SPFL Premiership leaders suffered first defeat at Pittodrie

Hearts suffered a new injury whilst losing their first league game of the season against Aberdeen. Having started the game without captain Lawrence Shankland, midfielders Ageu and Beni Baningime, plus the suspended Craig Halkett, the Tynecastle side saw centre-back Stuart Findlay sustain a calf problem during the match.

Aberdeen’s Topi Keskinen scored the only goal of the afternoon on 38 minutes as Hearts suffered their first Premiership loss. Afterwards, head coach Derek McInnes explained that Shankland will have a scan on his hamstring on Monday after feeling discomfort during training on Friday. Ageu’s hamstring issue has already been scanned, with Findlay’s problem to be assessed in the coming days.

“He [Shankland] has got a scan tomorrow. I spoke to him this morning and he felt better,” said McInnes. “He says he didn't think it was anything too significant. It seems to be a quick improvement than it was yesterday. I certainly hope so. I'm hoping we can get a wee bit rub of the green ith that one. The conditions in training on Friday were tough. We tried to delay the training session just to allow the grass to defrost and get the sun on it a wee bit. We had to make a decision that we had to go and train on the Astro.

“The Astro was a bit slippy. I'm not saying that was solely down to it because it's so innocuous. We've looked back at the clip, it's just a slip and Lawrence felt his calf. These things are sent to try you sometimes as a manager. I hate any injury but when you get injuries in training it jars the life out of you. Hopefully it's not anything that's going to be too significant. I still think as it stands he'll have a chance for a Motherwell but the scan will probably shed more light on that.”

On Ageu’s return timeline, McInnes said: “I don't know. Again, we've had him scanned. We got him scanned Friday afternoon pretty quickly. We're still waiting on the results. I still don't know the outcome of that. He's feeling his original hamstring a bit tight. He trained the session and it wasn't as if he'd slipped or anything. He just said he was aware of something. It's the fact that it's the original injury that's given us a wee bit of concern but hopefully there's some good news on that.”

McInnes handed Cammy Devlin the armband in Shankland’s absence and admitted he swithered over the decision. “I slept on it last night between him and Frankie [Kent] to be honest,” he said. “It was Frankie's first game back since August. I thought I'd just let Frankie play his own game today. Frankie's very vocal and shows some of the leadership qualities to help him anyway. I like centre-halves and centre-midfielders to be my captains. Cammy was not an obvious one but I felt he was a good fit for it.”

Findlay was substituted in the second half at Pittodrie after feeling his calf tighten. “He just felt it stiffen up a wee bit,” added McInnes. “I don't know if it's the change of surface, the conditions last week, training on Astro and pitches a bit frozen. It's disappointing that we seem to have been affected by a few muscle injuries in the last couple of days. Hopefully Stu is alright. I think he thinks he's alright. He just wanted to come off because he felt it a bit tighter.”

McInnes was not downbeat following his team’s first league loss. He accentuated plenty positives from the performance at Pittodrie, whilst also acknowledging that Hearts did not take their scoring chances. “I thought we were decent throughout the game,” he remarked. “I thought we had good poise in the game and I thought we created some good moments. If you don't take your chances here, if you don't show the quality and composure that's needed to win at Pittodrie, then you run the risk of losing the game. We didn't really have too much to do defensively, but we lose on a transition. We give the ball away 20 or 30 yards into their half and it's one pass forward and before we know it we're in a difficult situation.

“We just don't come up in the same [defensive] line and it's a good goal from Aberdeen's point of view I'm sure. We just felt in the game that we had good control, particularly in the second half. I thought there was better possession, more shots, more shots on target, but it doesn't matter if you've not got the quality. The quality is there, these boys have been brilliant from the start of the season.

“A lot of what was on show today, they weren't quite on point, particularly our attacking players. That's going to happen, we were always going to lose a game. We wanted to keep that as far away from the door as possible, a defeat. You know and I know, a defeat was always going to come and we thought we'd done enough today not to lose the game.I thought we were the better team, but if you don't show the quality that we clearly lacked today, then you're not going to win at Pittodrie.

“We've lost the spine of our team a wee bit with Halkett, Baningime and Lawrence. Lawrence I think, even on that transition, there were three or four chances on the break in the first half. We were three on three, we'd worked on that, we'd spoke about that. Lawrence gives you that decision-making, his poise, the quality. We were all a wee bit rushed, a bit excitable and a bit rushed in these moments when we needed to stay calm. I thought we needed to take more care at times.

“In the second half, we wanted to put more crosses in the box. I still thought we could have put more crosses in the box and we missed good chances. There's no two ways about it. I think, as I say, we had better chances. I thought we were the better team, but we've lost the game and it's all about the reaction. I'm really confident with what we've got in the building. This isn't something that we think will affect us. We'll just knuckle down and go again next week.”

McInnes explained that Shankland and Ageu would have been in Hearts' starting line-up. “Lawrence was in the team, Ageu was in the team as well when he pulled out of training on Friday. We lost two boys, really. We didn't know we'd lost Lawrence on the Friday. He still goes up and does his press [conference] and we still think it was nothing significant. He got in touch with me Friday night and said he was aware of it and was going to come in early [on Saturday]. On investigation, it was clear he wasn't going to be ready for today and we're disappointed about that.

“Obviously, the international boys had been away, so Friday was a big day for us in terms of getting the boys together again. We lost two players that were probably going to play. These things happen. It's not an excuse. We still felt well prepared for the game. I thought we were fine in the game. If we take our chances and we take a bit more care, then I think we're in a winning position even before Aberdeen score. We had it all to do and then we huffed and puffed in the second half. I thought we were just looking for that wee bit of quality and asked the question a wee bit more.

“Credit to Aberdeen. They hung in and got their clean sheet. I think a big part of that was a lack of quality just to put it to them and punish them. I'm disappointed we've lost a game of football. I knew a defeat would come at some point. We wanted to try and keep it as far away from the door as possible. I'm not going to be critical of the players because they've been absolutely first-class. It's the first time I've stayed unbeaten as a manager in the league way into November, so I'm grateful for what we've got here. We'll go again.”