Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes has described St Mirren’s decision to sack Alan Stubbs as “ridiculous”.

Stubbs lost his job after 77 days in charge, with a 4-0 Betfred Cup defeat against Aberdeen among four consecutive losses in his final matches.

McInnes felt his team merited credit for that display and Stubbs deserved more time.

However, he has noted Stubbs’ successor, Oran Kearney, going about making his team more difficult to beat in his three games in charge ahead of the Paisley side’s return trip to Pittodrie in the Ladbrokes Premiership.

“Firstly, I’m really disappointed St Mirren felt the need to make a change right away,” McInnes said.

“A manager gets the job in the summer. To see a manager lose his job in Allan Stubbs so quickly is ridiculous to be honest.

“But they’ve made a change and they had a positive result against Celtic. You can see a pattern of play that they were trying to make themselves difficult to play against and still carry that threat on the counter-attack as they did against Hibs on Saturday and Hibs won the game from a set play.

“They had a sore defeat in between against Hamilton, but I think Oran will be trying to find out as much about his players as he goes along.

“They’ve earned the right to be a Premiership club and they’ve got good players, and we expect a tough game.

“We ran out convincing winners here last time, but it needs to be said we were very good on the day and brought a lot of speed and movement to the game and were clinical with our finishing.

“So something similar would be nice, but we fully expect a tough game and the onus is on us to try and deliver a performance.”