Aberdeen made it three wins out of three in the SPFL Reserve Cup group stages. After previously beating Ross County and Queen of the South, they defeated St Johnstone 3-0 on Monday at Cove thanks to a hat-trick from Bruce Anderson and sit top of Group B. Their final game is against Kilmarnock away and like last year they have a great chance to progress to the semi-finals.
After the game at The Balmoral Stadium coach Paul Sheerin spoke to afc.co.uk
The Result
“In this competition it is important to try and get the wins under your belt as quick as you can.
“Winning the first one against Ross County gave us a good platform so three out of three for us is really pleasing.
“I thought to a man we were really good.
“I was really please with our shape, the structure of the team and when you have that quality at the top end of the pitch with Ethan Ross, Bruce Anderson, Michael Ruth and Connor McLennan you are going to win more games than not. I am really pleased.”
Bruce Anderson
“Once he (Bruce) is one on one with the goalkeeper you more often than not think he is going to score.
“He beats himself up when he doesn’t take them.
“He is greedy, he is really greedy! He can maybe play in others at time, but you wouldn’t take that away from him being a striker and it shows with the amount of goals that he scores.”
Clean Sheet
“They were bright with Robertson and Kane up top and we knew that they could give us issues.
“I just thought that if we could be solid in a 4-4-1-1 when we were out of possession we would do ok. And that was the biggest message to them, get back into that shape and they took that to the letter.
“They forced them into wide areas and when they went into wide areas we pressed as a group.
“I am really pleased. The spine of their team they had Madis Vihmann, Liam Craig and Chris Kane so that spine was all first team players.
“We were fortunate to get Stephen Gleeson, Connor McLennan and Tomas Cerny in goal gives you that bit of reassurance. His experience is valuable for the younger ones in front of him.
“It was a bit more even with the first team players, they maybe had a couple more in their team, so to match up the way we did was really pleasing.”
Attacking Threat
“The way we managed the game was a big thing for me, another real plus in terms of our quality at the top end and allowing us to get forward. We created some good chances. Bruce went close on a number of other occasions, Michael Ruth pulled a shot just wide and David Dangana when he comes on is unlucky, the keeper makes a great save.
“We looked like we could have picked them off towards the end and got another couple of goals.”
Next Match
“We travel to play Huddersfield Town on Tuesday.
“This friendly competition was always going to be a different experience.
“I think when the clubs are at home, they will be stronger because they will have more scope of playing ones that are on the fringes of the first team.
“We are under no illusion that Huddersfield will be stronger than they were the last time in terms of age, and we may well be younger.
“We will just do what we can to prepare them and hope when we go down there we can compete and give a good account of ourselves as we did at Brechin.”
“We will just do what we can to prepare them and hope when we go down there we can compete and give a good account of ourselves as we did at Brechin.”
