparent throughout. Moving the Icelander to centre back meant shuffling Considine out to left-back, and with Rory McArdle in the other full-back position there was never a hope of any attacking ambition from the full-back position.

By contrast when Hibs came forward down the flanks they often outnumbered the visitors’ defence, because their full-backs were willing to overlap and leave their own half.

To be fair to Considine and McArdle, neither of them are full-backs, and neither can be blamed for their manager’s decision to play them there. Meanwhile, the players in the Aberdeen squad who have looked reasonably exciting in recent weeks – Josh Magennis and Peter Pawlett – were left on the bench, and only introduced after the game had settled into a coma.

Seven games of the season gone, then, and Aberdeen have still only scored in one of them. The complaints remain the same, of width, creativity and attacking ambition, while the excuses grow thinner by the game – the return to the bench of Yoann Folly heralds the last of the team’s injury worries, and the squad has had ample time to gel.

Other teams who have undergone similarly large rebuilding jobs over the summer have settled much more quickly – fourth placed Kilmarnock and SPL new boys Dunfermline for example. With former Plymouth striker Rory Fallon reportedly offered a contract, Brown obviously recognises the shortcomings of his side, but patience in the stands is beginning to run thin – the Dons need to start producing results soon.

Rangers 2 Aberdeen 0 – Ibrox Stadium 28/8/11

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Aug 292011

Defeats at Ibrox are becoming rather run of the mill for Aberdeen, and while words like “spirited” and “plucky” will be attributed to the Dons’ performance today, many fans will be wondering why their side waited until the second half to show any attacking ambition. Philip Sim reports.

Aberdeen are yet to score on their travels in the SPL this season and in the first half didn’t look likely to change that record. They lined up with a rather negative, defensive 4-5-1 formation despite the recent woes of their opponents.
Even with a five man midfield there was precious little width, with Rob Milsom and Ryan Jack deployed on the flanks.

The Dons had plenty of the ball in the opening period, often stringing together sequences of ten or more passes across the middle of the park, making the extra man count, but attacks broke down almost before they’d even got as far as lone striker Scott Vernon.

While they did prove difficult to break down – David Gonzalez barely touched the ball other than to pick Steven Davis’ 15th minute opener out of the net – they offered absolutely nothing going forward, not even drawing a save from Allan McGregor in the hosts goal in the first half.

The introduction of Peter Pawlett for Jack in at half time introduced pace and width to what had been a dour game for the first time, and there was almost an immediate impact. Scott Vernon raced clear seconds after the restart but was forced wide by McGregor.

Pawlett then burst free down the left and laid back for McArdle to cross, and McGregor pulled off a fantastic full-stretch save to prevent Carlos Bocanegra’s looping header going in as an own goal. Ricky Foster – who spent last season on loan at Ibrox – hurled himself onto the rebound but his diving header came back off the crossbar. Fraser Fyvie and Kari Arnason both fired in efforts from range as the Dons put the hosts under the cosh.

After Dons boss Craig Brown introduced new signing Mohamed Chalali for defender Rory McArdle, Rangers responded by moving to a more defensive formation akin to that the visitors adopted in the first half, dropping Bedoya into midfield. It was they who now benefited from having an extra man in the middle, Chalali having joined Josh Magennis in the Dons attack, and this was telling from the way Pawlett and Fyvie faded from the game. Isaac Osbourne was still winning every 50-50 ball and many more, but his side struggled to find space to craft an opening.

Aberdeen’s control over the game faltered as Rangers looked to close it out at 1 – 0. They were gifted a scarcely deserved second right at the death courtesy of David Gonzalez, who fumbled a powerful Davis free-kick loose into the box for Steven Naismith to tap home.

This added a little more gloss to the result than the hosts merited, having looked increasingly beleaguered since half time.

Once again Aberdeen can take heart from their performance in portions of the game, and the result flatters Rangers to an extent as they were not the better side by a clear two goal margin. But Craig Brown needs to learn lessons from this – his team have only ever performed for half of a game so far this season, and this has rarely produced results. They have shown themselves capable of playing good football, but are unable to produce this with any consistency.

With the SPL taking a break for international matches next week, this is a good time to take stock. The squad is beginning to gel well and the new signings – Osbourne and Arnason in particular, although Mawene was also solid at Ibrox – look a distinct improvement on those they replaced.

