Neil Warnock apologises to Aberdeen FC star who became collateral damage in Pittodrie 'disgrace'

Honest Neil Warnock admits he was forced into offering an apology to Aberdeen star Dante Polvara after he was hooked before the comeback in Wednesday's bonkers 3-3 draw with Motherwell.

The American is a favourite at Pittodrie but he and struggling Shayden Morris were removed at half an hour with the Dons trailing 3-0 and the natives on the verge of combustion in the Granite City. And the 75-year-old's call to introduce Duk and Angus MacDonald was inspired, with the former scoring inside a minute of his arrival for Aberdeen.

The change of formation galvanised the hosts to secure a stirring draw. And the interim boss was keen to praise the key men behind the unlikely comeback. Speaking on talkSPORT, Warnock said: "He (Duk) is a lad who has lost a little bit of confidence. He had a good patch last year, he scored double figures. You know what it's like when you are a striker, you need to need to get on that scoresheet. He came on and scored within a minute and then he could have had a hat-trick, he was only a gnat's breath away from a hat-trick. It will not have done him any harm. They are great lads, the squad is a little bit imbalanced.

"They were fine, one lad (Morris) had a little bit of a bad time, the other lad (Polvara) I felt sorry for, I apologised to him. That was purely tactical, it was one of those things. But we had to do it or we would have been 5-0 down."

And while he was chuffed his tweaks worked it wasn't all positivity as Warnock stewed over VAR after seeing Bojan Miovski denied a late winner as the lines could barely split him and two Motherwell defenders.

He added: "We needed it, we were a disgrace for 25 minutes, If I'm honest. We lost a centre half in the morning, he wasn't very well. We went with