Aberdeen presented manager Alex Miller with a belated Christmas present today
when they beat Motherwell 3-0 in front of 13,000 fans at Pittodrie to record
only their fifth league victory of the season.
Dean Windass, recalled to the starting line-up by Miller, opened the scoring
and two late goals by Eoin Jess sealed victory for the Dons.
All the scoring came in the second period after a goalless first half which
saw Billy Dodds, Jess and Windass all miss chances to go in at the break with
their noses in front.
The best of these chances came when Dodds just failed to get his foot to a
defence splitting pass by Ilian Kiriakov.
To be fair, Motherwell also had a couple of chances in the first half with
Shaun McSkimming being denied by a brilliant stop from Jim Leighton and ruing a
miss by John Hendry 12 yards out.
In the second half the visitors had two other chances which Leighton dealt
with easily - a low shot from Namibian Eliphas Shivute and another effort from
McSkimming.
Then on 63 minutes the Dons went ahead and never looked back. A Kiriakov run
ended with the Bulgarian setting up Windass who ran diagonally to the 18-yard
line before firing a low shot past keeper Stephen Woods.
Goal number two came with seven minutes remaining when Paul Bernard fed the
ball to Jess, who rounded Woods before slotting the ball home from 10 yards.
Mike Newell came on for Dodds in 55 minutes and his first involvement in the
match was when he was pulled down a minute later in the penalty area by defender
Brian Martin, and the referee immediately pointed to the spot. Jess scored his
second by putting Woods the wrong way.
In between the goals, Motherwell did have a chance to come back into the match
but Tommy Coyne's effort from 10 yards came back off the Aberdeen crossbar.
Teams:
Aberdeen: Leighton, Bernard, Whyte, O'Neil, Inglis, Smith,
Kiriakov, Jess, Windass (Gillies 83), Dodds (Newell 85),
Glass (Miller 76).
Goals: Windass 63, Jess 83, 86 pen.
Motherwell: Woods, May, McMillan, Newman, Martin, Philliben,
Hendry (Weir 77), Shivute, Coyne, McSkimming (Davies 77), Coyle.
Subs Not Used: Christie.
Booked: Newman, Martin.
Att: 13,038
Ref: B Tait (East Kilbride).
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