However there is still a real lack of width in the team, and it appears that Mohamed Chalali has been signed as an out-and-out striker. If a wide man – a left-footed version of Peter Pawlett, if possible – isn’t a priority before the transfer window closes, then Brown needs to better utilise the personnel that he has. His side have been at their best in recent fixtures when stretching other teams, going at them with width and pace, but the team is seldom set up to do that.

Every game this season, the complaints have been the same – width, creativity, finishing, and consistency – if Aberdeen were to play for 90 minutes the way they have in half-hour spells against Rangers, Hearts and Inverness, they would have a lot more than four points on the board right now. The team undoubtedly has a solid base with plenty to build on there, but as things stand it remains some way from being a finished product.

Aberdeen 1 Dundee 0 – Pittodrie Stadium 23/08/11

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Aug 242011

Most teams would greet a tie against lower-league opposition in the cup as a good thing, but a series of embarrassing upsets in recent years have left Aberdeen fans rather wary when facing smaller sides. As a result they will gleefully accept any kind of win in these circumstances, even by the narrowest of margins – and that is precisely what their team produced here. Philip Sim reports from Pittodrie.

The Dons looked comfortable without ever really impressing, and should have had it in them to find the second goal which would have killed the game.
They are creating a lot more chances than during the early-season goal drought, but finishing remains poor.

Josh Magennis, Darren Mackie and Ryan Jack all missed first-half chances, while Kari Arnason saw his long-range drive well saved.
The Dons seemed at their best when going at the Dundee defence at pace, something the front pairing of Mackie and Magennis have in abundance, and this is how they carved out the best chances of the game.

The solitary goal of the tie was well-taken by the much-maligned Darren Mackie, turning on Chris Clark’s knockdown from a Peter Pawlett cross before firing high into the net past veteran Dee’s keeper Rab Douglas.

Pawlett looked lively for much of the first half, speeding past his marker with ease time and time again and even drawing a save from Douglas, but the young winger appeared subdued after being floored by a flying elbow from Gary Irvine.

That attack went completely unpunished by referee John McKendrick, who did little to endear himself to the home support with a succession of bizarre decisions. There seemed to be a fundamental lack of consistency from the whistler, who as chair of the referees’ union was instrumental in winning officials a pay rise over the summer.

As with the weekend win over Inverness, the Dons faded somewhat in the second half, after a fashion appearing content to hold out and defend their narrow lead. Craig Brown’s hand was forced somewhat tactically when he had to replace first Arnason and then Clark due to injury – Clark’s in particular looking serious, a real worry for a player who was making his first start after an injury lay-off.

Aberdeen’s play after the forced changes lacked any of the fluency shown in flashes in the first half.

In the middle of the park in particular they lacked composure, rarely dwelling on the ball, always looking to fire forward long passes for Mackie and Magennis to chase. Fraser Fyvie did his best to fill in the Arnason/Milsom role of midfield creator, but still doesn’t look nearly as sharp as he did prior to his serious injury last season – hopefully this will come with time and games.

Ricky Foster’s pace again caused problems for the opposition, and he actually had a second-half goal disallowed for offside after smashing home a Pawlett drive which came off the post. His running and that of Pawlett and Jack, supporting the pace of Mackie and Magennis, gave the Dons good width at times, but the supply from the centre was inconsistent despite the typically strong tackling and defensive play of Osbourne.

Dundee by contrast never looked entirely likely to put the ball in the net.

Although the Division One side had plenty of the ball in the second half in particular and applied substantial pressure on the Dons rearguard, debutant goalkeeper Jason Brown only had two saves of note to make. Graham Bayne gave Andy Considine a torrid time fighting for headers, but the Dee’s never seriously troubled Brown’s clean sheet, with most of their opportunities restricted to long-range efforts.

The Pittodrie faithful – the paltry 5,722 of them – were given the first opportunity to see new Dons signing Mohamed Chalali, after the Algerian U23 captain replaced Clark on the hour mark. He showed good pace and willingness to run directly at defenders, but fluffed the two chances he was presented with badly. To be fair, he had flown overnight from Greece to take part in the match, so only the most hardened cynics in the support will be leaping to judge him already.

