Aberdeen boss Jim Goodwin was pleased to see his side get back to winning ways with the 2-0 win over St Johnstone at Pittodrie today.
“I felt we deserved the three points over the game. First half in particular we were excellent, passed the ball about really well, they didn’t cause us too many problems, and we were a bit unfortunate with decisions that went against us.
“St Johnstone made it scrappy second half and it looked like it was a going to be a carbon copy of the Ross County game for a while, but credit to the players, they kept going. They’ve been on a difficult run but they’ve stuck together, we kept on being aggressive all over the pitch, we kept a second clean sheet in a week which is a big boost for the boys at the back, and eventually the goals came for us this time.
“There’s a lot of noise when you have the run we’ve had since the break, but we haven’t let it affect us. Performances have been better than results, other than being really poor at Kilmarnock, and if fine margins had gone our way, we’d have had some better results. But at the end of the day, we haven’t accumulated enough points since we came back and today we’ve started to put that right. Today was an important result and one we needed to get.
“Within the dressing room, within the staff, there’s been no panic, no negativity. We believe in what we’re trying to do here, I believe in the strategy the club has in place in bringing in good youngsters and trying to help them, and putting a few experienced heads around them too. Duk is an example of that, Miovski too, we have examples of some really good bits of recruitment.
“Duk is a good young player who is still learning, because he hasn’t played a lot of senior football. We saw huge potential in him and he’s developed a lot quicker than we probably thought he would. We won’t get carried away, we won’t put too much pressure on him, but when one of your strikers is going through a barren spell the way Miovski is at the moment, it’s important someone else takes on the mantle and becomes that matchwinner.
“Duk doesn’t lack self confidence, that’s for sure, and he’s a very dangerous player. I wouldn’t like to defend against him because you don’t know from one second to the next what he’s going to do. He’s got pace, power, technical ability and he’s very composed in front of goal.
“Experience is important to help those young players too, which was why I was pleased to be able to bring Graeme Shinnie back. That also got the supporters excited, because they rightly hold him in high regard. He was excellent, him and Ramadani complemented each other, gave us a bit of balance in there being left footed.
“He can do a bit of everything, similar to Ramadani in terms of attitude and application. Two really good leaders and warriors in the middle, but both capable of getting on the ball and using it, as they showed, especially in the first half.”
