Niall McGinn was back in harness last weekend, starting the game for the first time in a while and, despite the terrible weather conditions, making an impression on the match against St. Mirren.

That was Niall’s 260th league appearance for Aberdeen, cementing his place in the all-time top 20 at the club, testimony to his consistency over the years at Pittodrie. He is certainly conscious of the honour.

“It’s great to be in the top 20 appearance makers here, I’m very proud of that, but obviously, what I want to do is achieve more here, play more games, score more goals. Those personal milestones are nice. I’ve played a lot of football for Aberdeen so it’s nice to put my name in amongst that company. The stat that’s bugging me at the moment is I need one more goal to draw level with Adam Rooney!”

Goals are what the Dons need at present, now more than ever, but with his return to the colours, Niall will be looking to score, or create the goals that will get Aberdeen’s season moving again as we head into the final furlong.

“I just want to get on the pitch as much as I possibly can. Any player, young or older, you’re always looking for a run of games and I haven’t managed to get that this season. If I can get a run, I’m always confident in my ability to produce assists or goals, I’ve always done that throughout my time at Aberdeen and I’m looking to be able to show that again if some chances to play come my way now. We’ve not been scoring goals the way we would want, so I do feel I can come in and help the team on that front.

“Personally, I’m frustrated to have not played as much this season as I’d want, so my focus is to do well in training, catch the manager’s eye and to grab any opportunities that come my way. I was happy to get a good run out at Hibs for 30 minutes or so, I felt good, I started last Saturday, and hopefully I can build on that and get more games and help the team get the results we all want.

“It’s important you don’t get down in those situations, that you keep busy and that you show support for the lads who are out there on the pitch, because it’s a squad game and we all want Aberdeen to do well. Even if I’m not playing, I’m still kicking every ball and wanting the players on the pitch to do well and win us the games.

“Football is a competitive game, not just against the opposition, but obviously there’s competition for places in your own team, and if guys come in and do well, all credit to them. Scotty Wright and Hedges had a great start to the season, they worked really well together and I had to be patient through that. We’ve lost both of them now so hopefully I can get the chance to step up and make a contribution.

“I’ve kept working hard, I’ve trained well, I’ve had a few games with Northern Ireland too, so you just have to keep yourself in the frame and keep yourself ready. I’m confident if I get called upon, I can come up with the answers, so I’m looking forward to playing more football between now and the end of the season. I’ve been here a long time, I know what it takes to win games, but it’s not about talking, it’s about taking the chances that come my way.

“That goes for all of us, especially when results aren’t going our way. As players, we come into training, work hard, try to put things right on the training field with the staff, to then take into the matches. When you have tough times, you have to stick together – players, staff, everyone; and just focus on the next game. All the players are frustrated with recent results but we’re the only ones that can fix that. We are the ones on the pitch, once the whistle goes, it’s down to us to make things happen.

“You always have dips through the season, every season it happens. It’s important that you don’t get too high in the good times and you don’t get too low in the bad times because in football, you know that a change one way or the other is just around the corner. A wee bit of luck wouldn’t hurt either, we’ve hit the bar in three games in a row now, if those go in instead, we could be having a very different conversation. Football is always about very small margins and if they go for you, you can be on a winning run and if they don’t, results can be going against you. But I think it’s important that we all stay on an even keel because I’ve seen it all before, either when results go badly for the team or when individuals have a run when they’re not playing. You just have to keep doing the right things, you don’t sulk and things will turn.”

With 260 league games behind him, Niall is one of the players who can remember when times at Pittodrie were rather more difficult than they are at present, days when hopes of a top six finish seemed a long way away.

“Things are very different from when I first came here. We finished seventh or eighth, and it was doom and gloom all the time, we were constantly losing games. It was a great season for me on a personal level, but it was hard every week to be taking the criticism as a team, to be losing games and to be in the bottom six.

“We’ve come a very long way since then and obviously we have done well in the league every season, we won the League Cup, we’ve been to plenty of semi-finals and finals, we’ve qualified for European football every season. When you do that, it brings expectation and pressure with it for the next season and the next season because everybody wants to do better every year, that’s what we are all striving for, but the higher that you go, the harder it is to improve, it becomes smaller and smaller percentages.

“But I can tell you that it’s better than that pressure in that first season when things were pretty difficult on the pitch. I like the pressure that comes with playing here, there’s always been that pressure since I very first joined. We have to look to thrive on that as a group between now and the end of the season.

“The biggest difficulty is maybe that because we’ve improved, it means we’ve got better players, and those players then become attractive for big moves elsewhere. We’ve lost a lot of very good players over the years like that, including three of them this season.

“It’s not easy to replace boys like Kenny McLean, Graeme Shinnie, Scott McKenna, Scott Wright and Sam Cosgrove overnight, it takes time, but I think the club has done brilliantly over the years on its recruitment and on the boys we’ve brought through from the academy. We’ve brought in new faces and they’re all good players, but whenever you move to a new club, it takes time for you to settle in and gel with everyone on the pitch, so we have to be aware of that.

“As a senior player here, I want to help with that process. My experience is important and I want to pass that on. I talk to Matty all the time because he’s a talented lad and I want to help him make the most of that. I’m always at him to play with his head up. He’s the kind of player that always attracts two or three defenders towards him, so if he has his head up, he can see where he can bring more of our players into the game. I’m always happy to help players, give them tips along the way from what I’ve learnt over the years. It’s often very simple things that can be so important, just about not switching off when they have to do a bit of defending at a corner or a free-kick for instance.”

Niall is a senior player with Northern Ireland too and thoughts will turn towards playing for his country when international football returns next month.

“We’ve some important games coming up with Northern Ireland. We’re away in Italy and they’re unbeaten in two years, so that’s going to be a tough one! I’d love to be involved in that game or any game for Northern Ireland. I won’t walk away from international football. Northern Ireland will decide to retire me, it won’t be the other way round.

“I’m lucky in that although I’ve not played so much at Aberdeen, I’ve been able to use international football to keep playing, I scored an important goal against Bosnia to get us into the play-off final and it was good to play in that game, though obviously the result in the final against Slovakia was disappointing, we didn’t get the job done.

“The World Cup qualification is always that much harder. There are fewer places available than at the Euros, so that makes it tougher and it means you inevitably get more of the better sides in your group. We’ve got Italy, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Lithuania, so you have to target home and away wins against Bulgaria and Lithuania and then try and pick up points in the other games, especially when they come to Belfast.”

Beyond that, all thoughts are on playing well for the Dons between now and the end of the campaign.

“My contract is up at the end of the season so I just want to play games between now and then to show what I can do and hopefully earn a new contract here. Who knows what will happen, they’re such uncertain times just now. All I can do is work hard and play well when I get the chance. I want to drive us back into third place and off into Europe again next season.”