what the managers said

Aberdeen boss Craig Brown admitted his players need to show more of a cutting edge after being held to a goalless draw by Hibernian in Sunday’s Clydesdale Bank Premier League match at Pittodrie.

Hibernian goalkeeper Ben Williams saved a Niall McGinn as the visitors battled for a draw that maintains their two-point cushion over the hosts. Williams got down to his right to push away the 10th-minute spot-kick, awarded after Tim Clancy’s foul on Johnny Hayes, in what was the one highlight of an otherwise poor game.

“It’s an example of so many games here,” said Brown.

“I think that was the fourth 0-0 result, and on every occasion I’ve felt we dominated the game. We need to be more clinical

“When you miss a penalty, it’s the ultimate in missed chances, and then the header that fell to Peter Pawlett was even easier to score.”

However, he added: “Any informed observer watching that will know that the team is playing well, and I’m delighted that that’s the case.”

The Dons have struggled for bodies in the middle of the park over the last couple of months, but there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel on the injury front with the likes of Rob Milsom, Isaac Osbourne and Stephen Hughes returning to action.

Brown continued: “The guys coming back from injury have strengthened our team. They’ve been out for a long time and we’ve been limping along without them.

“We lost Russell Anderson with a training injury yesterday, and Andrew Considine to a broken leg a couple of weeks ago. Chris Clark similarly – he’s had an operation. We’ve still five players out but without them, I feel that the team is playing well enough.”

Hibernian manager Pat Fenlon implored his team to start games in a better manner after their slack opening could have cost them the game.

“We didn’t play well today, but we picked up a point and a clean sheet which is the real positive, but Aberdeen were the better side,” he said.

“We need to make sure we start games better, but we’ve said that the last few weeks.

“When you’re under the cosh like that, you maybe do feel like it’s a matter of time, but the penalty save maybe gives us a bit of heart.

“They were sharper than us, and had better movement than us at times. They’ve got a lot of pace in the wide areas, but we defended well, the goalkeeper did well for us and I thought the two central midfielders worked tremendously hard. We didn’t create enough going forward, though.”

Hibs’ on-loan Manchester City defender Ryan McGivern was substituted at half-time, and Fenlon confirmed that change came about due to injury.

“Ryan felt his hamstring tighten up,” he said. “He could probably have played on, but with the run of games coming up it wasn’t worth the risk.”