Dimitar Mitov knows Aberdeen haven’t become a bad team overnight and one win can spark their season back into life.
The Dons are now on an alarming winless run where they have picked up just three points from the last 24. That is in sharp contrast to the beginning of the season when the Reds, under new boss Jimmy Thelin, opened up with a 16 game unbeaten run across all competitions. That strong start means Aberdeen still remain in third place and they are just behind Rangers while Dundee United are now just three points away.
Mitov, who is looking to get back to winning ways against Ross County on Thursday, stated: “We don’t become a bad team overnight. It doesn’t work like that. We’re still a very good team – but we need to show it on the pitch. It’s all good talking in front of you guys, saying this and that. But, we need to perform on the pitch.
“The good thing about football is that there’s another game coming in – and it’s coming really fast. It’s another opportunity for us to go on the training pitch, see what we did well, not so well and work on it. Then show our fans on Thursday.”
The Bulgarian international knows one win could be the catalyst. “I think taking points changes everything,” Mitov insisted. “(It would give) Confidence to the team, a little boost and stuff like that.
“Ultimately, we play to win every single game. It doesn’t matter who we play against. Our mentality is to go there and try to win the game and try to play well.
“I think this is also the demand and mentality of the manager. He wants that. It doesn’t matter that we’re on this bad run at the moment.
“We still go out there, we want to attack, we want to defend well, we want to score goals, we want to keep clean sheets. Yes, we’re going through a bad period. Of course, like any other team does.
“We want to end it, absolutely. But, like I said, another game and we can hopefully go there and win it.”
The Dons latest setback saw them lose a sickening stoppage time winner at Dundee United. Mitov admitted there was real hurt in the away dressing room and he wants his team to use it and channel it in the right way against County.
The Dons No. 1 confirmed: “It was angry, a very angry changing room. People were upset, you can see it in their eyes – that’s because we care.
“And I think that’s a really good sign. I’ve been in teams when you lose games and you walk in and it’s like a shrug and simply ‘another loss.’ But not here.
“I guarantee you, every single boy in that changing room is upset and really cares. Everybody cannot wait until the next game because in football there’s another opportunity round the corner. And for us we can use that anger and generate it for a positive energy and go out there and hopefully we can win.”
Mitov was one of Aberdeen’s top performers at Tannadice but it wasn’t enough to take any points. He acknowledged that Aberdeen are leaking too many goals and that is something that they need to rectify quickly.
“It just seems like that,” the former St Johnstone star claimed. “But, listen, first and foremost we’re conceding way too many goals. We know that.
“We know if we don’t concede goals then we give that foundation to the front players to win us the game. It was a really frustrating way to lose the goal, from a throw-in and we should’ve defended better. We know that.
“But the most important thing for me was that we actually looked much better than in the previous games. We’ve been working really hard on the training ground to get our game style a bit better. That’s the frustrating thing because we’ve had good moments, we’ve learned from mistakes and I thought we moved the ball very well at times.
“We probably didn’t create as much as we would’ve liked, but it was a really good starting point for us to build on and keep improving the performances. But ultimately we lost the game again which is really, really frustrating.”
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