Speaking after the game, Barry Robson was a very frustrated figure in the Celtic Park press room.

“Coming into the game, I knew the boys were still a wee bit fragile, they took some knocks last month and although we got them going again the last couple of games, we knew that we needed to keep Celtic out for longer than we did. The last thing we wanted to do was concede early on.

“When we did, it puts your game plan out a wee bit, we struggled from there, and then when they got the second, they were able to pull us about the pitch. We got the boys in at half-time and settled them down and from there, I thought we were better in the second half.

“The players have had a hard time of it and I’m trying to help them, and I was pleased that in the second half especially, we saw boys wanting to fight and to show a bit of character. I thought we hung in, we fought back a bit.

“I’m frustrated because I want us to come here and really play at times. I want an Aberdeen team coming down here that’s really at it, but we’re not in that place at the minute, not with all the knocks they’ve taken in recent weeks.

“We started moving in the right direction against St Mirren, albeit with ten men, and then Motherwell, I liked what I saw, but it doesn’t all come back in one or two games, it takes time, confidence takes longer to rebuild. This Celtic game’s come early for that, because although I’ve played in some good Celtic teams here in the past, this one is a really top team.”

Bojan Miovski made way for Hayden Coulson at the break as Robson looked to change the shape of the team.

“With Celtic’s shape, the movement and the rotation they have, we felt Jonny wasn’t getting close enough to Jota and the balls were coming into the box too easy, so we had to move Duk over. At the break we moved Jonny into the midfield, brought Hayden on and played Duk up top rather than Bojan because we felt he might be able to hold the ball up a bit better, and get us up the pitch. It was just the nature of the game that we needed to make that switch.

“That’s done now. The big thing now is to go and get ready for Livingston next Saturday, try and impose ourselves on them, get ourselves moving up the table.”