Brechin City manager Ray McKinnon believes the Dons can mount a Scottish Premiership challenge to Celtic next season.
McKinnon was proud of his players’ performance – despite suffering a 4-1 defeat to Aberdeen last night.
The superior fitness of the Scottish Premiership side paid off with goals from Ryan Jack, Niall McGinn, Lawrence Shankland and Declan McManus helping the Dons to a comfortable win.
The Scottish League 1 side did score a consolation through substitute Robert Thomson and McKinnon said: “What a squad Aberdeen have – I would fully expect them to challenge Celtic this year.
“But I was delighted with that as we have only been in training for a week.
“You can tell we were miles apart in terms of fitness but we made them work. We were a bit disappointed to go 1-0 down at half time but it was a great finish.
“In the second half we wanted to have a go but we lost a couple of goals. It was great to score one ourselves.”
McKinnon had five trialists in his team, including Spaniard Eduardo Cruz and added: “Three of our back four were trialists and they all did very well.
“The player who has come in from Spain was extremely tired towards the end of the game. He switched off for two goals but I am not going to blame him for that.”