Aberdeen’s victory against Ross County means they have come through a potentially tricky period with flying colours.
Saturday’s 3-1 win against Ross County at Victoria Park made it three wins out of three following the 4-0 humbling by Celtic at Pittodrie at the end of last month.
The trio of triumphs against Hamilton, Kilmarnock and the Staggies have restored confidence following the defeat by the Celts meaning the Reds head into the international break on a high.
Not only has it been a hat-trick of victories, but it’s been a hat-trick of good performances.
Derek McInnes will be happy with how Aberdeen have dealt with these matches after the Celtic loss.
There were a lot grumblings after the Hoops game – but McInnes came out and admitted it wasn’t good enough.
The message he sent out has clearly got through to the players – that the performance on the day against Celtic wasn’t acceptable for Aberdeen.
But the players have turned it round since then. They were set the challenge of winning three out of three prior to the international break and that’s what they’ve done.
It’s been a pleasing little spell for the Reds which should give them confidence when they return from the break.
Aberdeen are sitting third in the Premiership and I don’t think you can ask for much more given what Celtic and Rangers are doing.
The money the two Glasgow sides have spent means they should pull away and be the top two in the league.
So when you come up against that, being the best of the rest is realistically the aim for Aberdeen. In terms of winning silverware attention will turn to the Scottish Cup in the new year.
Dingwall is never an easy place to go and Ross County like to take the game to teams if they can.
But the Dons deserved their victory and they are in a good place again going into the international break.
After the grumbling and unhappiness everything is a lot rosier in the garden again.
The hallmark of Aberdeen under McInnes has been finding an answer and being able to win games when questions have been asked.
Under McInnes the Dons have always put together long unbeaten runs – sometimes it’s been a long run of away wins or a long run of home victories.
The Reds have always found a formula to go on good runs over the course of a season which has meant they’ve been up towards the top end of the table.
When you’ve been a long-serving manager with a good record in the league and in cups such as McInnes over a significant period of time people can be disheartened by a couple of bad results because they’ve been used to such consistency.
But what McInnes has always given Aberdeen is a very consistent level of performance and results over six and a half years.
Although I can understand some of the unhappiness at results this season – such as the most recent defeat against Celtic – McInnes has shown himself to be a manager who can get his team to perform to a consistent level.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Express website. For more information, read about our new combined website.
