Graeme Shinnie says that the growing expectation at Aberdeen is not affecting their players as they once again failed to pull clear of Celtic at the top of the table with a goalless draw against Partick Thistle at Pittodrie on Wednesday night.

Derek McInnes’s side are now level on points with Celtic at the Premiership summit, but Ronny Deila’s men have two games in hand over their Granite City rivals. When asked if the pressure got to Aberdeen with the chance to go ahead of Celtic in front of an expectant crowd, Shinnie said: “Definitely not. The whole season we’ve just been taking it game by game, it was unfortunately just one of those nights where it wouldn’t go in.

“Performance-wise we did well. We defended quite well, they had a couple of chances late on but we were pushing for the game at that point. Before that it felt comfortable and it felt like we were the team who were going to go and win it.

“The crowd are going to be frustrated naturally but we kept pushing and we kept creating more chances. That was the good thing about it and we’ll look to take that into the game on Sunday and hopefully we’ll put a few away.

“The fans have been terrific ever since I joined the club in the summer. They’ve been amazing home and away and hopefully Sunday will be no different and they get behind the team as much as they can. It’s up to us to go out and put a show on for them.”

Despite the post-match focus being firmly on Aberdeen’s inability to win the game on Wednesday evening, due credit must also be given to a Partick Thistle side who defended well and restricted their hosts to just a handful of clear chances. They may also have won it near the end as Aberdeen left gaps at the back as they pushed for the winner, but the visitors left more than happy with their point as they stretched their remarkable recent run to just the one defeat in the last ten games.

For Shinnie though, the frustration was all too evident as he cursed Aberdeen’s failure to capitalise on the occasions when they did open up the stubborn Thistle rear-guard.He says it is now imperative that his side take a victory from their visit to St Johnstone on Sunday as they look to keep up the pressure on Celtic.

“I thought we did enough in the game and created enough chances to win it, so it’s probably two points thrown away for us,” he said.

“The positives out of it are that we did create chances and hopefully we can take that into the game on Sunday night.

“The conditions were difficult but we did create chances and the frustrating part is that we didn’t put any of them away. I was guilty of one myself.

“The last two games have been different games. I guess Inverness was maybe a point gained in the end, but this game was maybe two thrown away, but we’ve got a chance to get three points on Sunday now and that’s what we’ve got to do.

“McDiarmid Park is always a difficult place to go and I’m guessing the conditions will probably be similar to those we had tonight, so we’ll just focus in training over the next few days on recovering for it and hopefully it goes well on Sunday.

“It’s another game we want to win and get the three points on the board, that’s all we can try to do.”

Meanwhile, Chris Kane has warned his St Johnstone team-mates that Aberdeen will be out for revenge after losing 5-1 to the Perth side the last time the teams met at Pittodrie in October.

“I’m sure Aberdeen will be dangerous because that will have hurt them,” said the striker. “They will obviously want to get their own back on us.”

St Johnstone hope to have Michael O’Halloran back in the side after he was taken off feeling ill during the first half of their 2-0 midweek loss at Motherwell.

However, his replacement, Craig Thomson, looked extremely impressive with his pace on the flank and Kane expects him to make more of an impression over the course of the season.

“I have played with him for a good few years at Under-20 level and he is someone I always look to get the ball to because I know he will beat his man near enough every time,” he said.

“You saw that against Motherwell. He had one great run where he created a chance for me.

“Is he the fastest player at the club? He would give Mikey O’Halloran a good race, that’s for sure. I would like to see them in a sprint.

“Who would my money be on? It would be a close one, but maybe just Mikey!

“They are both really quick and really good. I would mind having one on each wing.”