Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Aberdeen fan view: Still something about this team that invokes a knot of dread in the stomach

Chris Crighton reflects on a frustrating 1-1 draw against St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park.

St Johnstone's David Keltjens fouls Aberdeen's Graeme Shinnie. Image: SNS.
St Johnstone's David Keltjens fouls Aberdeen's Graeme Shinnie. Image: SNS.

Football’s greatest intangible asset: the game in hand.

As the Premiership season eased back into motion, that was a resource in which the busy Dons were rich.

Last night’s being the first of three league games in seven days, the arithmetic gave Aberdeen a chance to move back into the all-important top five.

Those chickens, of course, cannot be counted until they have hatched. As they have slithered down the table through the late autumn and winter, Aberdeen’s conspicuous shortage in the games played column has been – along with their progression in the League Cup and their competitiveness in Europe – a plea in mitigation.

But as that number rises to match their rivals’, if the points column fails to keep pace it will soon be fair to ask what has truly been achieved this season.

There is still something about this team that invokes a knot of dread in the stomach. Ninety minutes feels like a long time watching them.

There is a clunkiness in their play and an unreliability in their aura. They find it implausibly difficult to fashion chances for a striker who will take as many as he can be given, yet however untroubled a match their defence is experiencing they rarely seem more than a minute away from total system shutdown.

Barry Robson has identified the lack of training time in the season’s first half as a problem in the drilling of his team, and with the fixtures continuing to come thick and fast for the rest of January – then seven more in the year’s shortest month – he isn’t going to get much more of it in the immediate future.

By the time he finally gets to gather them at Cormack Park to figure out what they should be doing, will it be too late?