One of the most encouraging elements of the season so far has been to see Connor Barron back on the pitch and back to the kind of form that so distinguished him in his real breakthrough season of 2021/22.

Last term proved to be one largely to forget on a personal basis as he never quite got going after an injury early on saw him struggling to catch up and never really feel at his physical best. Thankfully, that all seems to be behind him now and he’s beginning to find the form that established him in the side in the first place. It’s been a long time coming, as he admits.

“It was a tough season for me last season. I got injured early on, and then I picked up another one and I was just trying to get through to the end of the season and get a little break so I could feel fine again. A lot of that goes unnoticed, the struggles that footballers go through. But I’m on the other side of it now and I’m just glad to be back playing and getting on the pitch.

“I knew my chance was going to come if I worked hard in training. It was almost like I needed to prove myself again, to show everyone what I can do. I had a good pre-season, I feel fit again, feel strong, feel injury free, and now it’s just about me trying to get as many games as I can, to help the team and to get wins on the board.

“It’s tough when you’re on the sidelines, watching the boys. They had a strong league campaign the second half of last season and for me, I was just wanting to get back in the pictures as soon as possible and I maybe rushed it a bit too much, things didn’t quite go to plan with that. But I was always making sure I was about the boys, trying to help them out. You’ve just got to believe in yourself.

“I know the ability I’ve got on the pitch and I was reassured that the management team and the boys were really supportive with me through that spell. I knew it would all come out ok, it was just down to me putting in the hard work and making sure that I got back to where I was before. I feel stronger and fitter than I ever have done now.”

Although there were a few appearances last season, this new campaign feels like a new start for Connor, even if he is playing under an old leader, Barry Robson having been Connor’s gaffer back in his Under 18s days. Few people at the club know the manager better than Connor does, so has he changed much since then?

“I think he’s exactly the same. Obviously when you become a first team manager, you can’t quite be in with the boys as much as he was when I first came through. He had just stopped playing and was coaching with the first team when I started training, so he was taking a lot of the sessions, joining in and stuff like that.

“At U18s, he was my manager for a few years and it was brilliant. He’s obviously got a lot of experience from being involved in that coaching side of it, but he’s really come on and now we can see how good a manager he is. All the boys have taken to him very well and we’re playing some great football at times. He’s really implemented a style that everyone’s on board with and you can start to see it on the pitch now.

“The style is something he’s been planning for years. My age group at under 18 was the first age group where he actually started to implement his style, so I was right there from the start. He spoke to me quite a lot, I was the captain then, and we talked about things in training and games where we could do better, where he felt we could make a change. Throughout his years of doing that, he’s just built this style where he wants to be fast, he wants to be aggressive, he wants to be on the front foot, counter-attack, be good on the transition. But he also wants us to be brave and get on the ball and be confident in our own ability. He’s got a real strong style of play and that’s starting to show.

“You never know how he feels about you, he leaves you on edge and that’s the thing that I feel is very good from a management side of things. Keeping everyone on their toes, it helps bring out the best in the players.

“He’s got that authority, but if the boys feel that they need to go and speak to him, then they can. The manager is very approachable. Also, we’ve got a good changing room with a lot of experience in it, and a lot of things are dealt with in there before it needs to go to the manager or anything like that. The coaching staff are all there for us to feed off if you need any information on games and have any questions. It’s a really close knit team we’ve got.

“Graeme and Jonny in particular are just brilliant. They’re always there for me or any of the boys if they need anything. Even new boys coming in, if they need help with their flats or anything in the city, they’re always there to help them out. They’re just the big characters in the dressing room and all the boys feed off them.

“Coming through as a young boy, I trained with the first team quite a lot. Graeme was captain of the club back then as well, and I always looked up to him. To be playing with him now is brilliant. I think we complement each other’s games, if he goes forward then I sit, we’re on the same page. The relationship we’ve built from even before when I grew up here, he always used to speak to me and him coming back was brilliant for me.”

Connor’s return to the side has helped the team pick up from the poor results they suffered either side of the last international break, but like the rest of the squad, there’s no sense that he was ever worried that results wouldn’t come.

