Barry Robson claimed Aberdeen were “by far the better team” after they lost 2-0 away to Hibernian.
The Dons found home goalkeeper David Marshall in inspired form as they spurned a host of chances – including a late penalty from Bojan Miovski – on a frustrating day at Easter Road.
A goal in each half from Dylan Vente and Will Fish proved enough to make it three wins on the spin for Hibs, who tightened their grip on fifth place in the cinch Premiership and closed the gap on St Mirren above them.
“That’s probably the best we’ve played since I’ve been in the job,” insisted Reds boss Robson.
“I know people will say ‘but you lost the game’ and all that – I get that – but if we’re going to come to Hibs away and have 24 shots and dominate the whole game, I think we’re doing something right.
“I think it tells a story that their goalkeeper was given man of the match. We were all there, we all saw it, we were by far the better team.
“We know that, everybody knows that. But we’ve not come away with the points and that’s the important thing.
“We can sit and talk about all the chances we created, the missed penalty and losing two sucker-punch goals but football’s about winning matches.”
Aberdeen remain 10th with just three wins from their 13 league matches so far, but Robson is confident their situation will improve.
“We’ve not got what we deserved out of a lot of games this season,” he said. “Obviously there have been games where we need to be better but we had 24 shots here.
“I’ve got to give the players credit for that but I’ve also got to remember that we need to win games.
“We understand we need to get points and catch up. We’ve still got a couple of games in hand as well. But if they give me that type of performance, we will win games.”
Hibs boss Nick Montgomery agreed Aberdeen were unfortunate not to take anything but he was keen to point out that his team endured a similar sense of frustration when losing 1-0 to the Dons in the Viaplay Cup semi-final last month.
“I’d agree, they played really well,” said Montgomery. “I wouldn’t say they were the better team but they’ll be disappointed they didn’t get anything out of the game.
“But on the reverse, if you remember the semi-final, we were by far the better team and we lost that game 1-0. Aberdeen were good today and it probably wasn’t our prettiest performance.
“We definitely have to thank David Marshall. He’s a top-class goalkeeper and I thought he was outstanding. The penalty save summed up his performance.”
