He said: “It’s always a challenge when you’re meeting a team with a new manager.

“Barry’s had a couple of games now but in the first game, they had a man sent off really early, then in the next game they had a good performance.

“The first one, you can almost discount because they had a man sent off early, so all you have to work on to analyse is one game.

“We know at their best they’re a good side with good individual players that can hurt you and we have to be ready for them.

'At the same time, our form has been pretty good for quite a while now, particularly at home, so if we approach the game well and play at our tempo then we know we’re a hard team to stop.'

“They’ve had a couple of weeks to prepare but we prepare the same for every team we face and we prepare for all possibilities in the way they are likely to play and set up.

“The basic foundations of that is that it’s more important that we focus on our football and make sure we are really strong in the principles we have because when we do that then we’re a hard team to stop.”

With a League Cup final to play next weekend and just 13 league games left this season, you could say we are approaching the business end of the campaign.

Achieving the best outcome possible at the end of the season requires the full squad to be fully committed and focused on each individual match, and the manager has been delighted with their approach so far.

He added: “I’m definitely happy with the squad and it’s a strong one that can be resilient and hopefully injury-proof in terms of if we do get some absences then we have enough to cover.

“You’ve seen through our performances that guys, whether they are starting or coming off the bench, are performing at a really high level.

'In my time anyway, it’s the most settled and strongest the squad has been, with people contributing every time they play.'

“It will be important to us because we’re getting to the key part of the season now and every game is of consequence and we need everyone’s contribution.

“Our most important game is the one against Aberdeen where we want to get three points and continue our strong league form and we want to make sure we finish the season stronger than we started.”

Ange Postecoglou: New manager brings new challenges to Aberdeen