The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Hosts humbled as visitors score important goals
Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes is looking forward to allowing his players a rest after a testing week ended with the Dons suffering a fourth consecutive home league defeat.
Having taken the lead through Curtis Main’s strike just before the halfhour, the Dons played 60 minutes with 10 men after Dean Campbell’s sending off and ultimately paid the price as Billy Mckay netted late in each half to give Ross County a 2-1 win.
McInnes pointed to a heavy fixture load as a contributing factor, saying: “Since Ross County played St Johnstone last Saturday, we’ve played 90 minutes against the champions, gone down to Kilmarnock and played extra time before getting to our beds around 3am.
“We’ve had two fairly full-on games since Ross County played, but the last thing we needed was to go down to 10 men.
“The players were clearly shattered out there. We knew going into the game the physical part would be an issue. We tried to freshen it up before the game and knew we’d use our subs early, but we’ve had an upturn in performances the last few games and it won’t derail that.”
County co-manager Steven Ferguson says his side won’t get carried away despite the win leaving them 10 points clear of bottom side Hearts and eight clear of the relegation play-off spot.
He said: “We need to put it into perspective. It’s one game of football and it’s only three points.
“Our end goal is to be playing Premiership football next year, and if we get more performances and results like that then we’ll manage it.
“In-house we always want to do better and we think we can do better.
“We have to look after what we can influence and control and take our medicine on what we can’t control.
“It’s not about systems or patterns, it’s about how the players perform on the day. We were patient and got our reward.”
Livingston manager Gary Holt is convinced ‘risky’ Efe Ambrose is only going to get better after making an impressive debut against former club Hibernian.
Ambrose had not played for almost 14 months but was given a debut at Easter Road after signing last week – and helped the Lions to a 1-1 draw on his old stomping ground.
Christian Doidge gave Hibs the lead four minutes after half-time but a leveller from Aaron Taylor-Sinclair just six minutes later ensured Livingston stay above their hosts and on course for a top-six finish.
Ambrose was something of a cult hero for the Hibs fans before leaving in January last year and Holt expects the former Celtic defender to now have a major influence on his Almondvale outfit.
He said: “Efe will get better. He was good, he was very good.
“You know with Efe he will risk it in certain areas but he was only in some part of the week and so he’s getting to know how we play and what areas we’re looking for him to play in.
“But I think you saw his defensive qualities were excellent and that will certainly come to the fore the more games and weeks we have with him.
Hibs passed up a gilt-edged opportunity to make the breakthrough in a stuffy first-half when TaylorSinclair was adjudged to have handled Martin Boyle’s cross in the box – but Robby McCrorie pulled off a superb save to stop Scott Allan’s penalty.
The hosts began the second half strongly and took the lead in the 50th minute when Greg Docherty’s crosscum-shot was turned in by Doidge for his 17th goal of the campaign.
The lead did not last long, however, as wing-back Taylor-Sinclair arrived late at the back post to poke in a wonderful Steven Lawless cross.
Both sides had half-chances to win the contest as time ebbed away and Hibs felt they could have had a second penalty for handball against Ciaron Brown late on.