BY his own admission, David Bates has struggled to produce the sort of form at Aberdeen this season that he did when he played with Rangers, Hamburg and Cercle Brugge as well as Scotland.
The centre half arrived at Pittodrie back in August without a pre-season under his belt and has taken his time to get both his match fitness and sharpness up.
But the way he dealt with the threat posed by the Celtic front three in the cinch Premiership game at Parkhead on Sunday afternoon has given him hope he is getting back to his best.
Liel Abada, Kyogo Furuhashi and Jota have terrorised defences at home and abroad since moving to Glasgow in the summer.
Jota, the Portuguese winger who is on loan from Benfica, put Ange Postecoglou’s side in front in the first-half at the weekend with a shot that struck Bates’s chest and flew past Joe Lewis.
However, Bates and his team mates kept their hosts’ feted forward line at bay thereafter and only lost 2-1 because a Jonny Hayes clearance took a wicked deflection off Callum McGregor and ended up in his own net in the second-half.
The 25-year-old is keen to be involved in the home league game against Livingston tomorrow evening and optimistic that Aberdeen supporters are starting to see the best of him.
“Furuhashi is sharp and a good player,” he said. “He is clearly one of Celtic’s best players this season. His movement is very good and it’s hard to deal with at times, his sharp movement.
“But I thought we handled him pretty well and kept him quite quiet. It is just frustrating that we did not get at least a point.
“Celtic have a good squad with Joto on the other side as well. They can both produce a bit of magic at times, but we kept them fairly quiet. It is just a bit disappointing not to get something from here.”
Bates added: “I feel like I’m coming along. It was a while since I had played when I first signed as I didn’t have a pre-season or any pre-season games.
“It was obviously straight into it and trying to get games and trying to get ready. It was quite hard at first trying to adjust, but I feel like I’m coming onto a game now.”
Aberdeen have lost their last three Premiership games and are just five points above bottom-placed Ross County in the table.
But Bates is unconcerned about their league position; he is confident Stephen Glass’s side can move up the table if they reproduce their Sunday display and get some injured players back.
“We showed that we can play against Celtic and there are positives to take,” he said. “We need to carry that on now – especially on Wednesday.
“At Ibrox (Aberdeen drew 2-2 with Rangers in October) and at Parkhead we have shown we have the ability – it is just the case of trying to do it over the course of the whole game.
“There have been so many injuries and I have dropped into a three at the back at times this season. Hopefully some of the boys are getting fit now and can come back.”
Bates continued: “We just have to focus on ourselves as we have Livingston on Wednesday. If we take three points we kick on and kick on our season again.
“We have had good results against Rangers, Hearts and Hibs, but have dipped off a little bit.
“We are frustrated at ourselves and know we can do better and should be up the table, but we need to start showing that on the pitch.”
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