‘It’ll be a good race’ – Ireland’s Jamie McGrath sets sights on seventh as Aberdeen look to finish strongly

The Dons go into the third last fixture of the season against Hibernian at Easter Road on Sunday in eighth place, one point behind Hibs and one ahead of Motherwell.

Aberdeen, with Peter Leven in caretaker charge as the Granite City club await the summer arrival of new boss Jimmy Thelin, are unbeaten in their last six league games with last week’s win over St Johnstone securing top-flight status.

However, McGrath wants more than survival to summarise the campaign and the Republic of Ireland attacking midfielder said: “Domestically we’ve probably underachieved but outwith that, I think we’ve put on some really good performances.

“We’ve been to a cup semi, a (Viaplay) cup final, probably should have got out of our group in Europe.

“We have done ourselves justice at times, but there’s no getting away from the fact that domestically we didn’t handle the fixture build-up very well and that cost us, which is annoying.

“But things have turned around, we’re six games unbeaten in the league and now we’re looking forward to hopefully finishing seventh.

“We’re not leaking silly goals at the back and I think that’s come from us as a team working together.

“I think we’re looking better on the ball each week that goes by.

“We should have probably won last weekend by a lot more goals, but everybody’s really enjoying playing for Peter and we just want to give him that seventh place to show at the end of it.

“It’ll be a good race between us and Hibs and Motherwell as well. Hopefully we can go down to Easter Road on Sunday and get a good result.

“It’s a really great place to play, nice stadium, good fans. I’m sure we’ll bring a good away turnout like normal. They’re the type of venues you want to play in, so we’re all looking forward to it.”