Aberdeen’s Premiership challenge came to a halt last night as the Dons crashed to a 3-0 defeat at St Johnstone.
The scoreline flattered Derek McInnes’ side who were second best in every area to a team with nothing to play for other than personal pride and their bonus.
It was the third consecutive away defeat for Aberdeen coming on the back of losing at Motherwell and Hearts having taken the lead in both matches.
Going into the match Aberdeen could hardly have been offered a greater incentive to win with Celtic in disarray after losing to Sevco in the Scottish Cup followed by the delayed resignation of Ronny Deila.
Wins over St Johnstone and Motherwell would have kept the title race live going into their visit to Celtic Park in 15 days time but from the first whistle last night there was only going to be one winner.
David Wotherspoon and Stevie MacLean gave St Johnstone a 2-0 lead at the interval with only an incredible mistake from Craig Thomson denying them a third goal after he awarded Aberdeen a foul after goalkeeper Scott Brown bumped into one of his own players and fell over defending a corner!
The introduction of Barry Robson at the interval made no difference to the flow of the game with the Dons defence cut wide open in the 55th minute allowing Liam Craig to complete the scoring.
If Celtic can beat Ross County on Sunday the Premiership title can be clinched with a win at Tynecastle next Saturday with the Celtic match kicking off before Aberdeen host Motherwell.
