Derek McInnes
“At the time I thought the goal should have stood, I was then aggrieved that he was pulling it back for the penalty and then obviously I was exasperated when we didn’t get the penalty and my player gets booked for simulation which for me was clearly not the case. It was a big call but thankfully we don’t need to dwell on it too much as it hasn’t had a bearing on the outcome of the game.
“If we got that second goal we would have had a real stranglehold of the game then as United were struggling to get out. If we got the second goal as we should have done the game would have been less nervy and we would have maybe gone on and made more of that. It was a lifeline for United at that stage but I would rather concentrate on the performance of the players.
“The performance of the players was very good. The game played the way that I expected it to be played. United are in a situation where in the last couple of games they have reverted to playing the game in the opposition half, capitalising on mistakes and playing pressure football which is the way a lot of teams go when it gets to this stage of the season. With where they are in the league I can totally understand that. We picked a team to deal with that and I thought we dealt with it.
“I apologised for my part in the sending off. I don’t want to dwell too much on that. I think I was wrong and I think the referee was wrong but I have spoken to Bobby Madden and the officials and apologised.
“It was important to win tonight from our point of view. We felt that we needlessly shipped two points at the weekend. We were very comfortable with two minutes to go and we gave away a penalty. When you see the players working so hard, and they don’t get the reward for that there is a lot of anger and frustration and it was important that we showed that tonight in our performance. The performance was good but the result was more important than the performance tonight. The result was everything.
“We have got ten games to go, it’s a ten game season and we are confident that we can win games that can keep everybody interested.
“Some games are made for Barry, some situations are made for that experience and strength and I felt that middle ground was very important to us. We wanted all of our pace on the outsides and we thought that we would have a lot to contest centrally tonight so we had to make sure that we came out on top. We had to get the ball into the wider areas with Pawlett, McGinn, Shinnie and Logan bombing on relentlessly.
“We had a goal threat from McLean and Church for the whole game, we should have got more from it but Robson was very important for us winning that middle ground and he should be proud of himself because he trains so hard. It’s not always easy leaving someone like Barry out of your team because it wasn’t so long ago that I was that age myself when you knock your pan in every single day to try and keep up. He got his reward tonight because he has earned that. He trains right every day, he is committed, there is never a problem and he always says that he is ready for when I need him. I needed him tonight and thankfully he was there.
“There always seems to be one chance that gets you nervous. We should have dealt with it before it got through to Scott but thankfully he has made the save when called upon. Right across the board everyone has contributed from Scott right through to the substitutes so it is a good night for us.
“When we signed Church we wanted another goal threat to add to Rooney. The over reliance on Adam Rooney at times is not something that we are totally comfortable with. We have got to get more contributing so we brought Simon in to add to that. Both players have got similarities, they live within the width of the goals and he could have scored another couple of goals tonight. With Adan out the emphasis is on Simon to keep doing what he is doing but with 3 goals in 5 games if he can keep that up he will have done alright.
“We have been given every encouragement from their last couple of results. People spoke about the fact that we hadn’t maximised Saturday’s opportunity which we didn’t but we did say that there was still plenty of opportunities to play for. It is our job to take as many of those opportunities as possible. We have to keep on winning.”
“We have been given every encouragement from their last couple of results. People spoke about the fact that we hadn’t maximised Saturday’s opportunity which we didn’t but we did say that there was still plenty of opportunities to play for. It is our job to take as many of those opportunities as possible. We have to keep on winning.”
