Academy graduate Jack MacKenzie gave a man of the match performance against Celtic at Pittodrie, but it still wasn’t enough to prevent the team falling to a 1-0 defeat.

“The game plan was to frustrate Celtic and we felt that was the best way to get a result by hitting them on the counter-attack when they commit a lot of players forward. But they’ve got good defenders too and they managed us quite well when we did get the ball.

“When we went to Ibrox a couple of months back, we felt we were too expansive there. We lost four goals and could have lost more. So today we wanted to sit in more which I thought we did really well throughout the game.

“But they have real ability through the team, McGregor has the quality to take a shot from 25 yards and give Kelle no chance. It was a really hard one for us to take when you’re five minutes away from a good result, but there are a lot of positives in the way we defended.”

Jack replaced Liam Scales in the side, playing on the left of the back three, and excelled in the role.

“I’ve not played in that position much recently at all, just a couple of times when I first broke into the first team, but I love defending so it probably suits me quite well. I’m just happy to get on the pitch wherever I’m needed.”

“I’ve not played in that position much recently at all, just a couple of times when I first broke into the first team, but I love defending so it probably suits me quite well. I’m just happy to get on the pitch wherever I’m needed.”