Following the Dons’ 3-3 draw with St Mirren, Jimmy Thelin was keen to accentuate the positives in his team’s display.
“There are a lot of emotions after the game, but we played maybe our best performance so far this season. We scored three goals, we come back from a goal down, then it’s 2-2 and we went ahead again, then we lose a goal in the last second of the game. It’s tough, but I think the team performed really well the whole game.
“To be fair to St Mirren, they did well in the situation they created in the end and they took the opportunity. Of course we can learn and do something better, how we get closer to the opponents in the last minute of the game. That was disappointing, the result, but the performance was good.
“There are a lot of positives we can take from the game. The team and the players are growing. We need to stay focused that we actually did a good performance. I know football is always about winning, but our last period now has been good in results, and also now the performance was really good.
“I want to focus on the positive things about this game. I know it’s really hurting our fans and ourselves when you lose a goal in the last seconds. But the best way to recover is to focus on the positive now. We have a game on Saturday and it’s the third game now in six days. We have to be really sharp in that game also.”
Gavin Molloy limped off almost as soon as he’d come on after coming off worst in a challenge with Liam Donnelly, while Nicolas Milanovic was missing from the matchday squad. The manager addressed both points after the game.
“We need to assess Gavin and then maybe we’ll know more tomorrow. I hope everything is fine. With Milanovic, we need to get everybody in match shape. Sometimes when you are on the bench, don’t play so much, you need more work. Today we trained really hard with some players to get them ready for the next game, that’s the way we want to work now. We have so many games to balance, we need everybody ready to play and not drop in fitness.
“We always play with inverted wingers. Even when we play 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, usually the wide channel is for the fullbacks. Now we have the wide channel for the wing-backs and the wingers have the opportunity to mix sometimes. They can go in behind, they can be between the lines. There is strong competition on the positions. We have signed players for the long term and we’re pushing them every week to grow.
“The players, the staff, everybody is pushing us to grow every week. The drive the players have, the hunger at Cormack Park, how they want to perform and be ready, the mentality and a lot of players not even inside the squad, they are training so well, pushing the teammates. They’re fighting for the club and I’m happy with that.”
