Aberdeen manager Stephen Glass said he was “proud” of his players’ showing after a Leigh Griffiths goal at the death denied Aberdeen a win over Celtic.
The Dons led 1-0 for most of the Premiership encounter and were on the brink of a first clean sheet at home to the Hoops for two decades before the Scotland striker’s late header.
Despite the 1-1 draw, Hibs’ win over Livingston appears to have made a third-place finish very difficult to achieve for the Reds, with the gap between the sides now four points.
Nevertheless, new boss Glass was happy with his team’s performance on his league debut.
He told Sportsound: “My biggest emotion is pride in the group of players. We asked them to put in a performance that was going to be needed to get a result against Celtic and I think they gave it.
“Attacking-wise we had opportunities to score goals. The bulk of the game was defensive, but they were very well drilled, organised and determined to stick to their task.
“I feel like they were unfortunate, but I’m really proud.
“The frustration is we lose a goal in the last minute.”
Glass felt Aberdeen should’ve scored more than once, with their goal netted by Lewis Ferguson. The midfielder could’ve had three or more counters himself.
The boss also pointed to a couple of refereeing decisions he was less than impressed with, with David Turnbull only receiving a yellow card from Willie Collum for petulantly chopping down Dons substitute Dylan McGeouch late on after the ball had gone.
Glass added: “When we broke we broke with speed, pace, energy, and probably scored a couple of goals.
“But we ended up playing against 11, which probably shouldn’t have happened either.
“There’s a couple of things where people who were watching can make their mind up. The referee’s made his mind up and you get yourself in trouble if you start talking about refeerees – that’s not my game.”
Aberdeen host Dundee United in the Scottish Cup quarter-finals this weekend, and Glass thinks they can take a lot from tonight’s showing into a game where they will attempt to prolong their hopes of silverware this term.
He said: “The performance level and the spirt in the group – they are sitting in there devastated they only got one point against a very good Celtic team.
“There’s still a few games to build on this season, a huge game coming up on Sunday and the spirit with the group of players is going to take them a long way.”