Glass sees the positives as Dons bid to end streak
Aberdeen manager feeling confident as key players return from injury
STEPHEN GLASS is excited. The thought of kicking-off at the unprecedented time of six o’clock tomorrow evening against a team, like his Aberdeen outfit, desperately keen to persuade their supporters to stick with them, appeals to him.
He’s thrilled, too, that two key members of his squad – Marley Watkins and Ryan Hedges – are ready for action following a lengthy lay-off and eager to pile more misery on an underachieving Dundee, stuck alongside Ross County at the foot of the Premiership table.
Around 2500 Dons fans will make the 65-mile journey to Dens Park for this experimental start-time, altering their normal Saturday habits and eschewing thoughts of what might be happening on Strictly Come Dancing and while he won’t admit it, the Aberdeen manager, may be a trifle nervous at the possibility that his hometown team will heap more pressure on him.
Would a tenth competitive game without a win accelerate a crisis for the Reds, now ninth in the Premiership table? Add to that a niggling headache surrounding what might happen in the upcoming run of fixtures against Hibs, Rangers, Hearts and Motherwell, and it is easy to visualise what’s running through Glass’s mind.
He said: “I think there needs to be a change in the resilience level that we’ve shown when we come under any sort of pressure in a game.
“I do think it’s been individual bits and I think that’s why the team is showing belief. We’re on a poor run of games, there’s no doubt about that, but it would be easy for a group of players to look dejected, to look lost, to look broken. And I don’t think you see that when you look at our team.
“That shows the positivity in the group and the belief in the group. There’s a block of games until the next international fixtures and we’ve got three home games in there, we’ve got Dundee on Saturday where we’re taking a significant support.
“We know there are some high-level games coming up where I think all the teams will come out and try to win games and not try to not lose. I think that will give us an opportunity to play as well.
“We need to be more resilient. We also need to be slightly more effective in games and there’s a couple in which we didn’t score.
“But we look like a team that can score goals and if we can brush up at the back and be a bit more resilient, I think we’ll be fine.”
There is no denying the disappointment among the Red Army over a run of unacceptable results as well as a poor return at both ends of the pitch.
Questions over whether he feels a rebellion needs to be quelled, however, are sidestepped.
“To me, it’s important that we go and put on a performance for a big number of people that coming to watch us on a Saturday night,” Glass argued.
“The number of tickets we’ve sold is on the back of a bit of belief in what they think their team can do. We’ll show an energy, we’ll show an aggression and I think it’s important that we get back to winning ways.
“As always, the other team are trying to do exactly the same thing but we think we’ve got a good group of players here that are capable of going to win. That’s all we’re focused on.”