Leighton Clarkson enjoyed seeing the Dons getting amongst the goals again against Kilmarnock, but was quick to stress that it’s the team’s form at the other end of the park that is providing the platform for those goalscoring exploits.
“The run of clean sheets have been massive for us. If you keep them out at that end, you always give yourselves a chance to win games. Mattie, Angus and Scalesy have defended the box really well over the last few weeks, Kelle has made some big saves, and if we can keep clean sheets, we have the talent we need at the other end of the pitch to score goals.
“We had to change things a bit today with Shinnie being suspended but Ryan came in as a 10 and me and Rama in behind, but I feel happy playing any of the midfield positions. We had a good afternoon and did our bit to help get the win.
“We felt we started slowly at St Johnstone so we wanted to put that right. We got the early goal and controlled the first half an hour. We fell off that level a bit at the end of the first half but we regrouped and were better again in the second half.”
With Bojan Miovski and Duk level pegging on 17 goals each this term, there’s healthy competition to see who’ll finish top of the goalscoring charts, but while they’re firing the bullets, Clarkson is playing his part in making the ammunition.
“The manager knows what he wants from us, he wants us to mix the game up as much as we can. We’ve got two strikers that are willing runners and goalscorers so we want to feed them, but there’s also times when we want to play football, draw the opposition out and then go in behind them, we’ve got different ways of playing.
“Since day one when I came here we’ve spoken about the movement up front and finding passes into those runs. I put Bojan through to set Duk up in the second half with that kind of combination and then we did it again a few minutes later but we didn’t get a goal from that one – I’ll let him off!
“Duk is a unique kind of player. Sometimes I don’t know what he’s going to do, the fans don’t know, but somehow he’ll keep hold of the ball. He’s a pleasure to work with in training and in games and I’m glad it’s all coming together so well for him.
“Duk and Bojan do a lot of work off the ball, they put in a really good shift for the team, they run the hard yards and by the end of games they’re both knackered! But on top of that, they’re putting away the opportunities they’re getting as well.”
Although the Dons have gone third in the table, there’s no chance of anyone getting carried away, as Leighton underlined after the game.
“Things are going well at the moment, but there’s seven cup finals to come for us. All the focus now is on Ross County on Friday, which we know will be a really hard game. At the moment we’re getting the wins on the board, which is so important at this stage of the season, but we have to keep on getting plenty more before the end of the season.
“I’ve loved every minute up here, the fans have been great and I’d love to give them something back by helping us finish really high up the league and qualifying for Europe.”
