Derek Adams admitted Ross County were beaten by the better side in their 3-0 home defeat against Aberdeen.
The Staggies were beaten by an impressive Dons outfit in their final game before the winter break, with Barry Robson’s men running out deserved winners.
Jamie McGrath’s first half double put the Reds in command, before Bojan Miovski sealed the points with a late strike.
Adams, whose side had skipper Jack Baldwin red carded in the dying stages, accepted the Dons were deserving of their triumph.
He said: “Aberdeen were better than us. They scored their goals, and it was probably our fault because we didn’t defend well enough.
“Over the afternoon we didn’t create enough openings to score, and we didn’t work their goalkeeper enough, so over the afternoon Aberdeen deserved the three points.
“It wasn’t tactics, we just made errors.
“Looking at the goals, quite clearly you’ll see that the goals we gave away were poor goals.
“When you do that, there’s nothing you can do tactically other than put 10 behind the ball.”
The Staggies went into the game fresh from a fine performance against Hearts on Saturday, in which they had led by two goals before having to settle for a 2-2 draw at Tynecastle.
County were competitive during the first half despite their two-goal deficit against the Dons but the Staggies were unable to show any significant attacking impact after the break.
Adams felt his side was unable to recover from McGrath’s quickfire double, which came within the space of six minutes before the half-hour mark.
He added: “When they go 2-0 up, it gives them a good footing in the game, and they were composed on the ball.
“We had a spell in the first half where I thought we were going to be the team that got that first chance, but we didn’t.
“We gave away a goal that we shouldn’t have, and that gave Aberdeen confidence. They have really good players in their side, and they punished us after that.”
Aberdeen had been under intense scrutiny in the build up to the Dingwall encounter, having been defeated 3-0 by St Mirren at Pittodrie on Saturday.
Adams says Aberdeen’s fine performance came as no surprise to him, given the quality within Robson’s squad.
The Staggies boss added: “They’ve got really good players who have been playing European football this year.
“Off the ball they were very good. They played narrowly, and even though our players got some space we didn’t create enough opportunities.
“Playing with two up front and two number 10s, as we did against Hearts, you’ve got to give credit to Aberdeen.”
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