A win is a win, at the end of the day, and Aberdeen can advance into the next round of the cup with some confidence that the lower-league hoodoo has been put to bed at last. It may be at a steep price, depending on the severity of the injuries to Clark and Arnason, but it seems hopeful now that the Dons can build on the weekend win against Inverness and get their season underway at last.

Nae Langer “The Beautiful Game”

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Aug 222011

By Bob Smith.

Scottish fitba’s noo dire,
it’s stuck in the mire
It’ll hae a richt fecht ti survive
Cos o the cost,
mair fans they are lost
As T.V shows games fit are live

Faar’s aa the flair,
excitement’s nae mair
As coaches use a rigid formation
Aa 4-5-1 noo,
or thon 4-4-2
An fans gie vent ti frustration

Faar’s aa the wingers,
faa o crosses war slingers
They’re nae langer seen in the game
Jist a lot o fly guys,
faa are gweed at a dive
Each wikk it’s jist mair o the same

There’s nae Graham Leggat,
faa hid fullbacks fair fleggit
As doon the touchline he wid glide
Wi his quick feet,
maist opponents he beat
An they landed up on their backside

Modern players micht be fit,
bit the fitba is shit
Gweed goal poachers we nivver div see
Wi twa banks o fower,
it maks ye fair glower
Fan fae shackles wull fitba be free ?

Fae pundits we hear,
an aa iss I fear
Is ae reason oor fitba’s nae fine
“We’re in the results game”,
is fit they proclaim
Entertainment is far fae their myn

In Europe we fail,
the fans they aa wail
As heids they’re hung doon in shame
Jist hae players attack,
an nae jist hing back
An bring alive “The Beautiful Game”

©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie”
Image credit: © Shaun Mclean | Dreamstime.com

Aberdeen 2, Inverness Caley 1 – Pittodrie Stadium 20/8/11

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Aug 202011

At long last, a goal and a win for the Dons – but they made hard work for themselves in a match they should have had wrapped up by the interval. Philip Sim reports from Pittodrie.

This was the classical game of two halves.

In the opening period Aberdeen were unplayable, zipping passes around, winning every 50-50 ball and racing forward at every opportunity.
Josh Magennis in particular was an absolute dynamo, running the Inverness defence ragged, and it was he who created Rob Milsom’s opening goal, which was greeted with relief bordering on delirium by the Pittodrie faithful.
Scott Vernon’s goal was well-taken too, although it was put on a plate for him by hapless Caley debutant Roman Golobart.

The Dons got a lucky break in referee Crawford Allan’s frankly bizarre decision to pull play back for an Inverness free-kick just as Jonny Hayes put the ball in the net, but on balance they were good value for their two-goal advantage at the interval and indeed could have scored a few more.

It seemed like a completely different Aberdeen team that came out for the second half. They seemed hesitant – nervous even.

Inverness did not have to fight particularly hard to find a way back into the game – indeed, they could have pulled a goal back earlier than they did. David Gonzalez seems to have a tendency to race out of his box after balls he can’t possibly get to, and only a fantastic sliding block from Ricky Foster spared the keeper’s blushes when he was lobbed by Hayes.

The big Colombian made amends with a couple of good stops from Foran and Hayes, but this only underlines the defensive frailties the Dons were displaying – Youl Mawene in particular had near enough ground to a halt. The Frenchman looked to be injured, always reaching for his hamstring, and he gifted Caley their goal when he chose to head the ball tamely into the path of Foran when it looked far easier to just boot it clear.

It was no surprise when he limped off to be replaced by McArdle, but if the change had been made earlier the Dons might have preserved their clean sheet.

Foran’s goal didn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone at Pittodrie, as the Dons had looked increasingly tame after the rampant Magennis was withdrawn on 67 minutes for Megginson.

What the big Irishman lacks in touch and composure he more than makes up for in sheer enthusiasm and determination – he made the opening goal with his strength, pace and aggressive running. He is in a word unconventional – he is a nightmare to defend against, as you can never entirely sure what he’ll do next.

Once he had gone off, though, Megginson and Vernon struggled to hold the ball up at all, giving the defence and midfield little respite. Caley grew into the game and were camped in the Dons half throughout the agonising final minutes.

