DEREK McInnes insists he does expect his team to deliver a trophy during 2016. The Aberdeen manager was the subject of a mild rebuke from his Celtic counterpart Ronny Deila this week for his reluctance to articulate an ambition to pip the Parkhead side to the title, but the Dons boss knows the next step for his team is indeed to end the season with silverware. Having been knocked out of the League Cup by Hibs, that only leaves the Ladbrokes Premiership and the Scottish Cup.
"There has been some decent things to be pleased about during 2015," said McInnes. "The record points tally, finishing second by some distance, taking the league to the last four games of the season, the consistency, the players taking responsibility and dealing with having to win every week but there's still a feeling there could have been a bit more and I am hoping that 2016 can give us that and a bit more.
"What would be a bit more?" he added. "A trophy. We want to be a regular European team. Everybody talks about the record points tally, the unbeaten runs, the cleansheet record at the club, but that easily gets forgotten about, trophies and winning silverware doesn't. So, for me, it's about winning silverware and hopefully we can look back on 2016 with something to show for it as well as the level of consistency."
First, Aberdeen must take care of his former side St Johnstone, who skelped them 5-1 at Pittodrie in October, arguably the biggest one-off setback of his entire time at the club. "I don't want to underplay it and say it was just a freakish result," he said. "St Johnstone played well on the day. They were streetwise and really effective at set plays. When you look back on the game, and it's bizarre to say it, some of our attacking play was excellent. It's wrong just to sweep it under the carpet and we didn't do that but sometimes it can be wrong to over-analyse it."
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