ABERDEEN boss Derek McInnes insists his Dons are not feeling sorry for themselves despite losing Adam Rooney for the next six weeks.
The Pittodrie striker has been ruled out until mid-April after suffering a thigh injury on the eve of Saturday’s clash with
St Johnstone.
And the loss of their 19-goal top-scorer has already hit the Reds’ Ladbrokes Premiership title hopes after they failed to capitalise on Celtic’s Friday night slip-up at Hamilton as they were also held to a 1-1 draw by Saints.
But McInnes is not wasting any time wishing he still had the Irishman available, and instead challenged Simon Church to add to the goal he struck against Tommy Wright’s Perth outfit at the weekend after handing him the responsibility of leading Aberdeen’s attack.
McInnes, speaking ahead of tonight’s trip to Dundee United, said: “What do you do when you lose key players? You either roll up and feel sorry for yourself and have a victim’s mentality, thinking, ‘Poor us, poor us’ – or you see it as someone else’s opportunity.
“I’m delighted we’ve got Simon Church on the books. He’s got two goals in four games and if he can keep that ratio up he will be doing well.
“It’s the sort of thing we’ve been used to with Adam and, of course, we’d rather have Adam fit. There’s not many teams – if any – who wouldn’t want him in their side.
“But we will have to deal with it, as we have before. We’ve had to come to terms with it on Thursday when we realised he wasn’t going to be available for us.
“We have to make sure that little things like injuries, pitches being poor or referees’ decisions don’t stop us doing what we want to do.
“We’ve got 11 games left and it’s important we demonstrate how much those 33 points mean to us.”
Saturday’s stalemate with St Johnstone cost Aberdeen the chance to cut the Hoops’ lead to four points. Church put Dons ahead but Saints levelled with a controversial late penalty.
But McInnes denied his side are not mentally tough enough to triumph in the title race.
He said: “Saturday swung on a bad decision during a totally comfortable game. So in terms of it being a mental thing, I think people look too much into that. It was a missed opportunity. That’s why we’re all frustrated
.”
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