What Aberdeen captain Graeme Shinnie had to say about Celtic as he opens up on Dons' difficulties

Aberdeen captain Graeme Shinnie has drawn a parallel between Ange Postecoglou’s side and Brendan Rodgers’ Invincibles.

On-loan at the club until the end of the season from Wigan, Shinnie had his fair share of long afternoons in Glasgow during his first spell at Pittodrie with Saturday offering another endurance test as Celtic eased to a win that came almost without breaking sweat. Both interim manager Barry Robson and Shinnie qualified the defeat by referencing just where the Parkhead side are at the minute.

“The manager has them playing a different style of football to what I have been used to, going there, especially,” said Shinnie. “They have inverted full-backs and try to make overloads in areas of the pitch. I thought they were very good. I played against Brendan Rodgers’ teams who were very dominant and very good, but I feel this Celtic side are very impressive.”

His own concern, however, will be on Aberdeen, at least between now and the end of the season. The pressing matter, aside from steadying results, is on a managerial appointment that the club cannot afford to get wrong.

Aberdeen's Graeme Shinnie challenges Callum McGregor during the 4-0 defeat at Celtic Park. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)

There will be no rushing into a replacement for Jim Goodwin with Robson expected to remain in post for at least this weekend’s visit of Livington with Shinnie backing the interim manager to coax a performance out of an Aberdeen side whose fragilities remain apparent.

“He’s putting his own style onto it and trying to do it his way,” said the midfielder. “He’s obviously got the passion for it and I think he has been very good. It is naturally tough to go to Celtic and being 2-0 down after 13 minutes, but we’ll prepare next week.

“Barry will have a week to prepare us for the Livingston game and that’s one we need to bounce back in. It’s been tough, but we need to stand up and be counted for Aberdeen and you need to have the confidence in every game to go out and play well. This is one of those where you have to deal with it, analyse it and then prepare for a big game against Livingston.”

Shinnie, too, has called upon the Aberdeen players to show some mettle as they look to engineer a way back into the top half of the table and prevent further damage after a wounding few months.

“We always have to take a responsibility,” he said. “A manager has lost a job based on the players on the pitch not doing the right jobs. We are at Aberdeen for a reason and you need to stand up and be counted.

“You can’t go into your shell. It’s been a tough period, but you need to play through it and the only way to get out of it is by winning games. Of course it was going to be tough against Celtic, but we have games coming up where we need to bounce back and try to get a run of form going.

“It’s little lapses in concentration. It’s about trying to get wins together. Like I said, the only way you can get out this tough run of form is to win games, so we’ll deal with this one, we’ll analyse it and we’ll move onto Livingston. We need to come up with a win.”