The Dons midfielder recently spoke to the Red Matchday Editor.

He might have been watching from the bench the past few games, but Stephen Gleeson will have been kicking every ball, making every tackle, feeling every moment, because if we’ve learnt one thing about our recent recruit, it’s that winning matters to him. Desperately.

“I have always been that way since 22 or 23. I get quite moody, narky if I lose and I think the lads know that already. It just comes naturally to me. I want to win at everything. I want to win at training. If I don’t do that, I go home in a mood. Sometimes people might get the wrong impression of me when they see me like that, but it is just the way I am.

“What also comes with that is trying to be a leader on the pitch and to lead by example the dressing room. In a team you need a mixture of everything. You need people who have a calm head and who are composed. I like our dressing room because we that mixture; young boys, more experienced players, leaders.

“As a group, we do not get too carried away after a good result and don’t get too down if we suffer a negative result. It is never too high or low. You have people in the dressing room who can balance it out. I think you need that, you need the more vocal people but then there are times when you need the calm and collected people who can be an influence on everyone around that.

“I think the manager needs to take a lot of credit because we never get too disappointed with a result. It is dealt with there and then and then on the Monday we go again and then we train all week for the game ahead.

“It’s been a up and down start to things this season. It’s been so close to being a good start, we could very easily have had a few more points in the league to go with our semi-final place, but I think we are on the verge of really kicking on.

“I don’t think many things have fallen our way this season with injuries, the sending off so early against Kilmarnock, things like that. You could say we’ve had a lot of little slaps in the face, but in general I think we have coped well. I think someone could get the brunt of it at some stage.

“We needed to kick start our league campaign. I don’t think we are too far away from really going on a run and playing some good football and hopefully that can continue after the international break. But we just need to take one game at a time.

“I don’t think we are a million miles off it. We are very focused on what we need to do. We are working our socks off. We have been working hard in training and we are gradually getting players back from injury. Every day we spend together in training, it’s a step towards where we want to be. It’s all about working hard and building good partnerships all over the pitch.

“We have played well in spells and also had some bad luck with the decisions that have gone against us, but we can’t dwell on that”.

It’s been a fresh start for Irishman Gleeson after a career spent so far in England. How has he taken to life in Scottish football so far?

“I have really enjoyed my time at the club. It’s a great group of lads and great staff, great fans. For me personally, it has been a mixed start because I picked up the injury in pre-season. Then against Hibs in the league game, I was ill so did well to get through 60 minutes and the Kilmarnock game was frustrating having to come off early. But it is not about me, I would rather focus on the team performances.

“In England, the Championship one of the most competitive league in Europe in my opinion. It is just ridiculous the money some of the teams have, teams coming down from the Premiership are getting parachute payments of over £100 million for three or four years. It is crazy. It makes it very hard for the other teams to compete and get up.

“League One is different, League Two is different, the EPL is different, so obviously Scotland is going to be different. Down in the leagues in Scotland would be different. From what I’ve seen so far, no team has any given right to win a game and that has been good. Every game is very competitive. I have been really impressed with the league so far. The standard is very high.

“It is a tight league with teams all taking points off each other, but we need to just focus on ourselves and keep working hard and believing in what we are doing. I am a great believer in taking one game at a time and just focusing on the next game.

“I have enjoyed my time in Aberdeen so far. Obviously coming into a very good squad, it has been easy to settle in. It was good to get in for pre-season and get to know all the lads and spend time with them. It is a good dressing room so I have settled in well.

“It is the easiest I have settled into a dressing room at the clubs I have been at. The easiest I have settled into a group which says a lot about the group itself. There’s a lot of open guys who will come up and talk to you”.

Moving around is an occupational hazard for footballers, but for Stephen, it’s been a part of his life from an early age when he had to leave home in Ireland to try and make the grade in the English game.

“I left Dublin when I was 15 and I moved to Wolves. It is hard and the one thing you do is grow up very quickly. I was an adult by the age of 17. From 15 to 17, I stayed with a family but by 17, I was in the big, bad world on my own.

“I grew up early and probably did not enjoy those teenage years, which you need to do. I will be honest and say they were tough at times. The first two or three years were very tough and I would be lying if I said I did not think about packing it all in and going home. You are leaving friends and family. At 17, you want to be around your mates and having fun. That was put to one side. But I wanted to be a footballer so it is what I had to do.

