McINNES WANTS PLAYERS TO KEEP WINNING HABIT

ABERDEEN boss Derek McInnes last night admitted the speculation linking him to the Rangers job may have affected his players. But after watching his resurgent side make it six points out of six since he confirmed he was staying at Pittodrie, he challenged them to finish the year on a high. Speaking after a fine 3-0 win at St Johnstone, McInnes (right) said: ‘I don’t know about (the speculation having an effect on the players). ‘But it’s an easy thing to assume and you may well be right. ‘When you don’t win games its easy to assume the focus is on something else like the speculation. But over the last few years we’ve raised the standards here and we’ve become used to winning. ‘So when wins don’t come so freely it can be seen as something dramatic — so it’s good to get back to winning ways. ‘Hopefully, winning becomes a habit and we can take confidence going into this weekend. ‘We have four games before the winter break and we all know the importance of finishing strongly. ‘Hopefully we can come out of the Hearts game on December 31 really pleased with our work. ‘But I was delighted to get three goals and a clean sheet at such a difficult venue as McDiarmid Park. ‘I think we showed tonight that our game is in a good place.’ St Johnstone boss Tommy Wright was left lamenting his side’s defending after succumbing to goals from Adam Rooney, Kari Arnason and Ryan Christie. He said: ‘You can’t say Aberdeen ripped us apart but you could say we ripped ourselves apart with how we gave the ball away. ‘We were caught ball watching for their first goal. You cannot give Adam Rooney that space. ‘At the second goal, we didn’t defend the first header or the second header and we gifted them a goal. ‘The bottom line is we have had too many defeats this season. We’ve lost to big clubs and that’s disappointing as big clubs used to hate coming here. ‘We play Rangers at Ibrox on Saturday and they are currently on a run of good results. ‘But we have proved, particularly in going to Celtic and Hibs, that we can make it difficult for them. ‘But only if we do our jobs and too many times we have fallen short this season.’