Jim Goodwin spoke to the press after Aberdeen’s late 3-2 defeat at home to Rangers.

“It’s very difficult to put into words how I feel about the game right now.

“I’ve never quite experienced anything like that in my career, and it’s difficult to process so soon after the game.

“I thought the players were excellent for large parts of the game tonight, we deservedly went in front, we were on the front foot and looked like we might go and get a third goal. But when you get to those late stages of a game, you need to see it through, we needed to manage it better and show more discipline, simple as that. Unfortunately we weren’t capable of that. We would have been gutted with a draw, but we are all left wondering how we lost the game.

“You get to the final few minutes and obviously Rangers are going to throw everything at us, Goldson was up there as another forward, and we just didn’t manage the game well enough. I could talk about fatigue and I know people will think I’m making excuses, but I do think that played a part. As the boys get tired, they drop deeper and deeper and that’s why we made the changes because the front lads were dead on their feet and cramping up.

“Kelle Roos has been outstanding for us and tonight, he’s come for some crosses, settled the defence at times, made a good save in the second half. He’s unlucky with the equaliser, it took a bounce in front of him, he wasn’t able to hold onto it and Arfield does what he’s done well throughout his career. We didn’t anticipate the loose ball as well as he did and in those key moments of the game, you have to expect the worst, that the ball might go free, and we didn’t.

“Duk’s free-kick is a bit of individual brilliance. Leighton has scored some good goals since he joined us, and that was another very good strike at an important time in the game. It’s disappointing to score quality goals like that and still have nothing to show for it.”