ABERDEEN’S season is in danger of being boiled down to a tale of contentious decisions and missed chances. Not for the first time this season, opportunity knocked for them following Celtic’s draw with Hamilton Academical on Friday night and Derek McInnes’ side couldn’t take advantage. There was anger at the decision to award St Johnstone a late penalty at Pittodrie on Saturday – Liam Craig knocked it in to earn his side a point – and also frustration that the gap between first and second at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership remains at six points. A glance at the substitutes bench, however, provided the real reason why Aberdeen almost certainly won’t finish the season as Scottish champions.

McInnes was without four of his regular starters on Saturday – Adam Rooney, Jonny Hayes, Shay Logan and Craig Storie – and it stretched his resources to their limits. Alongside the veteran Barry Robson, his bench was filled with academy prospects and teenage hopefuls, some of whom may go on to fulfil their potential but who are barely equipped for a full-bloodied championship tilt. Ronny Deila, in contrast, had the option on Friday night of turning to seasoned internationals like Charlie Mulgrew, Craig Gordon and Colin Kazim-Richards, as well as a Scotland cap in Callum McGregor, and a multi-million pound recruit in Stuart Armstrong. It is the perfect snapshot of why Celtic ought to be winning the division by a canter and why Aberdeen have done well to match them this far, even if they will ultimately probably fall short.

Rooney, their top scorer, will not play again until mid-April, while Hayes is also out for the next few weeks. It is a sizeable blow. All Aberdeen can do, however, is hope that Celtic slip up once or twice more in their remaining 11 matches and that their paper-thin squad can, finally, take advantage.

“We were always confident that Celtic would lose points as they did on Friday night,” said Mark Reynolds, who is keeping his fingers crossed for a Scotland call-up in the coming weeks. “We knew there would be the odd draw here and there and that we were close enough that that might be enough, especially as we’ve still to play them again. So we just need to keep it tight. But with just 11 games there is very little time left now. It’s got to the point where these chances will be few and far between. We need to start capitalising on them and keep ourselves as close to them as we can.

“We carry a small squad and we do feel it when boys get injured. We’ve not used that many players in the starting XI over the course of the season. But we feel there’s enough depth there to get us over the line. We’re lucky we’ve just got Ryan Jack and Willo Flood back. And there are boys on the bench who could come in and do a job as well.”

The loss of Rooney will be most keenly felt although his replacement on Saturday, Simon Church, scored and came close to another. Reynolds backed the on-loan MK Dons player to fill the void.

“It’s always going to be hard when you lose top players, especially given the type of player Rooney is,” added the former Motherwell defender. “He’s the guy that gets us goals. He’ll score a scrappy goal, something out of nothing. But Churchy has come in and he’s from the same mould as Adam. The goal he scored on Saturday was from a couple of yards out and you always seem to find him in the box. He’s started off well and now he’s got a chance to step up into that role whereas before he was maybe just going to be a supporting act for Adam. But with Rooney out it gives him the chance to step up and we can see he’s capable of scoring. We’ll miss Adam but there are other players capable of scoring too.”

Aberdeen felt aggrieved about the penalty award that went against them when Jack was penalised for upending Craig but the St Johnstone player’s team-mates were quick to defend his honour. “Liam is an honest guy,” said midfielder Simon Lappin. “I’m obviously not going to turn round and say he’s a diver even if he did. But I don’t think it was. Steven McLean, the referee, said it was a stonewall penalty and that’s good enough for us. “

The result lifted St Johnstone into fourth place in the table and Lappin hoped it could be the start of a positive spell after some indifferent results. “We were on a great run earlier in the season and then we had a bad spell. Every season you’re going to have that although it’s maybe gone on a bit longer than we had thought. We’ve got a great bunch of boys in there in the dressing room. We know what we’re capable of. It’s a case of putting points on the board and keep building on it.”