There’s plenty of football still left in this season, but if all goes according to plan for him and the Dons, Anthony O’Connor could have clocked up just shy of 50 appearances by the time the brief summer break comes calling.

That’s a remarkable record for an outfield player already closing in on 40 games this term as he has established himself as a real core member not just of the squad but of the first XI. It’s the realisation of exactly what he was looking to achieve with his move to Piottodrie.

“I’ve really enjoyed this season. I have played every game I think – I was on the bench at Ross County away but came on. I started the season playing centre-half every week. The gaffer then felt he needed me in midfield for certain games. When you are playing well in your own position, you want to stay there but if the manager wants me to play somewhere else, I will do it. I will play wherever he wants me to play and always do my best for him. That’s my job. I have so much respect for the manager. He such a good manager and it is a privilege to be working with him.

“It can be an advantage playing different positions, you have more chances to you get your name on the teamsheet, but it can be a disadvantage trying to get consistency into your game when you are moving positions. I felt I have done ok in midfield. I’m not going to be splitting defences with my passing. My job is to protect the back four. I have to be disciplined and do my bit to keep the shape of the team and be competitive and keep the ball away from defenders. I am trying to read play and read balls coming in.

“I have loved my time at Aberdeen. I left Burton when they got promoted to the Championship and I had another year left there. I probably could have stayed with them and picked up half decent money as they were in the Championship, but it was not for me. I wanted to leave and come to a club where I was 100% wanted and to be fair the gaffer has shown great faith in me.

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“I knew when I came up that it was not going to be easy to jump into the team. Thankfully, I got an early chance and have not looked back since. You have spells when you probably think you are not at your best and you have dips in form. But overall I cannot speak highly enough of my time here. I cannot speak highly enough of the coaching staff and the staff around the football club. They were so welcoming when I first came up”.

Much was made of the Dons recent defeat to Celtic. What did Anthony think of the game?

“We had chances against Celtic. You can’t go gung-ho against them, they are a good team and they want to pass the ball. The type of manager that they have, that is the way they like to play. They will pick you off if you go chasing, especially if you don’t go chasing as a team, so it was important that we picked the right times to press them and I thought we did that quite well, then we let them have the ball at other times. Their centre-halves are not going to hurt you but as soon as they give it to the attacking players, that was the time to press a bit.

“The tactics were right but we did not take our chances and we conceded two poor goals from our point of view. Even after losing the first goal, I thought we reacted well to it and again we had chances to get back into the game and make it 1-1. We’d also had good chances at 0-0. I had a couple of headers and another that I thought hit Dembele’s arm in the first half.

“Against good teams, you have to take your chances. Against other teams, you might get away with it because another chance will come along a bit later, but against Celtic that might not be the case. As it was, we did create more good chances in the second half. I had one, but I did not get a good connection on the ball. It was a poor strike.

“We have had some poor performances against Celtic and Rangers this season, but in some of the games there has not been a lot between the sides and it comes down to fine margins. You have to be concentrating 100%. We have to try and impose ourselves a bit more in these games. We still have a chance to get results against them later in the season, possibly even in this competition.

“Hopefully, there are a lot of big games still to come this season, there’s a lot to play for. We want to finish in second place. Although you don’t get anything for finishing second apart from a guaranteed place in Europe, you want to finish as high as you can. You don’t want anyone else finishing above you. If you can’t finish above Celtic then you want to finish in second place.

‘It is definitely a stronger league this year. Hibs have come in and they play really good football with a lot of good players. Neil Lennon has got them going again. We have had two good results against them this season but they got some revenge on us a couple of weeks back. We have to hold our hands up, they were the better side on the day. It was one sided in the second half.

“Hearts are a strong side too and especially good defensively, so the league is getting stronger and stronger and I think it will only continue going in that direction. It is good for the game up here but it is important that this club continues to grow.

“That isn’t easy. When you have success over a number of years, people expect more and more. I watched an interview recently with Charlie Mulgrew and Simon Ferry. Charlie is at Blackburn, where I spent all my youth days, so I was interested to see what he had to say. It was an interview about his career and he spoke about the season Celtic got to the last 16 of the Champions League.

“He said they were playing Barcelona in the group stages and the crowd were cheering when they got throw ins. They were buzzing and it was giving the players a lift. They were not expecting to have much possession so when they did, the crowd got right behind them. Celtic went on and won that night. The following season, or a short time after, they got Barcelona again in the group stages, but it was completely different. The crowd were booing them because they were not dominating possession. People expected them to beat Barcelona again.

“That’s the way it is. When you have success, people expect more and more from you. That is where Aberdeen are at the moment because we have been finishing second and getting to cup finals. That’s what comes with being at a big football club. The supporters want Aberdeen to be a big club and rightly so. As a player you have to take that pressure on your shoulders if you want to play for this club.”