Videos
Derek McInnes | Kilmarnock Preview
The Manager’s pre-match media conference which took place on Friday
“We’re very pleased. We spoke with Mikey a few weeks ago and made a pitch about where we saw him being here. It was more for next season in light of his injury and it’s not a position we see as a priority for now, but we managed to find an agreement with Hamilton to get him up with us. He’ll now continue his rehab with us for the rest of the season and hopefully we’ll see him in a red shirt before the end of the campaign. To get the Hamilton captain, someone who we’ve always been attracted to is very pleasing.
“He’s a good size, good age, good type and yes injuries are part in parcel of the game, but I think he’ll be a brilliant signing for us. We’re delighted we’ve managed to get him. I was confident after speaking to him that he saw Aberdeen as the right step for him and it’s been accelerated to get him in January when we thought it was going to be the end of the season.
“As much as Hamilton might have agreed something with Preston, I was confident with my conversations with Mikey and through his agent that he saw Aberdeen as the place he wanted to be and that was good enough for me.
“We’ve in the past taken Inverness’s captain Graeme Shinnie, St Mirren’s captain Kenny McLean and now Hamilton’s captain so we’re keen to work with good young players and good types of people that can deal with the demands of playing here.
“We feel as though Mikey has done extremely well for Hamilton and it was clear what Hamilton thought of him and he goes with their best wishes. If he hadn’t had his injury he might have moved for big money down south potentially. He’s always been one we’ve been interested in and has done particularly well against us (agonisingly). Even watching Hamilton, he was always seen as somebody that took responsibly and was a real leader with the first header. We spoke about how he’s got his best years ahead of him and thankfully the next part of his career will be in an Aberdeen shirt.
“With Joe it’s good news and bad news. Good news is he hadn’t broken his leg, which was initially the biggest fear coming away from the game on Wednesday night, but that wasn’t the case after he had been to the hospital. The downside is we had the MIR scan last night and he’s going to need an operation on his knee as he’s got cartilage damage and it’s a significant injury to his knee. He’ll be ruled out for the foreseeable future and it’s too early to say how long, but it’s disappointing. He’ll go for surgery at the start of the week and then we’ll have a better idea of how long he’ll be out for.
“We’ll look at all our options on what we can do and we’re fortunate that we’ve got Danny Rogers who’s gained experience with Falkirk in the Championship and he’s had to be understudy to Joe this season, but he’s had the benefit of working alongside him and Gordon Marshall and he get’s an opportunity and will be play tomorrow.
“Chidi will be available tomorrow subject to international clearance. We’re hopeful we can get that done by the close of the day, but we have jumped through all the hoops we’ve had to jump through and we’ve managed to get all that completed satisfactory. Again, it’s been a wee bit stop start with Chidi, Niall and even Mikey as we’ve not had the impact of the January signings because Niall clearly needs to get himself up to speed and get his minutes up. Chidi has been unavailable until now, but hopefully he can get the clearance and get involved.
“I’m not surprised in a sense (Scott McKenna bid) as clubs have to be seen to try and get players and I totally understand that. I recognise that there will be plenty of admirers of Scott McKenna and a lot of my players, but I can’t stress enough that he won’t be sold in January and clubs can bid all they want he’s staying with us.
“Scott’s relaxed and comfortable about it and while there’s been a third bid and the increments have been increased it’s not really that we’d entertain us anyway, even out with this window.
“For this window it doesn’t matter what comes in as he’s staying an Aberdeen player.
“For us as professionals we’ve got to deal with the next challenge and respond in the right way. We’ve always done that, and the group of players aren’t feeling great about themselves after the game the other night. It was disappointing, and we felt we could have showed a lot more of ourselves. We were up against a good team and Rangers played well in spells, but we were guilty of allowing too many crosses into our box, guilty of not keeping possession and guilty of not taking our chances. Normally when you’re guilty of two or three things you don’t get the desired result and that was unfortunately for us, but even if we’d won the game there’s still work to be done and we lost so it’s the same.
“The next challenge is Kilmarnock, who are in good form and I don’t think they’ve lost a game since we beat them down there and they’ll come here in confident mood. They’ve had their feet up this week while we’ve been playing at Ibrox, so they’ll have that energy and we’ve got to make sure we meet the challenge head on.
“We need the help of everybody. We need the supporters behind the team and everybody’s got a part to play to get behind the players as there’s still so much to play for this season.
“I know how honest my players are and how disappointed they were and how motivated they’ll be tomorrow. We work closely together and the disappointment hits hard because we’re not used to losing games, but we missed an opportunity. There’s fifteen league games to go and we’ve not got time to sit about feeling sorry for ourselves and I think it’s important we’re in a good place in the league. We’re joint second behind on goal difference and there’s still loads to look forward to. We’ve got a Scottish Cup to try and do well in and we’ve got a league campaign. We want to try and get to the end of the season being really happy with our work and we’ve still got real potential to do that.
“There’s one or two complaining of wee knocks and may or may not be available, but we’ll give them every chance tomorrow morning. Obviously Chidi if he can get the clearance will come into the squad and Joe’s ruled out so we’ll bring one of the young goalkeepers up to be on the bench for Danny.”