JOE LEWIS insists there is still belief within the Aberdeen dressing room that they can pip Hibernian to third spot in the Scottish Premiership.
The Dons closed the seven-point gap to Jack Ross’ Easter Road outfit on Saturday with victory over St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park.
A Jonny Hayes goal was the difference between the two teams and with Stephen Glass taking over from interim boss Paul Sheerin this week, goalkeeper and team captain Lewis is determined to deliver a strong finish to the season.
“Although it was only a 1-0 win, and some of the play was a bit edgy at times, a lot of it was really good and I’m sure the manager will be pleased with the result. We’re looking forward to a good week with him,” the Englishman said.
“It was a huge win for so many reasons. Obviously we’re still fighting for third place and we’ll be looking at the Hibs results and we’ll be trying to put as much pressure on them as we can, but it was also important for the all-round confidence of the team.
“We’ve got a lot of young players. I think we had six academy graduates involved against St Johnstone – Andy Considine doesn’t count – but the other five certainly do. You look at Dean and Connor especially, you forget how young they are because they’ve been around for quite a while.
“Jack MacKenzie has been fantastic. For them to take everything on board that’s been asked and play away from home – on a terrible pitch – the way that they have been asked to, playing out from the back, taking risks and trying to draw them onto us to then get past the press and eliminate some of their players, to do that shows a lot of character and that’s fantastic going forward.
“We know that they’ve got the ability and hopefully that will give them belief.”
New Pittodrie gaffer Glass has been housed up in his quarantine quarters for the past ten days after travelling over from Atlanta, where he was reserve team coach.
Lewis is excited to work under Derek McInnes’ successor, particularly after some midweek talks with Glass regarding future plans for the Granite City side.
“I’ve had a couple of chats with him. He’s looking forward to the challenge and looking forward to coming in,” he revealed.
“He’s not gone into too much detail. We need to buy into the club philosophy of playing attacking football, bringing through young players and scoring goals. We’ve struggled for goals, but we’ll be looking to add to that.
“He’ll have Allan Russell coming in as well to help him but I can’t speak highly enough of Paul Sheerin. He’s left it in a good state with two wins in the last two games.
“We’ve been short at the back but had another clean sheet, which is pleasing. It’s a good position for the new manager coming in and I look forward to him coming in this week.
“We need to buy into the club philosophy of playing attacking football, bringing through young players and scoring goals. We’ve struggled for goals but we’ll be looking to add to that.”
With striker coach Allan Russell also making the move to Pittodrie, Lewis is hoping his day-to-day training will not be affected.
He joked: “I won’t change my routine too much. The young goalie might have a bit more to do! I’ll keep my training with Marshy [Gordon Marshall] and keep doing what we’ve been doing.
“Any ideas that the new guys have coming in, we’ve got a receptive group. You can see that with the change that Paul Sheerin has brought with the style of play. The lads have bought into it and I’m sure they’ll do that too with whatever Stephen Glass is looking to implement.”
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