Graeme Shinnie backs Aberdeen to return to form but says he is 'wary' of Hibs threat

Aberdeen captain Graeme Shinnie fully backs his side to return to winning ways, but admits the side “didn’t look our normal selves” at the weekend.

Jimmy Thelin’s side lost away from home to St Mirren in their first Scottish Premiership defeat of the season, bringing to an end their impressive 11-game unbeaten run in the league, which featured 10 wins. They remain comfortably in second place, with a chance to, albeit temporarily, go level on points once again with league leaders Celtic, if they beat Hibs.

Skipper Shinnie reckons the side have already shown they can quickly react to setbacks after they recovered from their 6-0 League Sports Cup semi-final hammering from Celtic earlier this month to win their following match 4-1 against Dundee.

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“That’s what good teams do when they have a knock-back, they respond from it,” said Shinnie. “We’ve done it after the heavy defeat to Celtic, and we have to do it again now. The majority of the season has been very good so far, so we need to remember that.

“We need to get back to winning ways as quickly as possible. Not only that, get back to what we’ve been doing well, because I thought we lost that a little bit on Saturday.

“We didn’t look our normal selves at times, so we need to get back to doing what we’ve been doing that’s been doing good for us.

“I think the main thing for us has been to not get too high when it’s going well, which obviously it has been, but when we get these sort of knock-backs it’s about trying to stay level-headed, reflect on it, analyse it, learn from it and then move on from it.

“This is probably the best week because the games are coming thick and fast, you don’t have a week to wait.”

The Dons will be heavily favoured to get back on track against a Hibs side who are in disarray at the moment. However, Shinnie is aware that the embattled Edinburgh side have been in winning positions in several of those fixtures.

“I think if you reflect on games that they’ve had this season, they’ve been good and they’ve been five or 10 minutes away from being a lot higher up in the league,” he said. “It’s a tough position that they’ve found themselves in, but they’ve had opportunities to win games.

“It’s been late goals. Dundee United, they lost two late on, Edinburgh derby, they lost a late goal, so they’ve been losing late goals, but they’ve been ahead in all the games. Had they held out in a few games, they’d be a lot higher up the league, so we need to be very wary. They’ve got good players. I think everyone knows that.

“It’s about being aware of that, but also us getting back to what we have been doing. We’ve had a knock, but the majority of the season has been very good, so it’s trying to get that momentum back for us.”