Mcinnes gets satisfaction from smash and grab win

Aberdeen manager Derek Mcinnes admitted his side barely merited yesterday’s dramatic 2-1 victory at Kilmarnock but insisted it gave him just as much satisfaction as the thumping7-2 defeat of mother well four days earlier.

The Dons strengthened their grip on second place in the Premiership table as two goals in the last seven minutes by substitutes Jayden Stockley and Peter Pawlett wiped out Rory Mckenzie’s first-half opener for Killie.

“It does give me just as much satisfaction,” said Mcinnes. “You always want your team to play well and show their full potential and we got somewhere really close to that against Motherwell last Wednesday, we were absolutely brilliant.

“But it’s not always about us. Today Kilmarnock

deserve a lot of credit, they deserved more from the game.we’reateamthat’sbeen used to winning, though, and I think you saw that. Certainly when the equaliser went in, it was about how to get the ball forward again and try and get the winner. We didn’t want to run out of time.

“It’s always satisfying when you’vecomeawayfromhome, not been at your best but still found a way to win.

“When the dust settles, you look at the league table and realise you’ve nine wins out of ten and you’re keeping that winning momentum going, which is important at this stage of the season.”

Kilmarnock interim manager Lee Mcculloch, who will have further talks with the club’s board later this week about the vacancy created by Lee Clark’s departure last week, insisted he had no regrets about the fateful 78thminute substitution which saw Miles Addison replace the injured Stevie Smith.

It prompted a re-shaping of Killie’s back four, with Gary Dicker switched to midfield, and Addison was subsequently at fault for both of Aberdeen’s goals.

“I was thinking about bringing Miles on anyway [before Smith was injured],” said Mcculloch.

“I had said to him at halftime to make sure he was ready as I thought Aberdeen would be direct. With Stockley and Adam Rooney up front for them, Miles was the perfect one to be winning the headers. With hindsight, would I have done anything differently? Probably not.”