Under-fire Aberdeen manager Mark McGhee has defended his team's record in recent months, arguing that the extent of injuries to players has hit results.

Responding tersely to a question at a news conference, the Dons boss pointed to the absence of so many players.

He said of the recent 2-0 defeat by Terry Butcher's Highlanders: "I have a squad of 19 or 20 players. Seven of them were missing at Inverness.

"Are you saying I don't deserve any allowance for that?"

With one point from their last six Scottish Premier League matches, the Dons face Hibs at Pittodrie on Saturday, then have another home match against Falkirk in the quarter-final of the Co-operative Insurance Cup on Tuesday.

At his weekly pre-match media conference, McGhee was irked by the tone of questioning, which focused on falling attendances and the manager's repeated appeal for patience while players recover from injury.

Last Saturday's 1-0 defeat by Hearts was watched by 9,000 supporters, 3,000 fewer than paid to see the Dons beat Hamilton on the opening day of the SPL season.

I believe that I am not a bad manager and that injuries have affected the strength of my squad Aberdeen manager Mark McGhee

"There were holidays last week," said McGhee.

"Nobody was making a drama out of that. It's just like, 'this is the story - the crowd is down. Why? It's down because of results'.

"Of course it's down because of the results! There is a certain factor in it with that, but it also was a holiday weekend."

McGhee argued that his critics are not taking account of the Reds being minus seven players, accusing some in the media of "taking a blinkered view of it and painting a picture that is not actually entirely accurate".

Asked how other teams with an injury list manage to pick up points, the Aberdeen manager said: "They must be doing something that I don't know.

"Are you saying to me that seven of the players that I had in mind as being in my starting 11 but were missing at Inverness is irrelevant?

"Either I am a bad manager or I have injuries and it's affecting the strength of my squad.

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"I believe that I am not a bad manager and that injuries have affected the strength of my squad."

And he added: "I am now getting to the point with Paul Hartley, Sone Aluko, Andrius Velicka, (Chris) Maguire back from suspension, (I am) going in to the Hibs game with a much stronger squad.

"In particular, once those guys have had a few games I would expect to be winning games.

"At that point, although we've got (Fraser) Fyvie and (Peter) Pawlett and (Nikola) Vujadinovic still missing, I won't be here talking about injuries.

"If I was going tomorrow to Inverness with that squad I would expect to be doing better than we did two weeks ago."

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