Aberdeen captain Graeme Shinnie has revealed defender Slobodan Rubezic was ‘apologetic’ after his moment of madness against Motherwell.
With Aberdeen 1-0 down at Fir Park, Rubezic was shown a straight red card for motioning his head towards Tony Watt’s chin.
The 10-man Dons then conceded just a minute later and went in at half-time with a mountain to climb.
Jimmy Thelin described the period as a ‘bad’ 10 minutes as Aberdeen went on to lose for the fifth game in a row and are now without a win in 10 matches.
Some pundits are split over the Rubezic red card but Sky Sports’ Ref Watch referee Dermot Gallagher had no qualms over the decision that saw the Serbian head for an early bath.
With the dust now settled, skipper Shinnie has discussed the incident and has explained that Rubezic is sorry for his actions and understands he did wrong.
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Graeme Shinnie on ‘apologetic’ Rubezic
As quoted in the Daily Record, Shinnie said: “He’s obviously apologetic and he knows he’s done wrong. But he’s one of us and we’ll look after him.
“Even down to 10 men, I thought we had control of the game. We just needed to get the ball in the back of the net, which we didn’t do.
“The red card comes, it is what it is. You try and deal with and then get into half-time and regroup.
“However, we then conceded straight away. A straight ball and he runs in and scores. That side of it is not acceptable.”
Aberdeen defending is ‘not acceptable’
Expanding on Aberdeen’s woeful defending which has seen them concede 12 goals in the last five games, Shinnie said: “Defensively – as a team – conceding too many goals.
“If you look at the first 10 games, we didn’t concede a lot. We were winning 1-0, 2-1 and it was giving us a platform to win games.
“We’re not doing that now. At Motherwell we looked like we were on the front foot, looking like the team that were dangerous and going to score.
“Then we conceded and we’re 1-0 down. We’re not giving ourselves that defensive platform to go on and win games.
“We’ve lost two sloppy goals again – we’re killing ourselves at the back. We’re gifting teams goals and it’s putting us on the back foot every game. It’s not acceptable. We need to get better.”