Jamie McGrath confident Aberdeen can hit the ground running after Pittodrie rout against Ross County

The Irish midfielder scored his first goal for the club in Sunday’s comfortable 4-0 win, which was also Aberdeen’s first Premiership victory at the sixth time of asking.

Jamie McGrath was pleased that Aberdeen were able to back up their performance against Eintracht Frankfurt last Thursday to claim their first league win of the season with a 4-0 triumph against Ross County on Thursday.

Having picked up just two points from a possible 15, the pressure was on Barry Robson and his players to deliver both a victory and a performance in front of the expectant Pittodrie crowd. The Dons went into the game off the back of a strong display in their UEFA Europa Conference League Group G opener against Frankfurt where they were narrowly beaten 2-1, and summer signing McGrath was happy that the team were able to take the positives into the game against the Staggies.

The Irish international netted his first goal for the club to make it 3-0, either side of goals from Bojan Miovski and Luis Duk Lopes and a second for North Macedonian Miovski in the second half. Speaking to the media after the game, he said: “That was the goal before the start of the day to come away with three points. We knew how important it was to back-up our performance in Germany.

“We all came to an agreement on Thursday that we needed to kickstart our season on Sunday. It was pleasing to get the three points and a clean sheet. At times, I thought we were really good. There are a lot of new faces but we can’t use that as an excuse anymore. We need to gel. We probably were slower to get going than we wanted but now we are getting going this should be the start of it.

“Thursday night we put on a performance to be proud of in front of an amazing away support. Result-a-side it was a positive night for us. We took confidence in how well we dug in and stuck together. I thought we deserved a draw against a really good side. We can take confidence but we knew against Ross County we took the three points and scored a good few goals as well.”

McGrath hailed the quality of forward duo Miovski and Duk and was delighted to see the latter get back amongst the goals after 14 matches without finding the net. He added: “You have seen at times how important they can be. On the counter they look strong and are good at holding up play.

“As a midfielder, that is all you want. You saw that today with them supplying for each other and Bojan supplying for me as well. I am really happy for Duk to get that first goal and you can see the difference it made in his overall play. I thought he was outstanding.

“He works his socks off every day and if you do that you eventually get your luck. It is the same with Bojan. We are delighted with him; he is in a rich vein of form at the minute. Hopefully, he can keep that going.”

McGrath got himself on the end of a brilliant team goal to open his Aberdeen account and credited the way that the side came flying out the traps at the start of the second half to put the result beyond County’s reach. “We knew we couldn’t take our foot off the gas”, he stated. “If you take it off, even for a minute, then you get punished. 2-0 is a dangerous lead as well.

“In this league, if you concede early then the game can flip on its head. We just had to keep doing what we were doing and thankfully we got the third goal and put it to bed.

“It was a well-worked goal, he stated. “It was brilliant for Bojan to square it to me and it put the game to bed. At home we are expected to win and the demands of the club are of that. We can’t get too carried away.”

The Reds face Ross County again on Wednesday night when they make the trip up to Dingwall in the last eight of the Viaplay Cup. The 26-year old admits he is excited about the prospect of getting to play at Hampden in the semis but is fully expecting a much tougher task against the Staggies this time around.

He said: “We put on a good performance but Wednesday will be very difficult. It is always difficult playing the same team back-to-back. The chance to play at Hampden is one we don’t want to pass up. We have to recover well and get ready to go for Wednesday.