Craig Samson sure Kilmarnock will rekindle spark

Peter Pawlett, centre, leads his Aberdeen team-mates in celebration after scoring the only goal of the game. Picture: SNS Group

Aberdeen 1-0 Kilmarnock

Scorer: Aberdeen - Pawlett (69)

A campaign that started so brightly for the Ayrshire club after the turmoil on and off the field last season has turned sour as results have slumped since mid-October.

It took Peter Pawlett’s fifth goal of the season to break the visitors’ stubborn resistance after 69 minutes at Pittodrie but it was a result that looked inevitable from early on.

There was no denying the fighting spirit shown by the Kilmarnock players but they have now taken just one point from their last seven league matches, in addition to suffering a Scottish Cup defeat against Rangers at Ibrox.

Their slump is in stark contrast to a run of two defeats in their first ten games that had everyone connected with the club hoping the struggles of the past were just that.

Now they badly need a morale- boosting victory at home to Hamilton Accies this weekend to ease the pressure before starting the new year with a trip to St Mirren Park.

The Kilmarnock goalkeeper, for one, believes there were signs even in defeat on Saturday that they can recapture early- season form and there is nothing but backing for Johnston within the club.

“There’s no question of discontent between the team and the manager,” he said. “We are just not winning enough matches and there are games when we certainly haven’t performed well enough.

“As a team, we know that, and the manager has told us that in no uncertain terms at times. What he does know is that we gave him everything we could against Aberdeen.

“We believe we can turn it around. The manager believes we can turn it around and that is the main thing.

“We can build on the performance against Aberdeen then take it into the Hamilton game and get a result at home there.”

Of course, injuries that kept Alexei Eremenko, Sammy Clingan and Tope Obadeyi out of this game didn’t help and the unfortunate Darryl Westlake now looks like enduring a lengthy lay-off.

The right back was taken off on a stretcher just before half time for an x-ray on an ankle damaged by a clumsy challenge from behind that earned David Goodwillie a booking.

The fact remains that Kilmarnock only really threatened to score in the dying stages of the game when more precise headers from Robbie Muirhead and Manuel Pascali might have brought an unlikely point.

They have now scored just three goals in those last eight games, while Aberdeen could have had that many by half time, such was their dominance and variety of attacking threat.

Goodwillie and Pawlett both struck the frame of the goal, Lee Ashcroft cleared one off his own line while Niall McGinn, Adam Rooney and Jonny Hayes all threatened to score.

It was left to Pawlett to clinch the victory after a dazzling run and shot from Hayes saw his deflected effort forced Samson to deflect the ball invitingly into the midfielder’s path. That might have been scant reward for Aberdeen’s attacking verve, in the second half especially, but their goalkeeper, Scott Brown, always believed it would be enough to win it.

It was a conviction borne from the fact that the man who replaced Jamie Langfield following October’s 3-0 defeat at Hamilton has kept eight clean sheets in ten appearances for the club.

That has been a significant factor in the Dons’ run of seven wins in their last eight league matches which leaves them just four points adrift of Celtic at the top of the table.

However, the summer signing from Cheltenham is happy to hand most of the credit to his team-mates for making his job pretty straightforward at times, even if he has had to develop different skills to those required in England’s lower leagues.

Brown admits: “I’ve had to improve my concentration with being quiet for much of the time during some games.

“I’ve had to work on that because, in England in Leagues One and Two, the ball is chucked in your box every five minutes.

“You’re having a decision to make more often but here it’s about keeping your focus and doing your job when you’re called upon.

“Your mind can wander but you’ve got to keep switched-on and remember that’s it’s a 94, 95-minute game and not switch off.

“But everybody’s working so hard as individuals to keep a clean sheet and its a real team effort so you’d take a 1-0 win every time, even if we could have perhaps won by a couple more.”

Now the aim is to round off a memorable year that brought a first trophy in nearly two decades and the eradication of an equally historic debt of £14.49 million by winning at Inverness on Sunday to keep the pressure on the defending champions.