Width was again a problem, with Brown persisting with his Tynecastle experiment of Fyvie and Milsom on the wings. Milsom put in a terrific shift and was well worth his goal, but he appears somewhat stifled out wide, always looking to cut inside and find space. The same was true of Fyvie, who looked off the pace throughout.

In contrast, Ricky Foster’s pace was electric, and on several occasions he burned past multiple opponents to set up chances for his side – indeed, at times he was frustrated that his team-mates couldn’t keep up with him as he surged forward.

He demonstrated the value of having a proper wide player with pace – it can be a game-changer, and this is why Brown will be praying that he can get Peter Pawlett fit, and keep him fit.

With so few options on the flanks, the game was won in the middle of the park.

The credit for this has to go to Isaac Osbourne, easily the man of the match. He fought a 90-minute war of attrition with the entire Caley midfield, and a few of the Highlanders will be having nightmares about him tonight.

His hard work and tough tackling gave his partner Kari Arnason licence to play the ball, and the Icelander looked composed throughout as he sprayed passes around. It helps that he’s also a man-monster, albeit not quite on the Osbourne scale, but it’s nigh on impossible to knock him off the ball.

So Aberdeen’s season is finally underway, and encouragingly they’re still not that far off the pace; the league table is yet to settle, with Motherwell sitting top prior to the visit of Rangers on Sunday, with Dunfermline and a resurgent St Mirren contesting the European places.

At close of play on Saturday, traditional top-six challengers Hearts, Dundee United and Hibs all join the Dons in the bottom six, so there is not a huge amount of ground to make up. This win should hopefully kick-start the Dons’ league campaign, and build some momentum for the league cup tie with Dundee on Tuesday.

Hearts 3 Aberdeen 0 – Tynecastle Stadium 13/8/11

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Aug 142011

It’s only August, and it seems like it’s been a very long season already. Another game gone, and once again the story is in the score line – particularly that “Aberdeen nil” part. Philip Sim reports.

You can’t argue with the league table; the goals for column remains bare, while an extra three are added to goals against. Only the continuing haplessness of Inverness Caley Thistle separates the Dons from the foot of the table, and that’s only on goal difference.

The strange thing is, Aberdeen actually dominated this game for much of the first half. Darren Mackie and Scott Vernon both threatened with headers, while the ever impressive Kari Arnason thumped the crossbar before drilling a shot from distance wide with Kello in the hosts’ goal scrambling.

The lack of a composed finishing touch was the crucial difference between the sides though, as Hearts seized their only two chances to somehow lead 2-0 at the interval.

Then, ten minutes into the second half, summer recruit John Sutton added his second and Hearts’ third, and killed the game. The Aberdeen defence switched off three times which allowed their opponents three shots on target, and the match was over.

For the remaining 35 minutes, nothing happened. Nothing at all. Hearts were happy enough to sit in their own half passing the ball back and forth, and Aberdeen appeared utterly unable to do anything about it. Whatever Brown did to change things up, however he shuffled the pack – including the introduction of Pawlett, Jack and Magennis – the Dons looked completely incapable of putting the ball in the net.

From the outset the visitors lacked width.

With monsters like Jonsson and Zaliukas at its heart, the home defence regard imposing target men as appetisers – and Aberdeen don’t even have one of those. Playing through the centre was highly unlikely to yield results, but with Fyvie and Milsom on the flanks and Rory McArdle at the right full-back position – all players far more comfortable in the centre – the only naturally wide player in the Dons side was Ricky Foster. By the time Pawlett was introduced at half time, the game was already lost.

The worrying thing is how short on excuses the Dons manager is running. This week saw the return of Mawene, Fyvie and Clark from injury and Ryan Jack from suspension, and for once the bench looked reasonably strong – Clark, Pawlett, Jack and Magennis representing players who could actually stand a chance of coming on and changing the game. In the end though, the effect was the same as the old bench of youngsters, in that the substitutes had no effect whatsoever.

This is not a time to just wait and hope the strikers suddenly click

Alright, so Tynecastle is a difficult place to go and pick up your first points of the season. Hearts have by far the third biggest budget in the league – no matter how unsustainable or hinged upon the whims of a madman it may be – and despite their recent poor form, were always favourites to win this game.

Aberdeen need to pick up a win and get their season started somewhere, and before they can get a win, believe it or not, they’re going to need to get at least one goal.

