Hearts hoping to overtake Aberdeen next season

Hearts boss Robbie Neilson set his players a target of overtaking Aberdeen in the Premiership next season after the Jambos defeated the Dons for the third successive time in all competitions.

A 64th-minute goal from Abiola Dauda, who pounced on an Adam Collin error, separated the sides in a low-key contest at Pittodrie on Thursday night.

The 1-0 win saw third-placed Hearts continue their recent success against Aberdeen and allowed them to close the gap in the table on their second-placed opponents.

However, they are still seven points adrift of Derek McInnes' men and, with one game to go, have no chance of overhauling them

That is something they are aiming to change for next season.

Neilson said: "I'm pleased with the result because we took a big fan base up here.

"We have played five games (this season) against Aberdeen and won three, which is great, but we need to carry that through to next season to try and get closer to them and overtake them if we can.

"Aberdeen are a good team, there is no denying that, with a lot of experience.

"If you look at their team, they have a lot of guys who played 300 or 400 games in the top flight and when you get that experience, you know how to win games especially in this league, which is so tight and can be won by a mistake, like it was tonight."

Defeat for the Dons, who were without strikers Adam Rooney and Simon Church, means they now cannot surpass last season's record points haul of 75.

They will still comfortably finish runners-up to Celtic for the second year in a row, but manager McInnes admitted it was a disappointing night for his side as they suffered only a second home defeat of the campaign.

McInnes said: "We asked the players to treat the game properly and try to get as many points as possible.

"That was our last bit of motivation for the season really, after qualifying for Europe a while back and securing second spot a couple of weeks ago and then falling out of the title race.

"The last thing was trying to beat last season's tally and it has always been quite important to us. From the start of the season, privately I have been saying to the players it was something to work towards so we are disappointed because, certainly in the first half, the players showed an eagerness to win the game."

McInnes admitted his side missed their first-choice centre-forwards, adding: "I thought we were the better team but lacked a number nine's movement in the box when we got into good areas.

"While we did not have the same rhythm to our play in the second half, I still thought we were the dominant game but we lost a poor goal."