Jonny Hayes has learned the value of continuity from his time at Aberdeen.
The winger has spent seven of the last 10 years of his career at Pittodrie and the 34 year-old, who returned to the Dons last year for a second spell after spending three seasons with Celtic, is in no doubt patience is required at his club following a 10-game run without a win.
The pressure is mounting after five defeats in a row which has resulted in Aberdeen slipping to ninth in the Premiership but Hayes has no doubts about the efforts being made to change the club’s fortunes.
He said: “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised by our current position in the league. We have a lot of good players at the club and it has been disappointing.
“It is something we need to improve on sooner rather than later.
“It’s about continuity and the manager and his staff work very hard. I feel personally that managers should be given a certain amount of time, regardless of results.
“I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we’re working hard and we’re not that far away from clicking. I don’t see any reason for change.
“I think every single player in there wants to work with the manager, Allan (Russell), Henry (Apaloo) and Scott (Brown).
“It’s an enjoyable environment to work in up here. It’s a fantastic football club and the only thing that’s affecting it is results.”
Senior players must lead the way
Hayes is dismissive of the idea the pressure is building at the club, insisting the same challenge faces the team every game, but he is acutely aware of his role as one of the senior players to lead by example.
It’s a responsibility he takes very seriously.
He said: “There is pressure on players to perform and get results. But there are far bigger pressures in the outside world.
“There are people struggling all over the country but football is an enjoyable pressure. I enjoy playing in the high pressure games and at the moment with us not being up to standard every game is high pressure.
“I’m one of the more experienced guys so it is up to me to try to explain to some of the other boys that this should be an enjoyable pressure.
“A sense of perspective is something I have learned over time. I go back to when we lost 3-0 to Hamilton seven years ago.
“You go home and want to sit in a darkened room. But, I’d just had a little boy at the time and that does put things into perspective.
“It gave me that little bit of freedom to just focus on football and not worry about anything else.
“Playing football is the best job in the world and you try to get that through to the younger boys.
“It is a different culture with everybody on social media but, if they can stay away from that and realise they are the only ones who can affect what happens on a matchday, it doesn’t matter what other people think.”
Younger players not feeling the strain
Hayes has tried to share his experience with his younger team-mates and if they are feeling the heat the Aberdeen attacker is not seeing it.
He said: “The young boys we’ve got in the team, the likes of Calvin (Ramsay) and Jack (Mackenzie), and to an extent Ross (McCrorie) and Lewis (Ferguson), they do seem quite easy going.
“I wouldn’t say carefree, but they get on with their jobs. From what I’ve seen on the training pitch this week, they just want to get on and play football.
“You hear things, you see things, but I can’t affect what you guys (the media) think. What I can affect is results for Aberdeen Football Club. I think everybody feels the same way.”
The defeat at Dundee last weekend extended the horrible run but as far as Hayes is concerned what happened at Dens Park is done. It’s what happens when Hibernian visit Pittodrie on Saturday which matters.
He said: “The older I get the more I block stuff out. Our responsibility is to get results that have been lacking at the minute.
“We need to rectify our mistakes and improve upon our recent results. As a team and an individual you analyse what has gone wrong.
“You can’t affect the result against Dundee last Saturday but we can affect it this weekend.
“When I look back, and I know we didn’t play well at Dundee on Saturday, but in training I see players trying things and think we look better than we did on Saturday.
I’ve seen the quality in the group and I think there is enough there, more than enough there, to turn this around.”