Jimmy Thelin was candid about the problems facing Aberdeen as they fell to another defeat, this time at home to St Mirren.

“We felt before the game that we were on a better track again now. It’s looking better and better in the training sessions and the team looks better. And then you get this result today. It’s a challenge for everyone. For us, for me, for our supporters. It’s a difficult time, but the only way forward is to stick together.

“Ross County at home, Motherwell away and now this game, they are quite similar goals we concede. We have worked on it but still we have to do more in this part of the game. When we are attacking, we get too exposed in these situations.

“Right now, because of the balance, it’s too easy for the opponents to get these goals. As manager, with my staff, I take responsibility and I need to help the players even more to fix this balance of the team so we cannot get so exposed in these situations.

“We can’t do so much attacking inside a game and then, bam, it’s a goal against us. We have to find a way to rebalance. We need to stop the goals we get against us. That’s the starting point. Even if we score goals, you can’t need to score four every time to win a game.

“But the balance right now, the way the goals are coming against us is quite similar and so far we haven’t found a way to stop it. That’s my job and I need to find this way with the players to stop these situations.

“We’re always going to support our players. They want to grow, they’re ambitious but we have a really challenging time right now and the pressure comes with that. I need to take the pressure and get it away from the players. We have to protect them so they can do good performances on the pitch again.”