Derek McInnes backed his players' character as he looked for Aberdeen to bounce back against St Mirren on Sunday.

Dons fans were far from happy with the 1-0 Ladbrokes Premiership defeat to Motherwell at Pittodrie on Wednesday night.

The Steelmen took a grip on third place as they moved four points clear of the Granite City club with a Liam Donnelly goal.

McInnes watched the game back and saw positives and ahead of the trip to Paisley, he told REDTV: "We need players who have to deal with that side of things and take responsibility.

"I have always tried to bring players into the club who can deal with that expectation and demand that when you are losing at home, that you still have the confidence and responsibility to get on the ball and I thought we had that.

"Our passing stats, our control of the game in the second half reinforces exactly what I thought.

"I don't think the performance was as poor as people were saying.

"It counts for nothing because the most important stat is the goals so I am not entirely happy but I am happy with the responsibility of my players.

"No one could question my players' effort, they gave absolutely everything to try and get a result.

"If you lose a home game, you get the fall-out but we have another game on Sunday and hopefully we can go and win that one."

McInnes, who is "confident" of adding to his squad before Sunday, remains positive about the second half of the season.

He said: "We don't like where we are in the league, we want to be higher.

"Obviously, you look at the Old Firm and third is where we would want to try and be.

"But there are no guarantees, you see other clubs, Hibs and Hearts, with similar resources, there are no guarantees you should be up there but Motherwell and ourselves have been consistent enough, despite our injuries and our difficulties, have been consistent enough to get ourselves up there.

"But we want to try to push for more in the second-half of the season and  hopefully any additions we can make can help us achieve third place and hopefully do well in the Scottish Cup."