The Preview - Hearts (H) - 12/1/25
The Jam Tarts head North for the second time this season, looking to change the fortunes of away sides in this fixture...
What a difference 42 days can make…
As 2024 ticked into December, despite a first league defeat in Paisley the week prior and throwing away 3 points at Easter Road on the Wednesday, Jimmy Thelin’s side travelled to Gorgie still in second place with an opportunity to maintain an eight point cushion over Sevco in third and open up a twenty-six (26) point gap to the Jambos who were languishing at the foot of the table.
A hard-fought, relatively even encounter ended with the points shared and Aberdeen had navigated 2 trips to the capital in the space of 4 days unbeaten - that “one bad week” in January 2023 still remains vividly in the memory. Not great, but not bad - having suffered our first defeat in the league the week prior, this felt like we had got a tough week out of the way, and we could look to regroup and push on for the month of December.
As we are all brutally aware, that’s not quite how things panned out and Hearts visit Pittodrie on Sunday afternoon in front of the Sky cameras in what feels like a critical game for Aberdeen’s season. A sixth defeat on the spin in the league would see us fail to claw back a 3 point deficit to Dundee United (following their latest late win against St. Mirren) and would see the visitors pull themselves to within 8 points, albeit having played a game more than the Dons.
A Jam Tart Revival?
After an inauspicious start to life as Hearts manager, it looks as though Neil Critchley has begun to turn the corner. Hearts currently sit 4th in the form table, with just one defeat in their last 5 league games, that one coming on Boxing Day as Edinburgh rivals, Hibs, took the spoils at Tynecastle.
In his 18 games in charge, Critchley has overseen 6 wins and 4 draws with the Jambos losing 8. The miserable draw at home with CS Petrocub that dumped Hearts out of Europe saw Critchley under immense pressure but the recent run of form has quietened the more militant of Jam Tarts who have, instead, turned their ire on a poor season to date on the boardroom.
Hearts travel to Pittodrie buoyed by 2 wins on the spin in 2025 - a couple of 1-0 wins, firstly over Motherwell at home which was followed up by a 1-0 win at Tannadice last time out will see the visitors arrive at Pittodrie confident of a first win in the Granite City since 2016. That win at Tannadice was significant as it was only Hearts’ second win away from Tynecastle this season - Hearts currently holding the second worst away record in the division.
Since our last meeting, Hearts have, at the very least, appeared to have begun to sort out their issues both in front of goal and defensively. 25 goals scored in their 22 games is now, no longer, the lowest tally in the league (it is though, still, the 3rd worst in the division). That said, this is not a Hearts side who have been missing gilt-edged chances throughout the course of the season - their 25 scored is in line with their xG data (25.4). Top scorer for Hearts so far is young James Wilson who has taken the opportunity thrust upon him with aplomb.
So far, Wilson has tucked away 50% of his shots on goal - an impressive finishing rate considering the combined xG of his 8 shots is a mere 1.66.
With injury continuing to rule Lawrence Shankland out, expect to see Wilson lead the line against Aberdeen on Sunday as the sole striker in Critchley’s favoured 4-2-3-1. Wilson remains a raw, talented youngster and this bears out in the rest of his numbers - only averaging 8.86 successful passes per 90 minutes which places him in the 17th percentile of strikers in this area, indicating that he may struggle to link the play effectively and with an average of just 0.31 chances created per 90 minutes, it’s clear that he’s not been acting as an effective creator to his other attackers. Wilson does boast a decent turn of pace and the Aberdeen defence will need to be mindful of any balls played in behind the lines for the in-form striker to latch onto.
In recent weeks, Liam Boyce had undertaken somewhat of a resurrection of his Hearts career. Utilised in the No. 10 role, tucked in behind Wilson, Boyce’s influence had been hailed by a number of Hearts supporters. With all that said, it was incredibly surprising to see that Boyce has now been sold to Derry City.
New signing, Elton Kabangu has now received a work permit and the Congolese striker, on loan from Starlizard affiliate, USG, will likely be in the squad for the trip north on Sunday. Kabangu hasn’t played any football since a 3 minute cameo against FC Twente in the Europa League back in November - indeed, he’s only featured in 117 minutes of action all season as he looks to gain match sharpness during his time in Gorgie.
Rumours persist about a potential move away for both Kye Rowles & Cammy Devlin but, as of the time of writing, neither looked to be moving ahead of Sunday’s clash and, therefore, based on recent games, expect to see Hearts line up something along these lines:-
Blair Spittal is having a decent season thus far, with 3 goals and 2 assists to his name, he is continuing his form with Motherwell last season that saw Hearts sign him on a Bosman - with an average of 2.12 chances created per 90 minutes, Spittal is creating more chances than 91% of comparable players in his position in the Premiership this season and he remains a key threat.
