Derek McInnes was pleased to see his side get back to winning ways on Sunday as Adam Rooney's first-half penalty secured a 1-0 away win at Partick Thistle. It was goal number 14 for Rooney in of an increasingly productive season and the result would have been more emphatic but for a series of fine saves from Thistle 'keeper Paul Gallacher. Aberdeen are now four points off the top of the league, a position currently shared by Celtic and Inverness, while Thistle remain in ninth place after their third home defeat of the season.
McInnes said: "I think we deserved the win on chances created although we were a bit wasteful in the first half and Paul Gallacher had some good saves, which always seems to be the case against us. We had to play a couple of players out of position and it was a strong enough performance to win the game. When you don't get the second goal, the home team is always going to push you back and especially against a good team like Thistle. I don't think our goalkeeper has had a save to make, but I know we could do better. It was important to win to bounce back after the Celtic game and it keeps us up there. The important thing was winning because the players played well against Celtic. We are two points better off than we were at this stage last year. That will probably surprise a few people but that is the case."
Thistle manager Alan Archibald was disappointed that there was no offside flag in the build up to the Aberdeen goal. He said: "I thought we had two great chances with two good crosses and ought to have found the target. With offside leading up to the goal, our goalkeeper's not happy with it. Paul Gallacher could not move until he knew what Goodwillie was going to do but we should have dealt with the corner better. It maybe shook us a bit and were not set up for the corner. At 1-0, you are always in the game and we had a lot of attacking players on the pitch and looked more threatening. I thought we were poor first half but caused them more problems in the second half."