Skipper Graeme Shinnie insists that the pain his side felt after losing the Viaplay Cup final is something the Dons can channel positively as they head into the rest of the campaign.

“It is painful but I said to the boys in the dressing room, we have to use that pain as fuel for the rest of the season. We need to climb the league, we want to do well in the Scottish Cup, and we need to use the disappointment of this defeat to drive us on.

“It’s good that we’ve got a game on Wednesday to put this behind us, and between now and the winter break, we need to put our league form right and start climbing up the table. It hurts today, it’s the first final for a lot of the boys, but tomorrow we’ll digest it, go through the game and move on to Livingston. We need to build on the win against Hearts and get some momentum in the league.”

Reflecting on the final, Shinnie said that he felt the game would always come down to one decisive moment.

“It didn’t feel like a great game on the pitch, both sides were cancelling each other out, and it felt like it was going to be the kind of game where one goal was going to win it. It was a really scrappy game, a typical cup final, neither side went out and grabbed it and it was always going to be a scrappy goal that won it. Unfortunately, it came for them.

“We needed to be better on the ball. First half especially, we had a few chances to counter-attack where if we’d taken better care of the ball, we could have had 3v2 or 4v2, but we misplaced a few of the passes, which was frustrating. We let them off the hook in those situations and overall, we just didn’t do quite enough to win the game.”