Craig Brown insists, publicly at least, that he’s happy with the strikers he has. Obviously there’s no point in shattering the already fragile confidence of the mis-firing front line, but this squarely where the team’s problem lies right now.

If you can’t put the ball in the net, you’re not going to win any games, no matter how strongly the rest of the team is set up. This is not a time to just wait and hope the strikers suddenly click.

Vernon and Mackie have started every game this term, and while it’s good for their confidence that the manager appears to have some faith in his chosen pairing, it’s becoming clear that he also has precious few other options. Josh Magennis has all the enthusiasm in the world, but he badly needs to work on his composure, and Michael Paton hasn’t scored a competitive goal since February 2010.

It’s a theme as repetitive as Aberdeen’s inability to score, but they really, really need to sign a striker. And next on the shopping list has to be a wide player, preferably left-footed, who can create chances as well as score some of his own…but of course, neither of these things grow on trees.

If the Dons can take anything from this match, it’s that the new away kit, on show for the first time, looks great. And…that’s about it. The next fixture, a home tie against bottom side Caley Thistle, is starting to look like a six-pointer already.

Hollywood And The Bomb – Part 3

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Feb 252011

Hollywood And The Bomb – or Trivialising a Nuclear Holocaust 1945-1990 – Part 3.

Voice’s Dave Watt lifts the lid on the somewhat shady influences at work at the highest levels of post-war US government when McCarthyism and ‘Commie plot’ paranoia was rife. Not even Hollywood’s cinematic art was safe, it seems.

This final section of the series concentrates mainly on Hollywood and the Bomb in the 1970s and 80s with occasional trips across the Atlantic to compare their treatment of the subject with British filmmakers.

The 1970s : An decade of détente, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, humiliating end of Vietnam War for the US and the controversial deployment of short and medium range nukes amongst a largely unwilling European population but with the usual connivance of their governments.

The last instance of using nuclear war as a theme in the 1960s was curiously in the film Planet of The Apes (1968) where the human civilization is revealed to have been destroyed by a nuclear war thereby leaving the planet to the apes.

After this there was a largish gap in the 1970s until: Twilight’s Last Gleaming in 1977 starring Burt Lancaster and Richard Widmark. It tells the story of Lawrence Dell, a renegade USAAF general, who escapes from a military prison and takes over an ICBM silo near Montana, threatening to launch the missiles at the USSR and start World War III unless the President reveals the real reasons why America fought for so long in Vietnam. Control of The ICBM silo is duly recovered by the hero and some special forces sub-heroes although the audience are left in no doubt about the big business interests profiting from the US’s extended involvement in Vietnam.

The 1980s

With the appearance of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher on the scene in 1979/81 international relations took a turn for the worse with much sabre rattling, tub thumping and bear baiting of the mid-1950s variety (and the generation of an unpleasant ‘if you’re not 100% for us you’re against us’ mentality). Thatcher began this with Exercise Square Leg in 1980 despite huge protests by CND and other progressive organisations against it.

However, the campaigners against these chest beating exercises in fatuous optimism refined their strategies and Exercise Hard Rock in 1981 was cancelled by a massive CND campaign with 20 out of 54 county councils refusing to take part and many major cities declaring themselves Nuclear Free Zones.

It plays the devastation with a rather light hand – a bit like most US disaster movies with some photogenic survivors slightly mud and bloodstained

The next film with a nuclear theme was: The Day After (1983) which portrayed a fictional nuclear war between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact that rapidly escalates into a full scale exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union, focusing on the residents of Kansas and Missouri, as well as several family farms situated next to nearby nuclear missile silos.

It plays the devastation with a rather light hand – a bit like most US disaster movies with some photogenic survivors slightly mud and bloodstained in general although Jason Robards does develop an unpleasantly realistic radiation sickness near the end.

It was very lightweight (like most Hollywood offerings) – in fact, probably the most horrendous shots of a nuclear attack in a Hollywood offering is in Terminator 2(1991) where a children’s play area is shown during a nuclear blast. However in ‘The Day After’ this is pretty sanitised and one gets the impression that help will soon arrive and everything will be back to normal.

