LEWIS FERGUSON has challenged his Aberdeen teammates to conquer their crisis of confidence as the Dons fell to another defeat against Celtic on Saturday.

Despite the result, and the fact that they have won just two of their last 12 matches, Ferguson says that he can see signs of a recovery on the horizon for Derek McInnes’s men.

And he says it is down to each individual player to pull the team out of their nose-dive in form.

“It is hard to keep your confidence high when you are losing games,” Ferguson said. “Everyone will tell you that.

“It comes from something deep within yourself to try and bring that out and to try to spread it to the other boys in the dressing room.

“If you are going through a bad spell you need a bit of confidence.

“I thought we did that [against Celtic]. Our more experienced players throughout the squad did that and it has helped us.

“I am just looking forward to getting as many points as possible.”

Ferguson admits that third place is now firmly in Hibernian’s grasp, but he says that Aberdeen will try to push the Easter Road men all the way.

“It is not really down to us at the minute,” he said.

“Hibs are obviously in control of that so it is down to them and whether they want to get that spot or not.

“We can just do all we can as we are pushing as hard as possible.

“We obviously want that and that was in our sights at the start of the season. It is still our aim but it is not in our hands at the minute.

“We have plenty of games to go and if we can pick up as many points as we want then you never know – it might get us that third spot.”