Aberdeen ended their mid-season trip to Dubai with a hot-tempered 2-0 defeat by Uzbek champions Lokomotiv Tashkent in a match that seemed to be anything but a friendly.
Scott McKenna started on the bench less than 24 hours after the Dons rejected a £300,000 bid from English Championship side Hull City for the defender.
It would be a huge stretch to read anything into that, with Derek McInnes instead preferring to give Mark Reynolds and Anthony O’Connor a start at the back, while Andrew Considine was left out of the squad altogether.
The Dons will want to go into the second half of the season as strong as possible – and that means keeping McKenna at Pittodrie.
McKenna has carried himself with a measure of confidence in the last week and spoke well on his ambitions to progress from Scotland under-21 captain to a full international.
McInnes will be hoping the defender can realise that ambition at Pittodrie before he makes the leap into the English football bearpit.
A notable inclusion was midfielder Chidi Nwakali, whom McInnes was keen to see in action following his loan switch from Manchester City.
Nwakali is effectively Greg Tansey’s replacement in the Dons squad and the opening exchanges highlighted the differences in skill-set between the Nigerian and the former Caley Thistle midfielder.
Where Tansey likes to spread the play with long-range passes, take aim from distance and charge forward on to loose balls, Nwakali’s has a more measured approach to the game. He acts as a shuttler in front of the defence, shutting off passing lanes and pressing opposition midfielders. This work, as well as his willingness to always offer to take possession, allowed his midfield partner Kenny McLean to play with a bit more positional freedom.
Lokomotiv were certainly no slouches and were using the friendly to get in shape for their Asian Champions League campaign. They moved the ball around the penalty area slickly and at pace, manoeuvring red shirts out of position. Last season’s top scorer Marat Bikmaev – an experienced goalscorer in Russian and Asian football – drifted in from the right flank to find space, finding enough to get one shot away that was charged down.
Ryan Christie was by far the standout for the Dons, drifting through the game with a measurable ease. Slaloming past defenders with a slight jink has become the Christie trademark and on a couple occasions he evaded Uzbek challenges in a bid to force the issue for his side. He is a man playing with supreme confidence and wants to influence the game with every touch of the ball.
Lokomotiv proved they were more than a match for Aberdeen and McInnes will have been less than impressed with his side’s defensive showing. Islom Tukhtakhujaev headed home a Marat Bikmaev corner in 26 minutes and Sherzodbek Karimov fired home from inside the box two minutes later. A game in which the Dons had largely been in control had slipped from their grasp.
In fairness to them they were subjected to some physical punishment from the Uzbeks, with one incident involving Tukhtakhujaev and Christie – with the goalscorer leading with an elbow, sparking a 20-man bust-up between the two sides.
McLean and O’Connor were both at the centre of it and Lokomotiv head coach Mirko Jelicic made his way on to the pitch to remonstrate, gesturing at McInnes as he went. So much for a friendly game.
Nwakali was perhaps wisely removed by McInnes as after a yellow card for a cynical foul on Sanjar Shaakhmedov.
He was walking the proverbial disciplinary tightrope and, given how the game hotted up quickly in the first half, the City loanee could easily have seen red had he been guilty of another infringement.
The Dons looked threatening when pushing forward without forcing Ignatiy Nesterov into anything remotely stretching.
Graeme Shinnie finished off a mazy run with a shot straight at the Uzbek international but anything McInnes’ side seemed to try in an offensive capacity came up short.
A glut of changes came in the game’s final 15 minutes but Aberdeen’s most dangerous forward players, McLean and Christie, were left on as the fringe Reds were given a brief opportunity to showcase themselves.
With McLean set to leave Pittodrie at the end of the season, the stage is set for a player such as Frank Ross to make the midfield spot his own and he was given the final 15 minutes – albeit on the right flank.
McKenna was given a short runout.
Only the next five days will tell if this game will turn out to be his last appearance in the red shirt of Aberdeen.