Derek McInnes: Aberdeen will take title race all the way

Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes urges his players on during yesterdays 3-0 win over Hamilton. Picture: SNS

First-half goals by Simon Church, Niall McGinn and Kenny McLean were scant reward for arguably their best home performance of the season, with the obvious exceptions of the two wins against Ronny Deila’s side.

Their best away from Pittodrie was a 3-1 win at Tynecastle in September which climaxed an eight-game winning start to the campaign, a run that carried them to the top of the table.

Now they need a repeat of that performance when they return to the venue on Friday to really put the pressure on the defending champions, who can ease back out to a seven-point lead with victory at Dens Park tomorrow.

Whatever happens in that match, McInnes is convinced Celtic still have some work remaining to clinch a fifth successive title as he said: “We showed we are still fighting. We showed there is still plenty to play for.

“I don’t think anyone at our club feels the season is a write-off. We still have work to do and it’s important to finish the season strongly.

“We’ll finish where we deserve to finish at the end but it’s important we go the full way.

“I was pleased with a strong 90-minute performance. We scored good goals and the speed we brought to the game was difficult for Hamilton to contain.

“We’ve started a lot of games by racing out the traps to get on top of opposition. We haven’t always managed to get the first goal or, if we have, we’ve not managed to get the second. Getting that second goal was important. It was difficult for them after that. It took us a bit longer to get going in the second half but we created a few chances and Michael McGovern made a few saves to keep the scoreline down.

“The tempo of the game suited and we had a lot of players on the top of their games. Jonny Hayes was a handful to deal with and hugely influential, as was the likes of Church, McGinn and McLean who got the goals.”