03/05/2025 – ABERDEEN (H)

Despite people falling over themselves to tell us we had nothing to play for post split, our season moves on to what is now our biggest match of the campaign at Tannadice this Saturday following this win over Aberdeen.

Given our form against the Dons not just this season, but over multiple years, confidence was understandably high going into the match on Saturday, and this was once again justified as Saints carried on from the Rangers match and put in another high tempo shift that the visitors had no answer to.

Surprisingly however, we actually started rather sluggishly, and it took a correctly disallowed goal after 25 minutes for the Dons to wake us up. From here, Saints upped a gear and were by the far better team for the rest of the match, with Aberdeen failing to register a shot on target throughout the game.

As always, the drive from midfield was critical to our success, with Phillips and O’Hara bossing the engine room along with Oisin Smyth who was preferred to Caolan Boyd-Munce, and sprayed the ball around nicely to compliment the captain and his uber motivated partner.

At the back however, Marcus Fraser excelled once more beside Alex Gogic and Richard Taylor, who is rumoured to be departing for Belgium. Fraser’s performances have been outstanding most of the season, and his ability to win free kicks to diffuse attacks has now reached master level.

Although simple in its construction, the winning goal, scored after an hours play, was executed quite majestically by Mikael Mandron, who had of course signed a contract extension a few days earlier.

The winner arrived after Killian Phillips won a free kick 10 yards inside the visitors half following Graeme Shinnie tripping over himself, and Mark O’Hara floated a ball deep inside the Dons penalty area.

Despite being surrounded by defenders, Mandron chested the ball and volleyed home with his left foot low into the corner to score the decisive goal of the match. Simple, but devastatingly effective as we said.

With Dundee Utd losing at Easter Road, this cut the gap between us and the Tannadice outfit to 5 points, with the clubs meeting each other next. 2 matches into the split, we have reduced that gap by 4 points and the goal difference has moved 8 in Saints favour with just 2 goals between the sides now.

It is still a considerable long shot in our opinion, but we are in with a shout. One thing is certain, we need to win at Tannadice to extend our season, and even if we do win, we still need favours after this from others and will require to probably take points from our remaining fixtures after that. As we said, a long shot.

However, we are still in there. When Ross County took the lead against Hearts on Saturday, the Tynecastle side were just 2 points off the play off place. They did of course go onto win and more or less guarantee safety, but we were spared the stomach churning horror Hearts fans went through on Saturday, albeit briefly.

We have nothing to lose on Saturday. We’ve only been in a European qualification spot for 5 weeks out of the season, with the last time being on the 29th December 2024, so all the pressure is on the home side.

To win however, we will need to do something we haven’t managed all season in 4 matches Dundee Utd, and that’s score against Jim Goodwin’s side.

We’ve conceded 5 goals in those 4 matches, all from set pieces, and the 4 goals lost in league matches all came in the last 15 minutes of the game, so there has been very little between the sides despite the look of dominance from one club.

The prices for Tannadice have been set at £20 for adults and £10 for most concessions, a very reasonable offer in comparison to most away trips nowadays, so if you can, please travel through and back the boys.

Whatever happens however, we can be proud of our manager and team this season, who despite our well documented issues, have kept us in with a chance of European football going into the 36th league fixture of the season.

Remarkable, really.

COYS!

Aberdeen Players of the Match:

5 points – Marcus Fraser

3 points – Mikael Mandron

1 point – Ryan Alebiosu

Check our the Player of the Season race here –

PLAYER OF THE SEASON