JIM Goodwin’s tonight branded Aberdeen’s performance in their 2-1 defeat to Kilmarnock at Rugby Park “abysmal” and apologised to the supporters who had made the long trip to Ayrshire.  

The Pittodrie club, beaten by Celtic, Rangers and St Mirren in their last three matches, lost their fourth cinch Premiership game in a row this evening.

They conceded goals to Scott Robinson and Joe Wright in the first-half and only netted in injury-time when Matty Kennedy netted a free-kick.

Goodwin, whose side slipped to fourth place in the top flight table as a result of the reverse, vowed there would be a stark improvement in the home game against Ross County on Monday.  

“We’ve lost games where three or four players were below par, but tonight we were abysmal,” he said.

“I can only apologise to the fans who made the trip here. We really let them down and we have to do something about it in the next game.

“The first 45 minutes was appalling. The fact we were only 2-0 down was a positive as Kilmarnock could have been 4-0 up.

“We caused our own downfall a lot of the time and the two goals we conceded were pathetic.”

He said: “It was the polar opposite of the response I wanted (to the St Mirren defeat on Saturday). We wanted to finish the calendar year on a high.

“Against Rangers we played well. Even after Saturday I felt there were positives to be taken from our performance with 10 men.

“But tonight there was not a single positive to be taken. It was our worst performance of the season by a country mile.

“We didn’t have any possession, didn’t handle anything Kilmarnock did. To sit here talking about how bad we were which does Kilmarnock a disservice.

“They were the better team by a long way tonight in terms of doing the dirty stuff better. They were more aggressive and we got what we deserved which is absolutely nothing.”

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Goodwin’s opposite number Derek McInnes was delighted that Kilmarnock beat Aberdeen at home for the first time in 11 years and leapfrogged Motherwell into ninth place in the Premiership table.

He said: “These records are always going to get broken at some point. The players did it by doing so many things right tonight.

“I think 2022 will be remembered as a good year for the club and it was important we finished with a win tonight.

“We will improve as the season goes on. We’re miles away from being perfect, but beating teams like Aberdeen will do us no harm.

McInnes added: “I thought from the word go there was a lot to like about us. We were aggressive about our work.

“We were better in the first half. We passed up two or three good opportunities before the first goal which was a concern, but we got the first goal then the second. We wanted to be physical and ask them questions and we did that.”