Slightly more thought provoking was the film Special Bulletin.which was an American made-for-TV movie first broadcast in 1983 The film has no opening credits Instead, the program begins with a promo for a typical daytime morning lineup: previews of various shows, and a catchy network jingle, “RBS: We’re Moving Up!” Suddenly, an ominous “Special Bulletin” slide appears on the screen, with an announcer saying “We interrupt this program to bring you a Special Bulletin from RBS News.” It shows how a local TV crew, covering a dockworkers’ strike, become caught in the middle of a firefight between the Coast Guard and some people on board a tugboat sitting at a dock in Charleston, South Carolina.

This extraordinary TV movie — shot on video, to make it resemble a news broadcast — shows us how network news might cover a group of terrorists holding a city hostage with a nuclear bomb and in doing so creates extraordinary tension while also getting in subtle and pointed digs at the media.

The government tries to fool the insurgent group and storm the tugboat. The attempt fails disastrously and there is a nuclear detonation.

Interestingly, when this was shown, despite a disclaimer on air there was a certain amount of panic in the Charleston area

The final shots are of a female reporter and her cameraman trapped on a nearby old aircraft carrier with huge fires blazing in the background and, clearly stunned and dazed, she is terrified of imminent radiation sickness. The cameraman then replays the detonation in harbour which contains nothing but a raging firestorm. At this, the TV anchor breaks down on air crying out and weeping.

There is a break and the next shots are from three days later where the news, with the typical banality of TV news, has gone on to cover all the other events around the world (strikes in Poland, a World Bank announcement) which have continued to occur despite the destruction of Charleston.

Interestingly, when this was shown, despite a disclaimer on air there was a certain amount of panic in the Charleston area when the film was originally shown on TV.

Back in the UK, the next film up was Threads (1984) – a BBC television play set in the city of Sheffield depicting the effects of a nuclear war and its aftermath on the United Kingdom. The premise of Threads was to hypothesise the effects of a nuclear war on the United Kingdom after an exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States escalates to include the UK.

The primary plot centres on two families: the Kemps and the Becketts — as an international crisis erupts and escalates. As NATO and the UK prepare for war, the members of each family deal with their own personal crises. Meanwhile, a secondary plot centered upon Clive Sutton, the Chief Executive of the City of Sheffield serves to illustrate for the viewer the UK Government’s then-current continuity of government arrangements. The balance of the film details the fate of each family as the characters face the medical, economic, social, and environmental consequences of a nuclear war.

Both the plot and the atmosphere of the play are extremely bleak with the UK ending up as a declining medieval society in the throes of a nuclear winter.

Despite the apparent extreme bleakness Threads was actually based on the results for the previously mentioned (and almost unbelievably optimistic) Exercise Square Leg instigated by the Tories in the 1980 in which the Soviets obligingly decide to nuke bizarre out-of-the-way places like Eastbourne but not Central London. In addition, whereas a Soviet attack on the UK could engender up to 1000 megatons, Square Leg was based on an attack involving 239 megatons.

There’s an equally childish disposition towards happy endings despite the mega-deaths on display

Despite this the mortality figures were estimated at 29 million (53% of the population); serious injuries at 7 million (12%); short-term survivors at 19 million (35%) so even at Thatcher’s mindlessly optimistic best we’d all have had it.

The last film on the list is also a British film and is that unusual combination a rather harrowing cartoon.

When the Wind Blows 1986 depicts a nuclear attack on the UK by the Soviet Union from the viewpoint of a retired couple, Jim and Hilda Bloggs. [Voices by John Mills & Peggy Ashcroft] The Bloggs live in rural Sussex and are confused regarding the nature and seriousness of their situation which is sometimes used to generate gentle comedy as well as darker elements. As the film progresses their situation becomes steadily more hopeless as they suffer from the effects of radiation sickness. The film ends on an extremely moving note, with both Jim and Hilda dying as they pray.

CONCLUSION – Hollywood : There was a period of more thoughtful filmmaking in the 60s and 70s but as usual it’s been lots of glitz, glorious technicolour, wonderful special effects, very little in the way of plot lines with rather childish bipolar worldviews of the US as basically good and Johnny Foreigner regarded as rather murderous and irrational demons. There’s an equally childish disposition towards happy endings despite the mega-deaths on display.

British films of the period tended to be rather more thoughtful, socially realistic and less given to mindless flag wagging – in general, somewhere in between the more cerebral European mainland films produced on the same subject and the rather shallow US films made during this period.

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