Craig Brown seeks striker as Aberdeen draw blank

The Dons’ 0-0 draw with Motherwell on Saturday was the sixth scoreless match at Pittodrie so far this season and, with just 33 goals in 30 league games to date, it is obvious where Aberdeen’s problems lie.

Brown’s admission that he would be looking to strengthen his options up front were hardly a shock and Vernon recognises the need for competition.

He said: “We’re not daft, we know that the manager is there to do a job and the name of the game is to score goals. If that’s not happening then he has to do something about it. Our job is to prove that he’s wrong.

“The way it’s going at the minute is frustrating. We’re doing enough to win games but we just can’t quite get there. We have to keep working at it and hope our luck changes. We feel like we’re playing well enough.”

Vernon came as close to anyone to breaking the deadlock, only to see his 42nd-minute header beaten away by Motherwell keeper Darren Randolph, who also denied Niall McGinn and Josh Magennis after the interval.

Former Colchester United player Vernon is looking to the positives ahead of his side’s trip to Celtic this weekend, despite hopes of a top-six finish fading fast. “It feels like a defeat because although we know we’ve done okay, we felt today was a must-win game. We’ve now got three more games before the split so we’ve got to look forward and try to get points.

“Going to Celtic is always tough but we know they’re not unbeatable as results have shown. We know that on an off-day for them and a good day for us, we can go and get a result.”

For his part, Randolph was keen to play down his save from Vernon, and instead praised his defence, who did a good job of keeping Aberdeen, for the most part, to shots from distance.

“I didn’t know much about it,” he said. “I just tried to make myself as big as possible and luckily he’s headed it against my hand. My other saves were pretty routine apart from that one.”

Motherwell had beaten both Celtic and Hearts in the games before this, and their run of good form recently leaves the Republic of Ireland international optimistic that they can finish the season strongly.

He concluded: “Hopefully one more win will secure our place in the top six, and we can then concentrate on cementing second place. We’ve got a draw but have taken seven points from three tough games, so we have some momentum going into another tough game against Hibs on Friday.”