Despite suffering defeat to Celtic at Pittodrie, Jack MacKenzie pointed to the performance as one the side can build on in the coming weeks.

“It’s a game we can take confidence from because if we play like that every week, we’ll win more games than not. At Parkhead at the end of last season, we lost 5-0 and never laid a glove on them, so it’s nice to see the progress we’ve made from there.

“We put a lot into the game, we tried to go toe-to-toe with them, but we conceded three poor goals that were avoidable and that cost us. At the other end, we created chances of our own and we needed to be more clinical with them.

“Pre-season was tough but you can see how fit we are as a team and that allowed us to play that way against Celtic, we took them to places they didn’t want to go in the first half especially. A few of their players were struggling with the intensity we were playing with.

“Their second goal was bad timing for us, coming straight after the equaliser. The fans were up and we felt a second goal was there for the taking, but we responded well and might have equalised again before the break.

“Nicky did really well to come back from his mistake. Some players would go into their shell from there, but he was excellent, he cleared one off the line, and his response was top class. It’s what we’d expect because he’s got experience, he’s a great professional and he has a big influence in the dressing room.

“We were disappointed to be behind at half-time but we knew that we’d shaken Celtic and we felt as if we played the same way in the second half, we could get back into the game. Once they got the third goal, that settled them down and we couldn’t really threaten them after that.”