Not good enough! We stuttered to a 1-1 draw at home to a team of Aberdeen youths. John Boyle's three year plan must be in danger at the moment. The Dons offside tactics were boring but very effective against a naive 'Well attack. At times we had three men in illegal positions. Poor stuff.
Billy Davies made a few changes to the line up. Back came Brannan and for the first time formed a starting pair with Leitch in midfield. Hammell did not appear and McMillan returned to his normal role at left back. Nicholas failed to make the bench for the first time in ages.
A heavy shower just before kick-off gave the pitch a slick surface but the game started in bright sunshine. 'Well in their home strip and the Dons in black.
We almost fell for a sucker punch in the first minute when Goram produced a great stop with his legs from Zero.
Early on Spencer set up a shot for Adams who miss hit from the penalty spot.
Aberdeen went one up after ten minutes - a good cross from the right after they got the break of the ball follwed by a superb bullet header by Winters, Goram had no chance. We had most of the pressure until then.
In twenty five minutes we got the leveller - a great low, fast cross by Goodman on the right wing beat the goalie at the near post and the Dons defender McGuire could only knock the ball into the net under pressure from McCulloch.
Shortly after, Brannan crumped Zeroualli from behind and was booked. Zero was subbed and the 20 yd free kick sailed over the bar.
The least said about the second half the better. Suffice it to say that that if the Dons had a cardboard cut out in goal we would still not have scored. Our ineptness at playing against the offside trap was amateur.
The Don gets full marks yet again for effort and a superb performance especially in the first half- as do the back four. There's a suspicion that Spencer and McCulloch are not fully fit but few of the midfield or forwards impressed.
We have a breather for a couple of weeks before the next SPL game. Back to the drawing board!
Team
Goram, Corrigan, Strong, Oueifio, McMillan, Brannan,Lietch,Adams(Harvey) Spencer(Elliott), Goodman, McCulloch (Wood) Subs(unused) Woods,Hammell
Motherwell 1 Aberdeen 1
Attendance 5,541
27 August 2000