Drammeh, as we saw at Tynecastle, has pace to burn but needs to work on his link up play - often looking to dribble with the ball rather than pass it (an average of 9.43 successful passes per 90 is extremely low) and his dribble success rate is not great (40%). That said, he has a keen eye for shooting opportunities - averaging 2.83 per 90 minutes but an accuracy figure of 33% shows that he remains a player who is rough around the edges and needs refinement.
For all of their improvement, Hearts are still struggling to create chances and this is coming despite the fact that they are, in the main, dominating possession.
Average possession of 55.3% is the third highest tally in the league so far as is their tally of 566 touches in the opposition box. From that though, they have the fourth lowest xG (25.3), the fifth lowest shots on target per match (3.8) and the midway point for big chance creation (45 across the season to date).
It’s in open play that goals remain a struggle - only 12 so far in the Premiership this season (second lowest). Conversely, Hearts look threatening from set plays - 10 goals scored from set pieces is the third highest tally in the league, noting that they have also won the second highest number of corners in the division (144) - this will be an area of concern for Jimmy Thelin given our frailty dealing with balls thrown into the box….
Defensively, Hearts have also shown improvement, two clean sheets on the spin will help to build that confidence and their 31 conceded to date is now only 1 shy of ourselves and it’s the fifth best record in the division. Those 31 goals coming against an xGA of 31.2 is also on par so you can take it as read that Craig Gordon is still performing well in goals.
Perhaps a concern for Aberdeen is that Hearts have managed to do well defending open play situations - only 15 of the goals that Hearts have conceded have come from open play - that’s the third best record in the division and it’s open play situations that we have, generally, scored the majority of our league goals from 24/32.
A new Don(s)?
Our recent issues are well documented and injuries continue to mount up with Gavin Molloy & Ester Sokler now confirmed to be out of action for lengthy periods of time. Coupled with Slobodan Rubežić’s suspension, Aberdeen will be without 7 first team squad members for this one.
New arrivals, Jeppe Okkels & Kristers Tobers are both expected to go straight into the matchday squad and with pressure on the central defensive area, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Tobers start this one. The key question will be who will slot alongside him at centre-half?
With Rubežić suspended and Gavin Molloy injured, the only other recognised centre-half on the books is Angus MacDonald. MacDonald though was singularly culpable for Motherwell’s second goal at Fir Park and contributed to the first. As we covered in the podcast last week (EP210), Thelin’s decision to hook MacDonald at half-time for tactical reasons says a lot about where Thelin views MacDonald. Thelin further explaining in his pre-match conference that:-
…the decision to take Angus off against Motherwell was we were two goals down and we have to be better with the ball and try to outplay Motherwell to get some chances to try to get back into the game….
You can read into that what you want but it’s clear that the manager doesn’t believe that Angus has the requisite ability to play the ball out from the back and there’s been plenty of examples of this in recent games. Therefore, you’ve got to imagine that Thelin will decide to place Heltne Nilsen or Dante Polvara into centre-half alongside Tobers. My money is on the Norwegian getting the nod here and being asked to play deeper so as to avoid being caught out with a ball over the top. It will be interesting to see who Thelin decides to stick on the bench for defensive cover - from the Young Team, Timothy Akindileni stands out as the most likely given his size.
On the assumption that Tobers & Heltne Nilsen are given the nod for the centre-back positions, this is what I would like to see us go with on Sunday:-
The only real concern with this one is Morris’ ability to track Penrice backwards. Whilst Morris has had a breakthrough season offensively, I am minded to think that Thelin’s reluctance to start him often is related to his tendancy to switch off defensively - it may be for that reason that we see a debut for Okkels on the left flank with Keskinen deployed on the right - even though I’m not convinced that suits the Flying Finn to the same extent.
I’d go with Duk through the middle on the basis that I simply don’t fancy either Nisbet or Ambrose - Duk has the physical capability to take on both Rowles & Halkett and his pace could trouble both if we get the ball down and play through the lines.
This feels like a massive game tomorrow, for both sides. We really need to arrest this slump in form and it needs to happen soon - there is still loads to play for this season but only if we can start to pick up points, a timely win over the Jambos would go some way to restoring the Red Army’s faith that this can still be a season to remember.
Prediction:- Aberdeen 2 - 1 Hearts
COYR.