Following the Dons’ late defeat to Celtic at Pittodrie, manager Jim Goodwin was understandably frustrated with the result.

“It’s a bitter pill to swallow because the boys have put a hell of a lot into it. We’re extremely disappointed because with the effort, the commitment and the quality of our defending, we felt we could have taken something from it. If we’d seen it through, I’d have been satisfied with that, but unfortunately, we’ve got nothing to show for our efforts.

“The players were very committed, very organised, they put a lot into the game defensively, they produced bags of concentration to get the game to a point where we thought we might keep a clean sheet, which no team has managed to do against Celtic in the league this season.

“They are the best team in the country, they score a lot of goals and we knew we had to be at our best defensively. We knew the shape of the team had to be right and I thought it was for the majority of the game. But the goal that comes three minutes from the end is a fantastic strike, and it needed to be to unlock our defence.

“We’ve had plaudits in the past for going to Ibrox and trying to have a go at Rangers and we lost 4-1 in the end, and it could have been ten. Today, we sat in, we tried to frustrate Celtic and deny them the space they want with the great movement they have. It worked for large periods.

“The problem was that when we did get the ball, we didn’t do enough with it, we weren’t composed enough. Second half especially, we didn’t offer enough going forward. The first half, we had three or four dangerous attacks with Duk in particular getting us up the pitch. A lot of that is down to the pressure Celtic exert on you, and then we tired towards the end which is only natural after five weeks without a competitive game.

“The way we played today is not a style of football that our fans have been used to from us here this season. Prior to today we’ve won six out of seven, scored loads of goals and been very attack minded. Today, I felt that our best chance of getting a result from the game was to go the way we did. I heard the fans at the end and I understand that completely, they want to see us attack more than that, and we will do in the future, but I felt this was the best way to manage the game today.

“We have tried to go toe to toe with Celtic in the past and it hasn’t worked, so we wanted to come up with a different game plan today and it worked for 87 minutes. We were nearly there. If we come away with a 0-0, people would have been patting us on the back and saying how organised and disciplined we were. But when you set up that way and don’t take something, it’s hard to make an argument for it.

“I do think the players deserve a lot of plaudits for the way that they defended. The back three were brilliant, the wing-backs were excellent against high quality wide men from Celtic, they handled them really well, the midfield three put in a hell of a shift and they’ll be tired tomorrow after the amount of work that they’ve done. Any criticism that comes, it should come my way because they were carrying out my instructions. It just hasn’t paid off today unfortunately.”