Jimmy Thelin admits Aberdeen have ‘nothing to lose’ after latest defeat

Aberdeen manager Jimmy Thelin claimed they cannot slump any lower after a 2-0 defeat by Dundee United left them bottom of the William Hill Premiership table without a goal in five matches.

Thelin has told his players they now have “nothing to lose” when they travel to Motherwell on Saturday, seven days after being knocked out of the Premier Sports Cup by the Steelmen.

The Swede had called for his players to do the fundamentals better but they lost goals to Ivan Dolcek and Bert Esselink either side of half-time after failing to deal with two aerial balls.

After facing the anger of the visiting fans after the game, Thelin said: “We feel the same, we feel anger, we feel frustration. But the only way to fix this is to step up and do much, much, much better on Saturday.

“You can’t hide. Towards the end some players were stepping out and showing more. We start creating more but in the beginning we were quite stiff as a team.

“You see Stuart Armstrong, he plays with experience, he wants the ball. When he misses a pass he takes the ball again and finds his composure as a player.

“On Saturday we have nothing to lose, we have everything to win and we have to have this feeling as a team. Because right now we are playing a little bit too stiff because of the pressure around us.

“Now we are last in the table, we have one point, zero goals, so you have nothing to lose. You have to step out on the pitch and play much, much more without this tension.

“The fans, we don’t live up to expectations right now, so we’re already there, rock bottom. The only thing we can do is do better, so we can’t go deeper now, we have to go better and that’s why you can hopefully get this tension out from your body.”

On the fans’ reaction, he added: “When you see the emotions, you see the anger, you see the frustration, of course it hurts you.

“But the only thing to give something back is to do a better performance. As a manager and as a team, our job is to put a smile on the faces of the fans.”

United manager Jim Goodwin faced that same anger two and a half years ago before being sacked by the Dons and he admitted he had feared his former club’s fortunes would turn at Tannadice.

“I know what the man is going through and I sympathise with any manager in that situation,” he said.

“We were all talking about Hibs and David Gray last year when they were bottom. David found a way to get a tune out of the team.

“Aberdeen have invested well, they spent a fortune in the summer, and that’s why I was a wee bit nervous coming into this game because the run can’t continue with the quality they have.

“We were on a bit of a hiding to nothing but I’m sure Jimmy will respect my concern isn’t Aberdeen.”

Goodwin, whose side moved up to third, added: “Consistency in the 11 was important but this was probably the most comfortable we’ve felt for a number of weeks.

“The last 10 minutes we get deeper and nervy naturally, Aberdeen threw every attacking option at us, but the guys showed great resilience.”