Manager Derek McInnes has spoken of his relief at taking all three points from the weekend’s encounter with Dundee United and seeing Aberdeen bring an end to the winless run they had been on.
Video – Dundee United Highlights
Speaking to the Official Site following the two nil victory, McInnes spoke about how important it was for everybody for the club to have got back to winning ways on the day.
‘It’s nice to win. It’s important for loads of people but especially the players and the supporters. We have had a few weekends of late where the players, staff and I have suffered the same as the supporters. The manner of the victory was good, it wasn’t just a case of turning up hoping to win. We controlled the game from start to finish and even though we didn’t get the goal in the first half you could see the calmness, decision making and confidence in the team. It was the type of performance that we have seen time and time again over the last couple of seasons.’
McInnes went on to say that obviously it was good to get back to ‘winning ways’ especially by keeping a clean sheet in the process, and he was pleased to see us get the second goal as it did put a better reflection on the scoreline as he felt we’d been completely dominant.
‘I applaud the players for handling what could have been a difficult situation by just playing their game and backing themselves to be better over 90 minutes. We have had players who have been trying to find their form. A couple of weeks ago against Motherwell we were back somewhere like it and last week we had something similar even though we lost the game at Celtic. Today, I thought we had far more players playing to their form today and Jonny was obviously one of them. Jonny has been very single minded over the last little while and even though we haven’t won games he has been one of the players who has maintained a decent level of performance and he deserves that today.’
Jonny Hayes was also interviewed after the game, and with a goal and an assist to his name from the match, he was obviously delighted with his own performance.
‘I was pleased with my own performance but the most important thing was the win. It has not been a great month or so, results have gone against us but I feel in the last three weeks we have been getting better after getting back to basics. We were maybe a bit sloppy last week but there were signs that things were getting back to normal.’
Hayes went on to say that all afternoon he felt our basis was solid defending and we just kicked on from there really, and that was definitely more like what we’d done all season so far when games were going our way.
‘It was comfortable in the end but we worked very hard off the ball. That is maybe something we have been guilty of not doing enough of lately. The work rate set the tone for the performance. I am not sure if the international break has come at a good time or not. After a win you want to get back out and play straight away, especially as this was our first win for a while and also because we enjoyed it. The training this week is certainly going to be more enjoyable than it probably has been compared with the last couple of weeks. We will though look forward to a few days off so we can recharge the batteries a little bit before getting ready for Hamilton. The strong team spirit we have has helped us get through the past few weeks. An example today was Willo coming back into the side. He has not played much recently but came in and did very well. It was the squad that won today and not the team.’
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