“There are pros and cons with everything in life. Looking in from the outside, everyone thinks being a footballer is a glamorous life but there are tough situations. I have two kids now, but I am still often away from my family. You make a lot of sacrifices and I don’t think people see that side of it.

“The rewards of playing football are unbelievable but there are down sides. If I could have my time back, I would probably do it differently. The way the world is now, with social media, with television, everything has changed. When I was younger, you would not get many Irish games on TV. Now there’s a lot more coverage of the league so players can stay at home and play their football and then make the move when they are a bit older.

“Look at Chris Forrester. Chris is four years younger than me, and he stayed in Ireland and moved when he was 19. If I had to do it all over again, I would have stayed and done my exams, played football in Ireland for a few years and done it that way. At the time though, the league just did not have the profile which would allow me to do that, there was not that opportunity.

“The only way was to get to England and start your career as early as you could. Now the set up in Ireland and all the support people the players have in the schools and at the clubs, it is much better, so I think you will see more players staying and getting their education and learning experience before moving over to Scotland, England, wherever.

“Playing in the midlands was an education. Football is massive in that region. You have four really big teams and then the likes of Walsall, Shrewsbury are quite close. It is a great place to play your football because everyone is so passionate about the game. I grew up there really.

“I was there from 15 to 21 then moved down towards London for a few years before moving back to Birmingham. A lot of my career has been in the Midlands. It is a really nice place to live, and as I say the fans are really passionate towards their clubs. I was fortunate to play for two massive clubs.

“My time at Wolves then Birmingham was amazing. Even at Ipswich, I was only there for a short time last season, but they are also a big club. It is not until you get involved with clubs for a while that you understand. It is the same coming up here. I have joined another massive club. It is a real privilege to have been able to play for some big teams in my career.”

While another of his clubs, MK Dons, certainly doesn’t have that sort of history, during Stephen’s spell there, he was involved in a game that will be remembered for a long, long time, the first meeting of MK Dons and the “original” version of the club, AFC Wimbledon in the third round of the FA Cup in 2012.

“The lead up to the game was ridiculous. Having been at Milton Keyes for a reasonable length of time I understood the situation and the Chairman had spoken to us about it and given his side of it. Then you had Wimbledon who had very different views. The build up to it was so intense. The media coverage was something I had never seen before. Then the game finally came along. I scored the first goal and then we ended up scoring a winner in the 91st minute! Everyone was just emotionally drained after it.

“It was a nice thing to go through and although the two teams have played each other since, it was nice to be involved and to score in the first ever game. That game will never be forgotten and will be part of history.”

His time in England saw him work with plenty of high profile managers and Stephen has always been careful to try to learn as much as possible from each of them.

“Every one of them, I have taken something from. I have had close relationships with Mick McCarthy who was my manager at Wolves and he took me to Ipswich. I was also close to Gary Rowett and Karl Robinson. They are probably the three main ones, but every manager I have worked under, even the ones I have not always seen eye to eye with, I have always taken something from them. I can’t say I have had a really bad manager.

“I have been fortunate to have worked with ex-players like Gianfranco Zola, Paul Ince, Roberto di Matteo. I have worked with them and they were the generation of coaches with the next step in coaching. Obviously since then, more younger coaches have come through. Some of the stuff they could still do on a training ground was unbelievable!

“I get on very well with this manager. He trusts me. When he wants something from me or needs me to do something in a game or training, he will come and chat with me. I have played ten, eleven years in England, I have that experience – I know when to do things and when not to do things. I know my role within the team.

“We have a lot of good players here. When I came up, the main one I knew about was the captain. I played against Graeme four or five years ago when he was at Inverness. Birmingham played them in a pre-season friendly. I think we beat them comfortably enough, but I remember thinking that he was a really good player, though I did not realise just how good he was until I got up here. Training with him every day and playing games with him, his determination and work rate is incredible. He is a fantastic player and a very good captain.

“I played with his brother Andrew at Birmingham. I spoke with him before I signed for Aberdeen and asked him about the club and the area. He was very complimentary about the club. He also spoke very highly about the quality of the area and the league.

“As well as Graeme, you have Lewis Ferguson who has done brilliantly. Chris Forrester who is an amazing talent. I know it hasn’t quite happened for him yet, but he is a very good player. Dom Ball is also a very good footballer, so there is good competition for places in the midfield throughout the squad and that keeps everyone on their toes.

“The quality is there, and the league is still so tight that when we can put a run of three or four wins together, we will go shooting up the table. That’s the focus now and the semi-final.”