Stephen Robinson hails Aberdeen for grinding out vital win against Dundee United
Aberdeen head coach Stephen Robinson praised his players for grinding out a 2-0 win over Dundee United which secured their William Hill Premiership status with two games remaining.
The Dons had been sliding towards the relegation play-off following a dreadful run of results but Robinson has steered them to safety with three straight home wins.
Stuart Armstrong struck against his former side in the first half and after Emmanuel Agyei was sent off for the visitors late on, Toyosi Olusanyi put the seal on the Dons’ victory.
Robinson said: “First and foremost that is what I came here originally to do, to make sure we were not in the play-off, which we looked like we could be stumbling into.
“We have managed to instil a mentality not to concede goals and three clean sheets at home in a row is a really pleasing aspect of today.
“On a sticky pitch, it was really hard to move the ball and you have to face Dundee United’s physicality from set-plays and long throws and it is something Aberdeen have not been able to do this season.
“We were able to do that today and that was the reason for my team selection. Sometimes you have to do certain things to win games and we have managed to do that. And now we can start looking at changing things and look towards next season.”
Dundee United manager Jim Goodwin bemoaned his team’s first-half performance and admitted they failed to get to grips with Olusanya as Aberdeen moved to within three points of the seventh-placed Tangerines.
Goodwin said: “The one thing we did highlight in the build-up to the game was the pace of Olusanya and with the way that Aberdeen want to play by looking to get the ball forward quite early, we didn’t read that situation well enough and that was what led to the first goal.
“It was a really poor 45 minutes from us but in the second half I thought we were better.
“We changed the shape, changed personnel a little bit and we were a lot tidier in possession. We got into better areas but we still lacked that cutting edge and that moment of quality, which was going to get us back on level terms with Aberdeen.
“We were unfortunate with one or two different instances but all in all it was a disappointing afternoon and it is really frustrating to lose the last couple of fixtures. It is really important we bounce back on Tuesday night to make sure we take something from this week in terms of performance and points.”