Despite narrow defeat at Tannadice, Stuart Armstrong pointed to positives for Aberdeen to take into a big week ahead.
“There's been a bit of a narrative that the first halves have been poor, and second half gets better and that's not the case at Tannadice. I think throughout the game, for large parts we were very good, and in previous times conceding goals we struggled to get back into games, but not today.
“I think we showed good character to get back into the game twice. I think we dominated up until we equalised the second time, and there was a really good feeling about the team. That's where we need to learn and understand that when we equalise, we still need to do the things that got us back into the game in the first place.
“That's the disappointing element, to score two goals away from home and to come away with nothing is hard to take, but there's definitely a lot of positives as well.
“I think you've got to take risks in games, and ultimately that's what scores goals, but I think when you're on top for so long, that also leaves you quite vulnerable. We saw that with the disallowed goal where we were high in the press and they came away with it. We got fortunate that that was disallowed, but their winning goal was disappointing.
“We can defend better as a team first and foremost and we have to try and rectify that on Wednesday to make sure that we go into next weekend in good form. We've got a game coming up to bounce back in, and we need to take those positives from Tannadice into Wednesday. It is a big week, I'm surprised we've got a midweek game before the semi-final, but that's how it is.”
Aberdeen were hit by an illness and injury crisis before the game, as Armstrong explained.
“The illness and injuries were tough. I don't want to use it as an excuse, but even from yesterday's training into today, numbers are missing, so that's not easy. That's part of football and I don't want to take that away from a good performance, albeit one without points.
“I don't want to be too dramatic about adversity but when you go behind it is tough and to come back twice is something that we've not been doing of late. That was a really positive step, we dominated the game, had chances, we just have to be a little bit better in both boxes.”
