Dundee 1
Aberdeen 4
League (Premier League)

Match Report

If Dundee had even one point for every game they should have won under Ivano Bonetti, the Dark Blues would be genuine title contenders.

Unfortunately, Dundee have still to learn the art of how to kill off opponents when they are on top.

This time it was North East neighbours Aberdeen who showed Dundee how to be ruthless and punish opponents where it hurts.

A hat-trick from Hicham Zerouali left Dundee wondering what might have been. Then, ironically, the Dons immediately withdrew their Moroccan hit-man to ensure they shut up shop. It was between Zero's first and second goals that Dundee should have put this game beyond the visitors.

Instead, they passed up numerous chances when the Dons were on the ropes.

Then, after soaking up all the home pressure, Aberdeen demonstrated how it should be done by grabbing three goals on the break to send their fans back up the 66 miles to Aberdeen in high spirits.

Sadly, the game ended on a sour note when two players were carried off in injury time.

Aberdeen's Derek Young was injured in a tackle with Lucas Gatti and Zurab Khizanishvili was knocked unconscious in an off-the-ball incident with Eugene Dadi that neither ref nor linesman spotted.

By then, Aberdeen had inflicted far more serious

damage on Dundee than this controversial incident.

The visitors got off to a great start when Zerouali was on hand to knock in a rebound after Jamie Langfield had failed to hold a 25-yard shot from Thornley.

Then Dundee hit a purple patch and equalised with the best goal of the game.

Beto Carranza realeased Fabian Caballero down the left and with the precision of a Tiger Woods chip, the Argentinian striker lobbed Esson for a delightful goal.

Milne then passed up two glorious chances as Dundee ripped Aberdeen apart thanks to Carranza's orchestration.

However, the Argentinian genius was injured just after half time and that was the cue for Aberdeen to take over. McNaughton played Zerouali in down the left and his shot went through Langfield's legs.

Then, despite looking yards offside, the irrepressible Moroccan was allowed to race through on a Darren Young pass and blast the ball high and wide beyond Langfield.

Even at 3-1, Milne hit the bar before Darren Mackie ensured all three points for the visitors when he drilled a Thornley pass low beyond Langfield.

Although Dundee lost heavily in the end, this was an enjoyable spectacle, with both sides taking advantage of poor defending to create numerous goalmouth thrills and spills.

There was always an aggressive cutting edge to proceedings, as witnessed by the eight yellow cards administered to Smith, Khizanishvili, Caballero, Bisconti, Thornley, McGuire, Mackie and Dadi.

Although Dundee will look back on what might have been, Aberdeen gave them an object lesson in ruthlessness.

Match report written by The Sunday Post