Yutaro Oda to Hearts’ discipline: main talking points as Hearts beat Aberdeen 2-0

Hearts secured a much needed three points following a 2-0 win over Aberdeen with Yutaro Oda and Liam Boyce scoring.

For the Dons, however, it marks five league games without a win as they head to Europe without a domestic win in their pocket.

Barry Robson and his squad will now face Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday night while Steven Naismith can relax with the knowledge he has been able to deliver on his promise to excite the fans and challenge the oppositions more than the squad had been able to do up to this point.

Ahead of the match, the Jambos boss spoke about his team’s general fatigue and while the opening few moments showed the remnants of what this fatigue had been, the home side were able to fire back into action and continued to improve as the minutes went on with the crowd firmly back on side.

Here are some of the biggest talking points from Hearts’ 2-0 win over the Dons...

Discipline

Hearts’ Peter Haring was the first to receive a yellow card and was shown the disciplinary mark after just ten minutes. However, the card-fest was far from over as the end of the first 45-minutes saw four yellow cards handed out before two more were then received in the second half.

Aberdeen were far from innocent but it was the home side who took the brunt of it with Haring, Frankie Kent, Liam Boyce and Nathanial Atkinson all being shown the yellow sign.

In spite of receiving such an early card, Haring appeared far from deterred from diving feet first into 50/50 challenges with his early departure from the field confirmed by Naismith to be because of the aforementioned card.

His aggression on the pitch has long been admired by Jambos’ fans but his performance today instigated a far more physical fixture than needed to be seen. After Oda’s opening goal, Hearts’ quickly began to lose composure with Kent and Boyce receiving theirs within two minutes of each other - Hearts’ overall discipline quickly unravelled.

Yutaro Oda

Oda had previously been struggling with a stomach bug before the international break came but the 22-year-old was back on flying form, scoring the Jambos’ opening goal in the 14th minute.

However, disaster struck just over a quarter of an hour later when a forced substitution was needed to be made and the Japanese forward was soon seen on crutches. In his 32 minutes on the pitch, Oda was offering constant space out wide and was always ready to bring the ball up to Kelle Roos and it ponders the question how many goals Hearts could have scored if the Japanese U-23 international was able to stay on the pitch.

Reaction to Aberdeen changes

The visitors made several changes in the match to try and pose more of an attacking threat. Starting with three centre backs and wing backs, not too dissimilar to how Steven Clarke’s Scotland might line up, the Dons took off left wing back James McGarry for right winger Ryan Duncan on 55 minutes and moved to a four at the back.

They then brought on new striker Pape Gueye, a 6’4 hulking forward, and still had Duk trying to cause problems out wide but the pleasing thing for Hearts is that the changes made little difference. Steven Naismith said it was ‘probably the most comfortable’ he had felt during his time in charge in the latter stages of a game which was still in the balance.

Hearts’ defence

Without a doubt, Hearts’ defensive line-up won the game. Aberdeen had several chances in the first half of the game to score, but Zander Clark was saved on several opportunities from having to make a critical save by the four footballers standing in front of him.

Stephen Kingsley was brought back into the starting line-up following a short injury and it was not long before he was showing the crowds what they had been missing. The 29-year-old, along with Kye Rowles, Frankie Kent and Nathanial Atkinson all produced stellar performances to keep the ball from their net.

Their forwards often struggled to maximise the chances they had been handed, but it ultimately was of little consequence as the back line were able to stand-up tall. Cammy Devlin deservedly took home the Player of the Match award but it would have been equally well received if any of the Jambos’ back four had been able to pick up the award instead.