Jim Goodwin happy and sees room for improvement at Aberdeen

Posted Sunday, October 02, 2022 by PA

Aberdeen boss Jim Goodwin believes his side are a decent team with the potential to become a very good team – if they can tighten up defensively.

The Dons have now scored 15 goals at Pittodrie in four cinch Premiership matches this season, after strikes from Bojan Miovski (two), Vicente Besuijen and captain Anthony Stewart saw them rout Kilmarnock, whose sole counter came from former Aberdeen defender Ash Taylor, 4-1.

Goodwin conceded the result flattered his side, but said: “You’re always pleased to win a game, and the overall performance was very good.

“There were elements of it in the first half that were frustrating. We looked a decent team and if we can just scrub up on one or two key areas we can become a very good team.

“At the moment we’re still a relatively new group, and there are things we need to get better at.

“Four-one makes it look extremely comfortable but that wasn’t the case in the first half. We left ourselves open to the counter attack too many times.

“All in all it’s a very pleasing, convincing performance against a team who are very well organised. We were patient and created plenty of opportunities”.

Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes was disappointed with the way his side defended on his first return to Pittodrie as an opposition manager.

He said: “It’s fine margins. I was pleased to a point, but we discussed with the players overt the course of the week that Aberdeen are really strong on the counter and Jim has brought a lot of speed to the team.

“I was disappointed with the manner of the first goal because we allowed ourselves to become too stretched. The second goal wasn’t good enough – losing a goal so quickly just drains the life from you.

“We had some better moments and get a goal back but we should have gone in at half-time 2-1 down with a chance to get ourselves back into the game. We never gave ourselves a chance. The third goal was an awful goal to lose.

“We have to look at ourselves and be disappointed with the level of the goals we lose”.