Hearts’ late collapse hands Aberdeen dramatic opening day win at Pittodrie
McEntee’s first-half strike not enough as Mayo and Nisbet stun Hearts in dying moments, with Stuart Findlay sent off late in the game.
Hearts’ miserable start to the season deepened as two stoppage-time goals turned a likely victory into a 2-1 defeat against Aberdeen in their Scottish Premiership league opener at Pittodrie.
Wouter Vrancken’s side appeared poised for a first win at Pittodrie in more than a decade after Oisin McEntee’s first-half strike, only for Lewis Mayo to equalise in the 90th minute and Kevin Nisbet to seal it with a penalty after Stuart Findlay was sent off for denying a goal-scoring opportunity.
The result marked a third consecutive defeat for Vrancken, who has endured a horror start since replacing Derek McInnes in June. Aberdeen, by contrast, carried momentum from four straight Premier Sports Cup group-stage wins, with new boss Stephen Robinson handing an immediate start to Chris Cadden, who had joined from Hibernian only the day before.
Hearts made five changes from the midweek Champions League qualifier loss to Sturm Graz, with goalkeeper Beau Reus and Laurent Mendy making their debuts and Sabah Kerjota and Amadou Ba-Sy handed their first competitive starts.
For Hearts supporters, the fixture arrived against a backdrop of continued discontent. The 1,600 travelling fans were regularly heard singing anti-SFA chants in protest at contentious officiating decisions they believe cost them last season’s title race, which ended with Hearts losing the title to Celtic on the final day of the season at Celtic Park.
After a summer of transition and a 6-0 aggregate defeat by Sturm Graz that did little to lift spirits, there was trepidation about beginning the league campaign at a ground where they had failed to win in 14 previous visits.
Hearts’ makeshift defence with midfielder McEntee deployed at centre-half following an injury to Malachi Fagan-Walcott looked vulnerable early, allowing Dons captain Nisbet to break clean through in the third minute before McEntee recovered to scramble the ball behind for a corner.
Nisbet then glanced a header just wide from a Connor Ronan corner in the 27th minute, though clear-cut chances were sparse.
The breakthrough came in the 35th minute after a scramble in the Aberdeen box, Ba-Sy’s cutback from the left fell to Blair Spittal, whose shot was blocked by Nesta Guinness-Walker on the edge of the six-yard box, and when Dan Happe’s attempted clearance ricocheted into McEntee’s path, he fired low into the net from seven yards.
Hearts generally looked comfortable for much of the second half, with Claudio Braga spurning a good chance to double their lead. Aberdeen offered little as an attacking force until the dying moments of the game, when Mayo bundled in from close range after Happe headed Ronan’s free-kick back into danger in the 90th minute.
The turnaround was completed in stoppage time after Toyosi Olusanya was hauled down by Findlay, who was shown a straight red card, and Nisbet calmly dispatched the resulting penalty.
Speaking after the game, Hearts manager Wouter Vrancken said: “We give it away in five minutes. We had to be smarter. We were going in attack with too many people there instead of keeping control and managing the counter, especially when you are 1-0 ahead.
“When the next game is on again, you have to switch again because you cannot go with these feelings again in the next game. We have to be ready and fully focused again.”
Meanwhile, Dons boss Stephen Robinson was delighted with the character his players showed to secure all three points.
“If you’re going to win a game, it’s a good way to do it,” Robinson commented wryly afterwards.
“We certainly showed the character and the fight that I didn’t believe was here last year and certainly that was a real plus for me.”
“We have to remember it’s one game,” he said. “You take the criticism when you lose games so I think the players deserve a lot of credit for their mentality. It’s a very good result. It’s a start but that’s all it is.”