MATS Knoester has expressed confidence Aberdeen can get back to winning ways against Dundee United on Saturday and finish third this season - if they show the same ruthlessness up front as Celtic did at Parkhead.
The Pittodrie club’s three game winning run came to an end when they slumped to a 5-1 defeat at the hands of the Scottish champions in the East End of Glasgow on Tuesday evening.
But Jimmy Thelin’s side created several scoring opportunities against Brendan Rodgers’ team and claimed a consolation goal in the final minute of regulation time when substitute Shayden Morris netted.
Knoester, the Dutch centre-half who joined Aberdeen from Hungarian giants Ferencvaros at the start of the month, was impressed at the positive approach the visitors took in the difficult match.
Read more:
- From Celtic academy to first team: Bonnar’s childhood dream comes true
- The Barry Ferguson drinking game and is battle fever back at Rangers?
- Celtic manager admits he expects Daizen Maeda form to attract interest
The defender is convinced they can put the painful reverse behind them if they continue to attack their rivals and show the same sort of composure in the final third as Celtic did.
"It's hard to speak about positive things, but I do think if you look at the bigger picture you can see in the beginning we had some big opportunities to score a goal,” he said.
"The biggest difference was they were so clinical. That was basically the story of the first half, that every chance was a goal for them and we weren't clinical enough. Sometimes we missed a little bit of smartness.
“We have to take our lesson out of it and not be too negative, even though it was a was a big loss. I think we could we can still take positives out of there.
“The chances we created here, the way we tried to play football sometimes and not just kick it long and wait for them. We were sometimes very strong in the counter-attack, we exposed them in the transition.
Read more:
- Real Madrid-linked starlet commits to Scotland’s Nations League rivals
- Mourinho’s racism controversy puts his Rangers dugout role in doubt
- Thelin: Aberdeen had chances, yet Celtic score tells a different story
Knoester added: "I think we've shown in the past few weeks that we can be confident. I'm pretty confident we can go for the third spot. There's really a team that's going for it together.
"I heard that even though the results were not good before there was still no pointing fingers and stuff like that. I think there's really a team on the pitch and also off the pitch, that's the thing I noticed so far."
Aberdeen will take on United, their main rivals for third place, at Pittodrie on Sunday afternoon and Knoester believes it is the perfect opportunity for them to put the painful Celtic defeat behind them.
"It's a big game,” he said. “If we win that, you don't forget about this game, but we can turn it into positive again. There's a lot to take from the Celtic game.
“Celtic are a great team, you can see that how clinically they finish, how effective they are. We had our chances and didn’t take them. If the result is good this weekend, we can say that we learned our lesson."
