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Marley Watkins happy to keep standards high at Aberdeen as on-loan forward targets victory against Hamilton Accies

Aberdeen forward Marley Watkins.
Aberdeen forward Marley Watkins.

A draw against Dundee United felt like defeat to Aberdeen’s Marley Watkins.

But he insists that shows just the standards Aberdeen players expect of themselves are high.

A goal-less draw at Tannadice, in which the Dons dominated large swathes of the game, left the visitors hurting at what might have been.

They have an opportunity to right wrongs at Pittodrie tonight against Hamilton Accies, with a victory enough to take them above Hibernian into third place.

Watkins said: “It’s all about raising the bar and it did feel like a loss at the weekend rather than a draw.

“Those are the standards we want to set and it’s good to have that. We’re disappointed and hurting so we want to put that right against Hamilton. We need to win games like Saturday’s and we didn’t so I suppose that maybe is the case.

“It’s a game in hand for us, you go out to win every game and at home especially we should be delivering. We’re looking to win the game but at the same time, we’ll respect Hamilton and hopefully we can get the job done.

“We didn’t win, but we just have to look forward to the next game. We’ve still got to play Celtic and Rangers and we need to beat them to close the gap, but we’ve got to take it one game at a time.”

Marley Watkins in action against Dundee United.

Aberdeen had only been prevented from scoring domestically on two previous occasions – both coming in defeats against Motherwell and Rangers.

Derek McInnes’ side have won six of their eight Premiership games though, stemming back to the opening day defeat against the Gers at Pittodrie.

Watkins added: “We’ve got to be more ruthless because we played some good stuff at times against Dundee United and we were definitely the better team. But ultimately it’s about putting the ball in the net and we didn’t do that.

“There’s nothing we can do about Saturday now we just have to try to put it right against Hamilton.”

The Wales international has scored two goals in his last three games for the Dons, after joining on loan from Bristol City. Watkins was brought in as striking cover after Aberdeen suffered injuries to Sam Cosgrove, Curtis Main and fellow loanee Ryan Edmondson.

Young forward Edmonson, on loan from Leeds, has since made his comeback and Cosgrove has been passed fit to return from a knee injury tonight, after missing the entirety of the season so far.

Watkins has been used in a forward role by McInnes, rediscovering the position he was first used in under John Hughes at Caley Thistle. Ryan Hedges and Scott Wright have tended to play in a support role behind Watkins.

He said: “I felt the goals were coming because I’d had a lot of chances. It was nice to get two in two (against Ross County and St Mirren) not many chances fell to me the other day.

“As long as we win that’s the main thing, but I want to keep scoring as well. Everyone has got to chip in with goals but I’m looking to score more.”