Aberdeen 1-2 Hibernian: Jimmy Thelin challenges players to be more competitive

Aberdeen boss Jimmy Thelin admitted his side were not good enough in Sunday’s 2-1 William Hill Premiership defeat at home to Hibernian and called for his players to be more competitive in their performances.

Adil Aouchiche should have netted for the Dons early on, but the visitors took the lead through Thibault Klidje, 10 minutes from the interval.

Substitute Elie Youan added a solo second that seemed to have made the points safe before a dramatic injury-time period saw a Josh Campbell effort ruled offside.

Aberdeen then raced up the park to pull a goal back through Marko Lazetic but it was too late to mount a comeback.

Thelin said afterwards: “The game started OK and we created some chances but we missed those and allowed Hibs to create more.

“They had the momentum and while the second half was quite open, Hibs were more competitive.

“We didn’t do enough to show our fans that we were back on track or competitive enough to deserve a better result today. The energy we needed wasn’t there today.

“We have a journey to go (on) as a collective, but also as individuals we need to grow – and how we defend situations has to be much, much better.

“I am responsible for results and we need to do better. We are losing too many individual battles in games, regardless of systems and players.”

Hibernian boss David Gray conceded his side could have had an easier afternoon had they been more clinical in front of goal.

He said: “It was quite a strange game towards the end, because you’re thinking with a couple of minutes left that it’s 3-0 and it’s comfortable, then it’s not a goal, then you lose a goal and the last 30 seconds are defending.

“Over the course of it, the challenge was to go back with back-to-back wins after a bit of a reset with the international break and I thought the players were fantastic today – we deserved to win.

“Within that though, there was big moments within the game – Aberdeen have perhaps the best chance of the game early in the first half and they don’t take it and then we take our first big chance.

“I think if we were a bit more clinical, it might have been an easier afternoon.

“As an away performance and a collective team performance, I think it was a very good one.”