Barry Robson reflected on a very important result for his team as they beat Motherwell 3-1 at Pittodrie.

“Motherwell are a well structured, organised team, very hard to break down, and they gave us a tough game. They’re not east to play against, they’re coached very well but in the end, we came through it to win and those are three points the club needed. I think we were well worthy of them, we could have scored more goals in the first half, but we’ve got the win which was the most important thing.

“The first 15 minutes it looked like two teams a bit low on confidence, understandably enough, but we always felt that we could get out at them with Leighton Clarkson as a number six, switching the play. I think that’s the best position for him, where he can dictate the game, especially when the pitch is hard, a bit bouncy and bobbly. He’s the one we’ll get a bit of football from.

“I thought tactically we were alright, we settled after a while, and you could see the things we’d worked on in training. We managed to get Duk and Bojan making diagonal runs in behind and they looked really dangerous at times today. The defence looked strong and robust too, you’ve got Graeme Shinnie who is ridiculous with how much he runs and he becomes the trigger player.

“What we tried to do on the coaching side to improve things was to counter-press better, to make sure our distances were better against the ball and today that meant we picked up a lot of second balls. It takes a long time on the training pitch to get that right, but it means you look more aggressive and then that sets a tone. I’m pleased with how we played today, I thought the boys were brilliant.

“As the game wore on, we started to play like a proper, fast, aggressive Aberdeen team. When you play for Aberdeen, you can’t turn up for one game and then not be here the next. It’s got to be every week. We need to be better than we have been, we need to improve the position in the league, all of which is achievable.

“It’s two weeks until the next game which at least gives us time on the grass with the players and that’s where you’re going to make things better. That’s where I’m at my best, Steve Agnew’s a great coach to have here, we’ll get some time at that now which is good.

“Steve has coached all over the place, but he was saying when it went 3-0 and we early got the fourth that he could really feel that this club has got something about it, that the fans are outstanding. That’s what we have here and so we need to get it where this club needs to be, which is much higher up the table.”