Skipper Anthony Stewart admitted that he had no more inside knowledge on Leighton Clarkson than the rest on us before kick-off on Saturday – but he certainly knows who he is now!

“I didn’t even know Leighton was signing until about 11.30 this morning! We haven’t trained with him or anything, so to put on a performance like that was brilliant. He’s a real prospect for the future. It’s tough to come into a new team and express yourself like that, but he’s coming from Liverpool so obviously, the quality is definitely there. But it still takes character to come in and perform that way. He was quiet in the dressing room, singing along to a few songs, and then he comes on, shows for the ball, wants it and scores a goal like that. I’m looking forward to seeing him in the weeks ahead.”

Clarkson is the 11th addition to the Aberdeen squad this summer, but as Anthony says, there have been few problems in knitting this new side together.

“There’s a lot of quality within the squad. They key was always gelling together because we were into the cup games straight away, but I think we’ve done that pretty well. The aim now is to showcase more often the quality we have at both ends of the pitch.

“The gaffer wants us to be a possession team, to pass the ball and control games, whether things are going for us or against us, that’s what he believes in. We’ve got to bring that confidence to the games and express ourselves, play through the lines, punch the passes and make sure that we’re crisp in what we do. He demands that from us in training and in games and that we give the fans something to go home happy with.

“But we are a new team and we can only take it game by game at the moment. I’m new to the league, so I’m still trying to figure out the opposition every week, like a few of the lads. We need to look to improve week on week and if we can do that, then we can go a long way. It’s up to us to stay focused and have a good mentality. There’s a long way for us to go and we need to remember that and not get ahead of ourselves.

“There are always thing to improve on. The frustration today is that we conceded a goal, because we wanted a clean sheet. But the bigger picture was the result.

“After last week, it was even more important to win the game today, and get three points on the board, especially with the game being at home. The support and the atmosphere here is great and it needs to be our platform for the season. If you want to achieve anything, you get most of your points here, so we want it to be a fortress here. We’ve started on that road today.”