Jimmy Thelin admits Aberdeen have ‘nothing to lose’ after latest defeat

Aberdeen manager Jimmy Thelin claimed they cannot slump any lower after a 2-0 defeat by Dundee United left them bottom of the Premiership table without a goal in five matches.

Thelin has told his players they now have “nothing to lose” when they travel to Motherwell on Saturday, seven days after being knocked out of the League Cup by the Steelmen.

The Swede had called for his players to do the fundamentals better but they lost goals to Ivan Dolcek and Bert Esselink either side of half-time after failing to deal with two aerial balls.

After facing the anger of the visiting fans after the game, Thelin said: “We feel the same, we feel anger, we feel frustration. But the only way to fix this is to step up and do much, much, much better on Saturday.

“You can’t hide. Towards the end some players were stepping out and showing more. We start creating more but in the beginning we were quite stiff as a team.

“You see Stuart Armstrong, he plays with experience, he wants the ball. When he misses a pass he takes the ball again and finds his composure as a player.

“On Saturday we have nothing to lose, we have everything to win and we have to have this feeling as a team. Because right now we are playing a little bit too stiff because of the pressure around us.

“Now we are last in the table, we have one point, zero goals, so you have nothing to lose. You have to step out on the pitch and play much, much more without this tension.

“The fans, we don’t live up to expectations right now, so we’re already there, rock bottom. The only thing we can do is do better, so we can’t go deeper now, we have to go better and that’s why you can hopefully get this tension out from your body.”

On the fans’ reaction, he added: “When you see the emotions, you see the anger, you see the frustration, of course it hurts you.

“But the only thing to give something back is to do a better performance. As a manager and as a team, our job is to put a smile on the faces of the fans.”