“It always happens in football that if the team gets off to a slow start, the pressure starts to build. But the important thing was that inside the training ground, we all stayed positive. We knew that spell wasn’t reflective of us as a team. The last few games have seen us come out the other end of that, but it’s just up to us to keep on going and make sure that we don’t get back into bad habits.

“We were over in Portugal for pre-season and it was tough. We had double sessions every day and I think that was where the manager really tried to get the players all familiar with the real base of what he does. That was really good. But then it comes to the end of the transfer window, and you start getting boys coming in later on, so for them to get used to it, it’s not easy, they’re going to have to pick it up quickly. I think that had an effect on things, because they weren’t fully settled in. And with the games coming as they are, it’s hard to get the training sessions in.

“There’s been a lot of analysis work done, and I’d say now, you can start to see that everyone’s on the same page, everyone knows what they’re doing, everyone’s in the right positions in games, everyone’s got the right mentality. But it was always going to take time, because players were coming in later and from different countries. Now you can see it’s really starting to gel.”

That began to happen in Frankfurt, and then carried on into the vital double header against Ross County that followed.

“Going away to Frankfurt, against tough opposition, top quality players, we put up a fight and were unlucky not to come away with a point in the end. In Frankfurt, the atmosphere was unbelievable, you’re playing against top quality players, but it doesn’t faze me, I kind of prefer playing against players like that, it gives you a bit more of a challenge. They’re all technically good and it’s a real tactical game which suits me, I really enjoyed it.

“After that, Ross County at Pittodrie was a must win game. We were under a bit of pressure in terms of needing to get that first win on the board, but we did it and we followed it up with another tough fight away in Dingwall to get into the semi-final of the cup.

“Any game away to Ross County, you know what you’ll come up against, they’ll try to dictate the pace and play it long when they can and get bodies forward. I think we could have had the game finished in the first half, we made it hard for ourselves towards the end. And obviously the last 10 minutes, they’re going to come right at you, but we dealt with it pretty well to be fair, we got into the next round, and that’s all that matters in the cup.

“I think a lot of the boys in the squad haven’t played at Hampden before, but they’ll have probably seen games there on the TV and stuff like that. It’ll be a brilliant experience for the boys who haven’t played there, but they’ll get to know what it’s going to feel like there because there’s experienced boys in the dressing room who have played there.

“I’ll let them know what it feels like and what it means to the club to get us into a final. I was at the final in 2014. I don’t remember too much about the game other than the penalties and it been in Celtic Park, but it was brilliant. I was 12 and I went there with my dad and my sister. It was just mad. Watching Jonny, the gaffer was playing then, Shinnie on the other side!

“Last season in the semi-final, we took Rangers all the way to extra-time. The sending off made it very hard, but we took them to the end. Now we want to do better. I want to get to a final and go and lift some silverware. Aberdeen are a club that should be challenging for trophies. I think we’ve got an opportunity. We’ve got to take care of Hibs first, obviously, and that will be very tough. They will see it as a real opportunity as well. But if we can, it is a chance for us to go and do something special.”

The international break is upon us, but for Connor, there’ll be no rest as he joins up with Scotland’s Under 21s, with home games against Malta and Hungary coming up. Connor will be hoping to add to the 10 caps he already has. The young midfielder has also excelled at that level.

“The Scotland Under 21s games are brilliant. We’ve got a good side, we’ve got boys playing and the Premier League, playing abroad, in the Championship, they’re all playing in the top leagues as first team players. It’s like a Scotland B team more than the 21s, the standard is great. We had some good warm up games before we played Spain over there and we were unlucky, we should have come away with a draw but they scored a last minute set piece.

“It’s good for me to get away and maybe learn off other players and see what they’re doing, but also I’m one of the older ones, so I like to be a bit of a leader and set an example. Our European games are very similar to what I’m playing when I’m away there. A lot of the boys that I’m playing against are playing for Bundesliga teams, La Liga teams, Serie A, so it’s a great education for my development. Hopefully we can get through this qualification and get ourselves to the Euros.”