Peter Leven was proud of the Aberdeen display at Hampden as they were beaten on penalties by Celtic.

“We’re gutted to lose. You put in that performance, you want to come away with a win, but they’ve done well overall. I thought we were great today. They gave everything for 120 minutes. That’s our 49th game of the season and some of these players have never done that before, with all the travelling on top.

“They gave everything. I can’t fault their effort and their commitment. They stuck to the game plan. We wouldn’t have come if we didn’t believe we were going to win. When I first took over, we played them at Pittodrie and we went toe-to-toe in the second half and drew 1-1. That gave us a lot of belief. As you’ve seen out there, we had very good chances against a good team.

“We knew Celtic were going to pin us back at times, but we went toe-to-toe with them. We had very good chances, but honestly, I can’t be more proud of the boys.

“They all gave everything.

“You saw it the longer it went, they were cramping up. We lost Bojan Miovski that way, they all ran themselves into the ground.

“But we had desire, a great attitude and at times we were right at Celtic. Yes, in the first 20 minutes of the second half they pinned us back and we had to adjust to deal with that.

“But to come back time and again, to create the chances we did well, it’s tough to end up losing.”

“At the Hoilett one (penalty appeal), the fourth official told me it was a penalty, but there might have been a collision before it, which is what seems to have been given in the end. With the one in the first half, I thought it was a handball, but it seems it wasn’t in the box, so that was that.

“If I have a regret, it’s over their third goal. We worked a lot during the week on Johnston’s runs and we should have matched it then. That’s disappointing.

“In the end, we came up just a little bit short.

“At the penalties, when Kelle Roos was down with cramp, we tried to get Ryan away from the box because it looked like Joe Hart was trying to get into his head. In the end, he missed and so did Killian, but I have nothing but admiration for anyone who walks up and takes a penalty. Then there was our skipper, Angus Macdonald. He made a mistake for a goal, like we all makes mistakes, but he didn’t dwell on it and he stepped up superbly with our third goal and a penalty.”

“The boys have responded well to me from the off. There’s always been desire here, but inconsistency has killed us in the league. In the cups, we’ve been fantastic and that was the case again here. Now we need to transfer that to the league form.

“The new manager texted to wish me luck on Friday night and with his game not until Sunday I presume he was watching. He’ll have seen the desire there is among these boys.

“We need to try and get that winning mentality and take our chances when we’re on top. It’s a sickener at the end, but I just want to say thank you to the fans who travelled in their numbers and they never stopped singing, so thank you to them. They never gave up, they kept on pushing us and at times we were the better team. We had Celtic rattled, especially in the second half, but I’m just gutted for everyone.

“I told the players at the end, pick your heads up for five massive league games. We refresh, rest and recover and we go again on Monday.”