Mats Knoester was left frustrated in defeat at Celtic Park after a brave rearguard action from the Dons took them to the brink of a draw.

“After surviving the chances in the second half in the beginning, I think we started to believe more and more about getting a result. It’s just a tough one to take, to give it away in the end.

“I think we’ve grown into the season. The last few weeks the results are much better and also the team is a lot more stable. We don’t give much away, we don’t just collapse and give away a lot of goals in a short time recently, the way we did, so I think we’re more like a grown-up team.”

Aberdeen’s changes brought fresh life to the team in the second half, with Kenan Bilalovic and Kjartan Kjartansson combining well for the equaliser.

“Kjartan and Kenan, you can see they’re very powerful. Kenan is very fast, Kjartan also has a lot of potential and you can see him drive with the ball with a lot of power. They definitely have a lot of potential for the future. I think they’ve shown today that they’re ready. They had a big impact in the game.”

After a midweek game in every week since the last international break, the Dons now have a full week to prepare for Dundee United, something Knoester sees as very important.

“I think if you look all over Europe apart from the really big teams with big budgets, it’s always difficult to manage Europe and the league. You see that in the results. Most of the times the teams are struggling on the Sunday if they have to play on the Thursday. But I think that’s what we’ve shown well in the last weeks, that on Sunday, we still show up. We have grown in this way too.

“Now at last we have a week where it is definitely a good time to get some days for recovery. There’s been players that have played a lot, if I speak for myself I can feel it as well. It’s good to get a few more days to recover.”