Stewart’s readyfor hardwork inpursuit ofHoops

Aberdeen squandered the chance to remain within a point of Celtic on their last outing before the international break but winger Greg Stewart remains confident his side can close the gap on the Scottish Premiership leaders.

Stewart was on target as the Dons were held to a 2-2 draw by Hamilton Accies with a late David Templeton strike denying Derek McInnes’ side victory.

The Dons take on Lanarkshire opposition again this weekend, with Stephen Robinson’s Motherwell visiting Pittodrie on Saturday, while Celtic take on Ross County at Dingwall.

With 30 points to play for in a busy stretch before the end of the year, Stewart believes the Dons can put pressure on Brendan Rodgers’ Hoops by embarking on a winning run.

He said: “We just need to keep plugging away and try to win all our games. They say the Christmas period is the toughest of the year.

“We always seem to come back strong and react really

“Wejustneedto keepplugging awayandtryto winourgames”

well to a bad result, so, hopefully, we will do that again. It is a great bunch of boys. We all stick together whether we win, lose or draw. We need to beat the other teams and hope Celtic slip up.

“The Champions League will have an effect on them but they are a top team and they showed that recently against Bayern when they were unlucky to lose 2-1.

“But the focus is on ourselves. We need to keep working hard.”

Stewart, meanwhile, says seeing team-mates Kenny McLean, Ryan Christie and Graeme Shinnie involved in the Scotland squad for last week’s 1-0 friendly defeat by the Netherlands has been a boost for the rest of the Dons squad.

He added: “Before I came here, I was always surprised there weren’t more Aberdeen players in the Scotland squad.

“It is good to know that chance is there if you are consistent.”