WHILE the whole of Scottish football surely celebrated Aberdeen's commendable Uefa Cup performance against Bayern Munich on Thursday night, Mixu Paatelainen had more reason than most to take pleasure in the 2-2 draw at Pittodrie.
As a former Aberdeen player, the Hibernian manager retains a certain affection for his old club. "I want Aberdeen to do well," he said beforehand. "I want them to win convincingly."
They may not have done that, but they did well enough to give
their morale a much-needed boost after last weekend's 5-1 defeat by Celtic. And that is another reason for the Edinburgh-based Finn to be cheerful: it means his own team will not be tempted to begin tomorrow's home league game in a complacent frame of mind, as they might have been had they been facing opponents who had suffered two heavy defeats on the trot and were obviously suffering from battle fatigue.
"It was a great result for them last night," Paatelainen said yesterday. "Fantastic. To score two goals against Bayern Munich was great. After a couple of bad results, they've achieved a great one against a top, top team."
Although they might begin the match brightly, Aberdeen will surely tire later on, and the Hibs manager will insist his team maintain their concentration in order to take advantage of that possibility. A home win would see Hibs replace Aberdeen in fifth place in the Premier League table, and that is surely the most likely outcome provided they do not relax too quickly as they did in midweek against Gretna.
Then, Hibs went from a 3-0 cruise to a nervy 3-2 lead before a last-minute penalty ensured them of the points. Paatelainen was concerned at the time by his team's lapse of concentration, but he also reflected contentedly on the performance of his two strikers and goalscorers, Colin Nish, who opened the scoring, and Steven Fletcher, who got a hat-trick. "I was delighted with the way the two combined," he said.
