Stefan Gartenmann looked as if his header had set up Aberdeen’s winner at Livingston, only for it to be ruled out by VAR, something he said summed up Aberdeen’s season.
“I’m always going to say that I didn’t feel it was offside, but to be honest, I haven’t seen it back, so I wouldn’t know. It feels like these kind of situations have always been a little bit against us this season and we’ve had a lot of these where it’s an inch or two the wrong way. But that’s also why we’re in the position we’re in and some of the other teams are in a better position in the table. That’s usually the difference.
“Of course, it wasn’t a beautiful game today. It was never going to be a beautiful game in the conditions, but we still felt like we did enough to win it. As so many times this season, it’s the small margins and those little percentages that go your way that we need to get over the line. That isn’t happening for us.
“We felt like we did enough to get an ugly win here and that’s what we need at the moment, just three points as often as possible. But it is a clean sheet and seven points now in the last three games, so we move on.
“I will say that we have the feeling that we’re slowly regaining that confidence again. Even though we didn’t play a magnificent football game, we still did enough to get the 1-0 and get the win. Of course, it wasn’t a goal in the end, but still, we did enough to win this game.
“That’s what we’ve been lacking this season, winning the bad games. We’ve only won this season when we’ve been playing really, really good. The first time we won an ugly game was last week against Ross County. If we can get those wins as well, the ugly wins away to Livi, the home 2-1 win against Ross County, that’s what gets us to where we need to be. But the confidence is slowly getting into the team again. That’s what we’re building on.”
With Peter Leven still in charge, Stefan was clear that uncertainty over the next manager should not be an issue for the players.
“The manager situation is difficult, but many of us have been in similar situations. We know what it’s like. We’ve got Peter here who knows us all, who’s been with us the whole season, and he knows every single one of our qualities. Of course, it’s frustrating not having that certainty, but we’re comfortable in training every week and playing with the staff we have now. We should be able to cope with that. What’s important right now is whoever’s in charge, we need every single one of us to play the way he wants, and that’s pretty much where we’re at at the moment.
“I think I’ve had six, seven managers the past two seasons. I’ve had managers in and out, in and out, in and out. I’m not the most experienced guy here, but even I feel that you get used to it. A lot of the guys have tried it before and know how to reset your mind when a new manager comes in.
“At the end of the day, whoever is the manager, it’s all about winning. We’re professional footballers, we can adapt from one day to the other. Of course you won’t have a new style of play from Monday to Tuesday, but we’re all here to win for Aberdeen and that’s pretty much what it’s about.”
The Dons will play out the rest of the season in the bottom half after the split, but Gartenmann says that while that’s frustrating, they must find fresh targets over the coming weeks.
“Of course you want to play Celtic and Rangers and Hearts. Of course those games are more fun to play, it’s what the fans want and it’s what we do it for. But we also accept that we’re in the position we’re in. For me, the most important thing now is just getting us safe and then hopefully we’ll see if we can finish top of the bottom six. I think that should be the target for now, and I think we are capable of that. That’s what we have to go for now.”
