Aberdeen manager Jim Goodwin was delighted to send the Dons support home with a smile on their face after his side beat Motherwell 2-1 at Fir Park.
Goals from Bojan Miovski and Duk gave the Dons their second away win of the season as they moved up to third place in the Scottish Premiership.
Goodwin was delighted to send the 1,586 members of the Red Army in attendance home with a win following the 4-0 loss at Dundee United in the club’s previous away match.
He said: “People keep talking about our away record but we have beaten St Johnstone at Perth.
“I don’t want to go through all the away fixtures but the big disappointing one was at Dundee United two weeks ago. It was a really poor performance and we knew we had to bounce back.
“Our travelling support has been immense. There won’t be a better away support than Aberdeen at the moment and we let them down two weeks ago.
“We gave them a good performance here but more importantly a good result so they can enjoy the journey back up the road.”
System change has paid off for Aberdeen
A change of system has brought a chance in fortune for the Dons with the switch to a 3-5-2 formation yielding three wins in a week for Aberdeen.
Goodwin knows he is risking losing Ross McCrorie’s drive by asking him to play in defence.
“But the Dons boss believes the trade-off of the burgeoning partnership between Bojan Miovski and Duk is worth it.
He said: “With the players we have available McCrorie plays that position so well. He started the season for me in the middle of the park and I do feel we miss his energy and drive in the middle.
“But he is a naturally right sided defensive player and having him there means we can have the two lads in the team up front.
“We’ve had Miovski as the lone striker through the middle with two out wide but we took a gamble against Hearts and thankfully it has paid off.”
Goodwin grateful for VAR
The duo repaid their manager’s decision to pair them up by scoring the goals which gave the Dons victory with Miovski’s opener being the first VAR decision of the game.
Goodwin was pleased to see the Macedonian international’s sublime lob being given after initially being flagged for offside.
He said: “The first was a bit of class from Miovski and thankfully VAR was here as it would have been a travesty had that goal been ruled out wrongly.
“The two of them, they work so well as a pair. One comes short, one comes in behind and they look out for each other.
“They do a lot of unselfish work to free up space for the other so I’m pleased to see them both score.
“The second goal was everything we spoke about during the week. We need quality from the wide areas and it’s something we’ve been guilty of not having from wide areas of late.
“But Jack MacKenzie put a brilliant ball in and it was good movement and a brilliant header from Duk.”
Manner of victory pleases Dons boss
The Dons boss was delighted with the victory which takes his side to within seven points of second placed Rangers but it was the overall display at Fir Park which pleased him.
He said: “In recent times this has been an extremely difficult place for Aberdeen to come. I don’t think the points return is great so it’s good to put a good performance down which is worthy of the win.
“The first 15-10 minutes I felt really comfortable on the touchline and we were in complete control of the game.
“It was really scrappy after that until half-time. It was end-to-end and our composed midfielders were missed out as it was aerial for too long.
“We spoke about that at half-time and while I’m not saying we had great success that was what we tried to do in the second half.
“The shots on target stat might not look too favourable for us but we had good goalscoring opportunities.
“We spoke about the high line Motherwell played and thought Duk’s pace would cause them problems.”
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