Dons come undone at Fir Park to leave title bid hanging by a thread
DEVASTATED Derek McInnes was last night left clinging to the hope there will be more twists to come in this Premiership title race after his Aberdeen side suffered a potentially fatal blow to their challenge.
A surprise defeat to Motherwell, coupled with Celtic’s last-gasp win over Kilmarnock, means the Pittodrie men are now four points adrift having played a game more.
With a virus having affected a number of the Fir Park squad, it was Mark McGhee’s side who were expected to be below par yesterday.
Instead, it was Aberdeen who were left looking decidedly off colour after a mad six-minute spell where they allowed Motherwell to equalise Kenny McLean’s penalty and then
grab a winner before Barry Robson was sent off for elbowing former Celtic colleague Scott McDonald.
McInnes hasn’t thrown in the towel yet, though, and also questioned why referee Don Robertson did not send off Motherwell defender Kieran Kennedy in the incident which led to McLean putting the Dons ahead from the spot.
‘There are still 21 points to be played for and we will try and win them all,’ said McInnes. ‘It was our second defeat in 18 games, so we’re not going to start getting too disturbed about it. We knew Motherwell away, at any time, was going to be a tough game and for 70-odd minutes we looked the better team. You need to play for 90.
‘I still feel, with the nature of this league, that points will get dropped and there will be a few surprise results along the way. We are still trying to catch Celtic and keep ourselves away from Hearts.
‘With the support we have, we are obliged to keep going all the way.
‘We responded well to our last defeat and we need to do it again and go on another run and win as many as possible.
‘From the letter of the law, we were denied a goalscoring opportunity because Jonny Hayes was going to shoot and he is six yards from goal. It is a red card, without question.’
McInnes, however, had no complaints about Robson’s rush of blood to the head.
‘He is trying to jostle for possession, he put his body in the way but crossed the line with his elbow,’ he said. ‘The referee is quite within
his right to send him off.’
Aberdeen captain Ryan Jack couldn’t believe his side threw the points away.
‘We are gutted and disappointed to lose and with the manner in which we lost the goals. We were in control and creating chances but we didn’t get the second goal and then we switched off defensively.’
Motherwell have gone from being dragged into a relegation battle to being odds-on for a top-six place and manager Mark McGhee was delighted with the performance, especially in light of that sickness bug which, at one stage, had Motherwell considering whether to ask for the match to be postponed.
He said: ‘Yesterday and today, it was never going to be off but if two or three more had come in on Friday morning with the same virus, we’d have been lucky to put a team out.
‘All the Under-20s were out. We’d have been left with 11 or 12 players but, by Friday morning, one or two showed up and this morning Marvin Johnson showed up feeling better and he wanted to play.
‘That’s five wins out of six and with two games before the split, we can maybe try to stay in the top six. We’re pleased with that.’