Phew

Today's game was all about the result and little else. Had the Dandies failed to win, or worse, lost, they would have slithered closer to the relegation battle. Thankfully they scored early and their goal was barely troubled by Falkirk. We would all have liked to see them push up and attack more towards the end of the game, but they were probably right to focus on clearing their lines and letting the clock run down.

Interestingly, Mark chose to use old heads today and it worked. We saw the kind of sleeves up, grafting performance that we should have seen much earlier in the season. Players like Duff and Young had a very good shift with Duff in particular showing a lot of strength, both physically and mentally, especially in dealing with the massive Showunmi.

The other big factor today was that the crowd was right behind the team and didn't descend into booing mistakes, of which there were a few. The players recognised this and responded accordingly. That relationship needs to continue and to get stronger.

Even though most of the younger players didn't get a chance to come on, it was a great experience for them to be on the bench and to see what can be done with sheer hard graft. There are a lot of talented kids at Pittodrie now and they need to be helped by more experienced players. Hopefully they will start to be used a bit more in the last four games so that they can gain a flavour of SPL football ready to put to better use next season. The future is Red and it is youthful.

Technically the Dons are just about safe now, the arithmetic is complicated but it is hard to imagine any of the other bottom six clubs putting together a big enough winning streak to overhaul us and certainly not three of them. The Dons though need to work for more wins, they have bridges to build with the supporters and the sooner they start, the better for Aberdeen and all of us.