Derek McInnes reaction

“It was a game we wanted to win and we came here to win. We did not though do enough or show a level of performance that merited us winning all three points.

“Once we got the equaliser the ascendancy was really with us but we ran out of time to get the next goal.

“I am disappointed because we are better than what we showed tonight. Give credit to St Mirren for a battling performance but we were not at the level I expect, especially in the first forty five minutes. Individually I expect us to show more than we did do.

“The goal we gave away was poor as we had two or three chances to deal with it. We then had to dig deep.”

The manager confirmed that Scott Vernon was not injured so it was a tactical change at half time.

“If (as we had maybe thought) St Mirren had went 4-4-2 we would have gone and matched that, we had that in mind with the starting XI and we planned to play Scott through the middle. You also could not ignore the fact he had scored four goals in the last two games so we wanted to get him in the team.

“I think I made a mistake, the system did not suit us in the first half and it was unfair asking Scott to play the role he eventually did, wide on the left. Once we went back to our old system we got a grip of the second half and had more pace in wider areas we looked better and had more control with the three in the middle of the park. Taking Scott off was no reflection on his performance, it was just to get a system again that has been for us.

“I felt Calvin and Josh are better at playing the lone striker role. Josh almost came on at half time as well in a double substitution but we had an injury concern and I did not want to make too many changes too soon.

“Niall McGinn gave us a lift when he came on. We did not quite know where he was at in terms of fitness. He has done a lot with the phyiso’s over the last couple of days and Niall managed to do a bit of training yesterday with the team. He was egger to be involved so we put him the bench knowing he would give us a lift if needed and he did just that.

“I blame myself a bit as the team was not quite right tonight. The players also take responsibility for their own individual performances but they do deserve credit because although we were not at our best tonight we kept going till the end and kept trying to create chances.

“We will take the positives away from the game. We managed to get point away from home despite not playing well.

“We had another fantastic travelling support. They really got behind the team tonight.”

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