Source: Team_Talk
McGhee wants Dons to be ruthless
Mark McGhee says his Aberdeen players will have to put sentiment to one side as they look to heap pressure on Kilmarnock's Jimmy Calderwood.[LNB] The former Dons boss enjoyed an impressive start to life at Rugby Park but Killie have since been dragged into a relegation scrap after losing six successive matches.[LNB]McGhee believes a win over Kilmarnock on Sunday may be a bittersweet result for some of his players.[LNB]He said: "I know from the time I have been at Aberdeen just how popular Jimmy and his staff were with the boys here.[LNB]"No-one is wishing bad on them and the players would probably prefer we weren't playing them and having anything to do with anything that may eventually happen to them.[LNB]"Last year at Motherwell I think we lost seven matches in a row. We weren't in danger of being relegated but we had to arrest it quickly or we would have been.[LNB]"Obviously that is the position that Jimmy finds himself in but they have had some good results since he has been there.[LNB]"I'm not quite sure why they are on that run but we will be expecting one of their better performances on Sunday and I think if we do that then we won't get taken by surprise."[LNB]Aberdeen are six points behind sixth-placed Hearts with a game in hand and McGhee believes his side need to win all three of their remaining fixtures before the split to give themselves any chance of finishing in the top half of the league.[LNB]And the Dons manager admits this will be a tall order for his under-performing side, who ended an 11-match winless sequence with a narrow 2-1 win over St Mirren last Saturday.[LNB]He said: "We have done nothing this season to suggest we are going to win four games in a row, which is what we would have to achieve, having already beaten St Mirren.[LNB]"That is what we are going to try to do and then we will see how the other teams get on.[LNB]"Getting into the top six isn't all in our own hands but fortunately we do have St Johnstone still to play and that may give us the opportunity to get above them.[LNB]"We have to hope that results fall in our favour elsewhere but first and foremost we have to focus on beating Kilmarnock, which will be another hard game."[LNB]However the Dons will head to Rugby Park in confident mood after recording their first victory since January.[LNB]McGhee added: "After drawing with Dundee United and beating St Mirren, it is the closest we have been to a run for some time. It was hard work getting the win last weekend and we scraped over the line in the end but hopefully we can build on that against Kilmarnock."[LNB]The Dons will be without the suspended Steven MacLean for the trip to Ayrshire following his sending off against St Mirren last week, while Jim Paterson, Gary McDonald, Andrew Considine and Peter Pawlett all miss out through injury.
