Celtic 3 - 0 Aberdeen

By NORMAN MACDONALD

POINTS for - one, goals for  - one. That is how Aberdeen’s Scottish League record to date reads. Admittedly the season is yet young. There may be no necessity for panic, but there is certainly no excuse for the management adopting a passive attitude.
Nobody expects the Dons to contbinue their unsuccessful run for the remainder of the season. They are bound to win some matches, but surely the Aberdeen public is entitled to expect more than this.
Aberdeen F.C are a well-supported club and probably much better placed financially than the majority of their rivals. They should be in a position to field a team capable of challenging the best in Scotland.
The public can only give their support. It is up to the officials of the club to reward them with a good-going team. If they can achieve this with the players at present at their disposal they have yet to prove it.

Unlucky Mitchell

At Parkhead on Saturday my sympathies were with the Pittodrie players, and particularly with Jimmy Mitchell.
I didn’t think either Celtic or Aberdeen played well enough to deserve two points. But the manner of the Dons’ defeat was as unusual as it must have been disappointing for the players.
The game developed into a contest between Mitchell and Collins, the Celtic right winger. Three times the Aberdeen right back came under the ban of the referee and had penalty kicks awarded against him and three times Collins placed the ball in the net.
The referee’s verdict against Mitchell was "guilty" and there is no appeal. In the last two instances I thought the referee’s decisions were too severe.

Unnerving

I shudder to think what might have happened in a Rangers-Celtic match had one of the teams been awarded three penalty kicks.
Mitchell was an unfortunate victim of circumstances on Saturday. It was an unnerving experience and the best thing the player can do is to forget all about it.
One thing for which Mitchell must be admired is the fact that in none of the incidents did he lose his head and show dissent with the referee’s decision or remonstrate with the official.

Shooting Poor

Without the penalty awards it is extremely doubtful if Celtic would have scored, any more than did Aberdeen. Both the Pittodrie and Parkhead forward lines are badly in need of an intensive course of shooting practice.
The Dons were by no means out of the hunt in the first half and they held a definite territorial advantage in the second, but the art of scoring goals seems to have become a lost one at Pittodrie.
Give the players their due and this applies to the rest of the team as well as the forwards - even after the loss of the third penally they refused abandon the fight.

Pace Tells

The latest Aberdeen forward formation was keen and willing, but it could not be described as a success. Hugh Hay was clever on the ball, but the Dons' soldier inside left seemed to tire in the closing stages. It a pity, from the Aberdeen point of view, that he has been lost to the Pittodrie club so far as training routine is concerned.
Billy Smith, the other newcomer to the attack, certainly cannot complain about lack of variety in his first team appearances. Since the start of the season he has played three times at left back, three times at centre-half, once at centre-forward, and once at inside , right.
In his latest position Smith played quite a useful game, but he could be forgiven for asking himself the question—where next?

Source: Evening Express, 28th September 1953





All three goals for Celtic came from penalty kicks conceded by Jimmy Mitchell. The Dons hit the bottom position in the League.