McGhee: Refs doing their best

And the Dons boss refused to point the finger at match officials for the Pittodrie club's own failings this season, particularly their shock Scottish Cup exit to Raith Rovers.Referees have come under scrutiny in recent days after an unnamed Celtic source revealed the club's concerns about major decisions they feel have gone against them this term.McGhee said: "Refereeing has been fairly consistent since I came here - there are some good decisions, some poor decisions and some really poor decisions."But I really believe the refereeing is honest, it's unbiased against any team or any manager or any player."And I think over a season, and certainly over time, it all balances out. We've had decisions against us and for us and it was the same when I was at Motherwell."It's too easy to use refereeing decisions as an excuse."We are not sitting seventh in the league and we are not out of the Scottish Cup because of referees. It's entirely down to ourselves."McGhee held hour-long crisis talks with his players after last Saturday's Scottish Premier League game at Falkirk, their seventh match without a win.And he is confident the heart to heart will prove to be a big help ahead of tomorrow's SPL clash with Hearts."It will have a positive impact," he said."It doesn't mean to say we will win the game, we can play really well and not win a game."But I think it has had a positive impact and will manifest itself in a better performance tomorrow. Hopefully that will be good enough to win the game."It was a brilliant, healthy, productive discussion, which allowed us all to come away from Falkirk on Saturday with a real focus towards coming back to training on Tuesday and that's exactly what's happened."Aberdeen thrashed Hearts 3-0 in their last meeting in January but McGhee believes the Jambos will be a different prospect under new boss Jim Jefferies.He said: "I think he will make a big difference from the point they were at when we played them because we left them pretty much disillusioned that day and it ended up the manager left."Jim has rallied them and regrouped and he is playing them in a different way and with a slightly different mentality."So it will be different from the two games we have played them since Christmas."I believe we've still got a performance in us and, if we play as well as we did two weeks ago against Celtic, then Hearts won't live with us."

Source: Team_Talk