Skipper Graeme Shinnie was blunt and to the point about Aberdeen’s performance in the 2-2 draw at St Mirren on Sunday.

“We weren’t good enough, I think that was plain to see. We were a yard away from it all over the pitch all through the game, and we were extremely delighted to come away from the game with a point. Of course it’s tough to come into a game off the back of what we put in on Thursday, but we need to deal with that this season, we need to be miles better than that.

“St Mirren is always a tough place to come and they’re in really good form at the minute as well. The only positive we can take from the game is that we managed to get a point from it at the end. The fact that we came back at them and got a point late on, after coming from behind on Thursday as well, is a good trait to have.

“To stick in even though we played as badly as we did and still grab a draw says a lot about the spirit of the team, but we really can’t be putting on performances like that. I know it’s hard after a game like Thursday in Europe, but that’s what we wanted for this season and we’re going to have to get so much better at handling it.

“This is the first time we’ve had to deal with it and as well as that, we’ve got a lot of new boys who’ve come into the squad in the last week or so and are trying to adapt to us and to the competitions. For me, the schedule is similar to playing down south where you play a lot of Saturday / Tuesday / Saturday football, but obviously, that doesn’t involve flying into Europe and meeting that quality of opposition. We’ll learn from it and we’ll have to deal with it better.

“It doesn’t help that we’ve played five games now this season and only one has been at home, so that’s added to the difficulty, but no excuses. We’re looking forward to getting back home in front of a packed house on Thursday and taking on another difficult game. It won’t be easy, but we’re really excited about it.”