Barry Robson outlines Aberdeen trait that pleased him most as Dons move into third spot by beating Kilmarnock

Aberdeen's players celebrate after Duk put them ahead after just 20 seconds against Kilmarnock.

Robson watched his side move into third place in the cinch Premiership thanks to a Luis ‘Duk’ Lopes double, the first of which came after less than 20 seconds. The forward then tapped home his 17th goal of the season in the 59th minute to complete a satisfactory afternoon for the hosts.

Robson said: “It was a difficult game. It was blustery and when you come up against a team as organised and as drilled as Derek (McInnes) has Kilmarnock, it’s hard to play against. I think there was a period for about 25 minutes in the second half where you saw what we are as team. We were fast, aggressive and looked electric. The players gave me everything today and we were so quick. We’re hard to deal with when we’re like that. We got a clean sheet again which is four out of of five clean sheets and Duk is on a good run of form. We need to keep him up to speed and he’s been outstanding.”

Kilmarnock boss McInnes was left to rue his side’s nightmare start to the game. “It was a horrendous start for us,” he said. “You need to applaud the finish from Duk, but it was certainly not the start that we were looking for and it was a bit of a shock to us. We struggled to recover for the first 10-15 minutes. I think Aberdeen started the game far more aggressively, but we came back into it and I think half-time came at the wrong time for us. Our problem is that we need to make sure the game is 0-0 for longer, and then at the start of the second half we need to make sure it stays 1-0 for longer. We helped them on their way with the second goal. We’ve a lot to learn on that side of it, but we had a lot of positives to take from it as well.”