Jimmy Thelin is humble instead of humbled and his Aberdeen is only going to get better – Scott Burns

For Jimmy Thelin, it is still a case of his Aberdeen team remaining humble rather than being humbled.

The Aberdeen squad and staff have been left licking their wounds after their six-goal Hampden thumping against Celtic at the weekend. Yes, it was a sore one. Not many people would have predicted such a one-sided encounter. But the fact remains it is still Aberdeen’s first defeat under Thelin. They are still unbeaten in the Premiership and are just behind Celtic on goal difference.

There is still an awful lot to be upbeat and to look forward to. The highly-rated Swedish boss described the Premier Sports Cup semi-final defeat as a bump in the road. It was a shuddering one but one Thelin and his squad will recover from.

The bottom line is that Celtic, on their day, could do that to anyone in Scotland and beyond. Look at the way they dismantled RB Leipzig in the Champions League. Aberdeen and Thelin are very much at the start of a journey together. Would he have expected his Aberdeen team to have made such an amazing start, having gone 16 games unbeaten? Winning 15 and drawing the other away to Celtic away in the league. The answer is probably no, but the fact he has shown there is a foundation there for his Red revolution. Even when Aberdeen were winning every game, Thelin never got carried away.

His mantra remained the same. We remain humble and we take it one game at a time. It was the same after the Celtic draw and the home win over Rangers. He never gets too up and after last weekend he is unlikely to get too down. He will continue to put the work in at Cormack Park to make his team the best they can be.

Even before the semi-final he spoke about how there were a few games in the unbeaten run where his team had got the