McGhee: Dons not fit for purpose

31 July 2009 06:43
The Dons shipped four goals in the second half in the thrashing to the Czech side at Pittodrie in a disastrous start to McGhee's reign. The first-leg defeat at the hands of Sigma all but ends their chance of reaching the final qualifying round of the Europa League. And the new Aberdeen manager admitted his side's inferior conditioning was the major factor behind the comprehensive defeat. McGhee, who kept his players locked in the dressing room for 40 minutes after the match, said: "I could cry after a result like that to be honest with you. I thought it was obvious that we are nowhere near fit enough. It is an easy excuse to make but we are not up to the levels of fitness we would hope to be come the start of the season. "People have been asking has this game come to early for us. Clearly it did. We are nowhere near fit enough to play a game for 90 minutes." The Aberdeen boss defended his decision to play Stuart Duff in central defence in place of the injured Zander Diamond and hand Derek Young a start in the unfamiliar role of right-back. McGhee said: "Unfortunately in the positions where we needed cover we didn't even have a first-choice. We cobbled together a back four. I will now go away and look at whether we should have played Duff, Foster, Considine and Mulgrew as our back four instead. "I'm not sure if, in the last half hour, that would have been any better as their energy levels weren't good enough. "I set the team out that way thinking that we could win the game going forward and we could score more goals than them. We didn't. "At times we were okay and got into good areas but we were left at the end with no energy and susceptible to a fitter, quicker and stronger team that capitalised on all of our failings." Sigma's first-team coach Zdenek Psotka said afterwards the result was one of the best of his managerial career. He said: "I am expecting far better matches in the future but I must say that today is a really explosive success. "After we scored the second goal we knew that they had to score, which basically opened the game up for us and made it quite easy."

Source: Team_Talk