Dons midfielder Leighton Clarkson admitted that Celtic had given his side a tough night in the final game of the season at Pittodrie.

“It was a really sore one. It wasn’t nice to be out there, I must admit. I thought we were doing alright the first half, but we can’t let them score off a corner. Then we managed to get ourselves back in it, but they sucker punched us, right on half-time.

“But it was still upbeat in the changing room, we thought we could get at them. I thought we did for the first two, three minutes, we had a few corners or chances but from that, they’ve gone down the other end and punished us.

“The fact is we’re losing too many goals in these games. That’s nine in two games, so we definitely need to work on that side of it. They’re champions for a reason, they’re so clinical, and they can blow you away. But we know we’ve got one more game against them, and we might have to do a bit of something different to get a result. We need to tighten up.

“Football is a game of goals and chances, and even against Rangers last time, we hit the post at 0-0, and you never know if that goes in. It’s a different ball game. We didn’t take our chances, they took theirs. It’s the same against Celtic, we didn’t take ours, they took theirs.

“Maybe tonight we got maybe one or two things wrong. As I said, the first half, I thought our shape was really good. We felt pretty comfortable, but it’s about limiting them to as few chances as possible. It’s key moments. It’s not just us, they’ve done it to other teams as well, because they can punish you, they’re relentless.

“Two poor results isn’t great, especially against them two. But we know what we need to do at Dundee United. We need a good performance, we need to win the game. It’s as simple as that. Hopefully we can do that, and that sends us into a good week up to the final.”

Results elsewhere confirmed European qualification for next season, but the fight for fourth place goes on to Tannadice on Saturday.

“I think fourth is still a decent season. Hibs fully deserve third, since the turnaround against us, they’ve been really, really good and consistent. So, congratulations to them, but we want to be finishing fourth, we don’t want to be finishing fifth. We want to go down there, perform well, win the game and that will set us up for the week’s preparation for Celtic.”