STYLE over solidity, elegance over endeavour? Call it what you like, there’s no doubt some of the more traditional virtues of defending can become lost amid laudable attempts to mould more polished, cultured players.
Let’s face it, generally getting various parts of your anatomy in the way of things and sticking a leg in here, a boot in there or a head goodness knows where is not the most alluring part of this beautiful game.
In Scott McKenna, Aberdeen seem to have unearthed a defender who appears quite content to do what the job description requires.
“Scott has been excellent,” said his team-mate, Adam Rooney. “He’s big and strong and quick across the ground.
“He does the things you want defenders to do; heading and clearing the ball. He doesn’t over complicate things.”
There were a couple of occasions in this absorbing tussle when McKenna, and the rest of his colleagues, had to produce valiant lunges and desperate blocks as Hibernian pushed for an equaliser.
The thick red line stood firm, though, while Hibs simply lacked the guile to break down the sturdy Aberdeen resistance.
This was the third clean sheet in a row for Derek McInnes’ men. At this miserly rate, they’ll be adding fingerless gloves to the replica kit package.
“Defensively we’ve been excellent,” added Rooney as the Dons maintained their unbeaten run to keep pace with Celtic at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership. “The whole team has worked hard at trying to cut down the number of chances we give away.
“We know we have enough players in the team who have the ability to score, we’re confident we’ll get a goal from somewhere. Keeping clean sheets helps that.”
There’s clearly much more to come from this growing side which possesses plenty of quality. The neatly fashioned goal that Gary Mackay-Steven put the finishing touches to illustrated this class.
“Gary has been excellent in training,” said Rooney of one of McInnes’ many new faces. “It can be hard coming into a club and adapting, especially with so many new bodies coming in. Everyone is still finding their feet but he has showed was he’s capable of.”
Aberdeen are not in action again until next mid-week when the small matter of a showdown with co-leaders Celtic takes place at Pittodrie.
In that time, Celtic have a Champions League encounter with Bayern Munich and a Betfred Cup semi-final against Hibernian.
“You’re always worried how you’ll perform after a break but we just have to get ready for Celtic,” said Rooney. “We’ll be confident, it will be a packed stadium. We want to do as well as we can. Celtic have ran away with it (the league) the last couple of years but we are improving.”
John McGinn, meanwhile, knows there is room for improvement with Hibernian after Aberdeen showed the standards the Leith side are striving for.
“It’s as hard a test as we’ve had all season,” he said. “We’ve been to Ibrox and Celtic Park but Aberdeen are strong in every department.”
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