Aberdeen floored by two early goals against Preston as central defence issues revealed

Aberdeen were defeated 2-0 by Preston North End at Deepdale.

The Danish attacking midfielder, who is a new signing for the Lilywhites, opened the scoring on seven minutes and then netted again shortly afterwards to give Ryan Lowe’s men an unassailable advantage. While the Dons improved as the match went on, they suffered their first defeat of pre-season in front of a strong travelling support. Macedonian forward Bojan Miovski made his first appearance since injuring his ankle at the end of last season when coming on as a second-half replacement, but the game came too soon for new right-back Or Dadia, who arrived on loan from Hapoel Be’er Sheva on Friday.

Aberdeen were also without key central defenders Angus MacDonald and Rhys Williams, with both toiling to make the season opener against Livingston on August 5. Manager Barry Robson admitted that moves are afoot to bring in critical central defensive cover, with the Dons linked with FK Novi Pazar’s Slobodan Rubezic.

“Rhys has had a few issues with his back going into his calves,” said Robson. He has had to go back and start again with his training regime. We don’t know how long that is going to take. Angus hurt his knee but we hoping he will be back in two weeks time. We are playing with Nicky Devlin playing in the middle of a back three so we know the situation with the centre backs.

“We know there’s an issue but it’s getting addressed and hopefully we will have some news very soon. We will just have to wait and see if the injured players make the start of the season but hopefully we will have other players in soon to give them a hand.”