Boss Stephen Glass praised his gutsy Dons for their battling second half performance in a 3-2 loss to Celtic.
And he has demanded a repeat of that second 45 minutes in Saturday’s Scottish Cup fifth round clash at Motherwell.
The Reds looked down and out when trailing 2-0 at the break.
Glass made a bold tactical and personnel change, admitting he feared an ‘embarrassing’ loss.
Aberdeen then hit back with two quickfire goals to level at 2-2 only to be undone by a controversial Celtic winner.
The Dons were furious when Jota’s winner was allowed to stand.
It was a goal that condemned the Reds to a costly defeat as they dropped from seventh to ninth in the Premiership table.
Glass said: “I’m proud of the effort of the players in the second half.
“We kept pushing and trying. We ran them pretty close.
“There was a determination not to get beat and a will to win that was potentially missing in the first half.
“That was really there in the second half.
“There was a belief in their performance, a belief in what they are doing.
“And the energy felt different.
“Saturday (Scottish Cup) is a huge game and I think if we approach it the way we did in the second half I think we win the game.”
‘We felt an embarrassment coming’
Aberdeen were trailing 2-0 at half-time due to goals from Jota and Matt O’Riley.
Glass made two substitutions at the break and switched formation from three at the back to four.
Asked why the Dons were so improved in the second half, Glass said: “I think we felt there was an embarrassment coming if we didn’t.
“The first half we didn’t get enough pressure on them high up the pitch.
“Second half we rectified it and as a result we ran them pretty close.
“We were disappointed to give away the goal as close as we did to scoring the second.”
Glass’ half-time shuffle paid off as the Reds shocked the league leaders with goals from Christian Ramirez and Lewis Ferguson.
However, within a minute of levelling, Celtic grabbed a controversial winner.
Liel Abada was offside for the winning goal and blocked Dons defender David Bates route to scorer Jota.
Glass insists he couldn’t discuss the controversial goal with referee Willie Collum after the match.
That was because fourth official Craig Napier was instructed to tell Glass not to approach the referee.
He said: “From the side. he looks offside.
“Regardless, he fouls Bates and stops him running back to deal with Jota, who scores the goal.
“I was told before the end of the game not to go on to the pitch and speak to the referee.
“The fourth official was told to tell me not to speak to him on the pitch after the game.
“He didn’t tell both managers, he told one manager and maybe that’s because he realised he had made a mistake.
“I say it every week, I don’t want to talk about referees, but there are reasons I get asked these questions.”
