McGhee blames lack of fitness for Aberdeen hammering

Aberdeen boss Mark McGhee blamed his side's lack of fitness for their 5-1 Europa League thrashing to Czech outfit Sigma Olumouc at Pittodrie.

McGhee, who kept his players locked in the dressing room for 40 minutes after the match, said: "I could cry after a result like that to be honest with you. I thought it was obvious that we are nowhere near fit enough. It is an easy excuse to make but we are not up to the levels of fitness we would hope to be come the start of the season.

"People have been asking has this game come too early for us. Clearly it did. We are nowhere near fit enough to play a game for 90 minutes."

The Dons boss defended his decision to play Stuart Duff in central defence in place of the injured Zander Diamond and hand Derek Young a start in the unfamiliar role of right-back.

McGhee said: "Unfortunately in the positions where we needed cover we didn't even have a first-choice. We cobbled together a back four. I will now go away and look at whether we should have played Duff, Foster, Considine and Mulgrew as our back four instead.

"I'm not sure if, in the last half hour, that would have been any better as their energy levels weren't good enough.

"I set the team out that way thinking that we could win the game going forward and we could score more goals than them. We didn't.

"At times we were okay and got into good areas but we were left at the end with no energy and susceptible to a fitter, quicker and stronger team that capitalised on all of our failings."