Beware the wounded animal.
Greg Leigh takes pride in his work and it is clear his has been dented by the events of last weekend’s mauling by Rangers at Ibrox.
He has been in the Granite City for little more than three months but the full back is all too aware of the standards which are expected at Pittodrie – and what happens when you fall short.
He said: “When you have a result like we had last week it hurts everybody. The thing that hurts the most is that is not really a reflection of us as people or as a team.
“It has cut everyone deep and we’ve all come in this week to show that is not us or how we want to go about our business.
“I know it hurt a lot of the lads. As a team we didn’t do what we wanted to such as bringing energy and getting in and about people and it’s difficult to take. It is something we want to be right as quickly as possible.
“I’ve been involved in that situation once or twice before. I’ve been involved in relegation battles in England and managers being sacked but not at this level at a club like Aberdeen where it is not supposed to happen.
“It’s never nice but what doesn’t change is how important it is to put it right as soon as possible.”
Leigh has suffered heavy losses before but it does not make the experience any more palatable.
What it has done, however, is prove a huge motivational tool.
He said: “We have to produce what we’ve seen in training on the pitch. Saturday was a disappointing performance but I look at the game at Hearts prior to that and focus on taking the positive parts of that performance into this game.
“As a player I’ve come to play at big stadiums and big games looking to do something against the big sides. On a personal note it was a really difficult one to take as we were so far away from getting a result.
“You could analyse Man City versus Watford and think Watford are the worst team in the world because they lost 8-0 but one bad game does not make you a bad team.
“In our case it is something which happened once and we need to learn from it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. We must make sure it was an uncharacteristic performance.”
The 25 year-old can sense the desire to begin the process of healing the hurt caused by the 5-0 defeat when Hibernian visit Pittodrie today.
But he believes it is vital he and his team-mates do not let their emotions get the better of them as they bid to get back to winning ways.
He said: “We can’t be too tightly wound up. We have to realise where we are and what we need to do.
“Everyone is very close to it as we’re emotionally invested but it is important to take a step back. We need a result but how are we going to do it?
“As much as Saturday hurt we have to focus our energy on how we win the next game. It’s important to have elements of heart and head but you can’t let one take over from the other.
“There is a lot of experience here. Joe Lewis, the captain, has been really good and there is experience coming back like those who trained, Craig Bryson, Stephen Gleeson, Scott McKenna, but also those who have been in and about it like Andy Considine and Mikey Devlin, they’ve tried to lift people.
“There’s quite a few but even people like myself, who hasn’t had so many games, try to lift people but keep them relaxed.”