At this time of the season, there’s an awful lot of raking over debris, mulling over missed opportunities and reflecting on what might have been.

The Aberdeen players have probably spent so much time looking back, they’re now all in the treatment room needing physio on stiff necks. Peter Pawlett prefers to keep looking forward though.

By all accounts, this was the Pittodrie club’s best chance to win the Scottish title since the first clump of granite was chiselled out of Rubislaw quarry … or so it felt like. Celtic were stumbling and bumbling at times, while there was plenty of disgruntled mumbling from the local parishioners in the stands, but the reigning Scottish champions still managed to canter over the finishing line as Aberdeen ran out of puff.

They did threaten to run them close, of course, and Pawlett, who missed the last couple of months of the campaign with a broken arm, is eager to focus on the positives of a second successive runners-up finish in Scotland’s top flight for the side from the north east.

With a rejuvenated Rangers back in the upper echelons next season, many reckon Aberdeen’s chances of another title tilt are gone as fevered observers ponder the prospect of a return to the traditional two horse race but Pawlett believes it’s very much a case of onwards and upwards.

“Next season is just as good an opportunity as this one, that’s how we are looking at it,” said the 25-year-old. “We know this year was a missed opportunity but the chance is still there and we have to take confidence from this season. It will be a stronger league next year. Celtic are there, Rangers will strengthen but we just have to go again.”

Having started the season with the kind of furious burst from the blocks that would have had Usain Bolt wheezing on behind in a puff-cheeked fankle, Aberdeen’s early charge of eight league wins on the trot came shuddering to halt with a damaging run. A 5-1 home reversal to St Johnstone was one of four defeats in five games as Celtic, who also beat the Dons 3-1 during that key spell, took charge of the title race.

“That was too early to write us off, though,” added Pawlett. Aberdeen would come again but they missed the chance to go top twice in the space of five days during the Christmas period when they were held to draws by both Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Partick Thistle. Not so much a thorn in the side, more a couple of jags. The opportunities spurned there summed up the season as Aberdeen’s inability to pounce and seize the moment led to many questioning their stomach and resolve.

“We had Inverness and Partick and those were chances to overtake Celtic,” said Pawlett. “We knew it would come round again but there were games that just didn’t go our way.

“Those were chances but you win as a team and you lose as a team as the saying goes. Last season we lost four times to Celtic. This time we beat them twice, they beat us twice. Celtic are a good team but we didn’t think they were better than us.

“We know that we can sustain a challenge and just need that last bit to win it. The manager is such a determined individual. He wants to succeed, he’s so thorough and organised. He gets everything spot on.

“Since he came in, he’s always wanted to make Pittodrie a hard place to come to. In previous years we’ve done well on the road, but this season wasn’t as good. In a sense, the away football with our counter attacking football suits our style but maybe teams are now showing us a bit more respect and they’re not coming at us at their place as much. We have to take confidence from this year. We made a challenge and that’s positive.”

While Aberdeen’s championship challenge came a cropper, Pawlett’s season ended on an equally painful note with that arm injury. “The surgeon said if I was to fall on my arm again it would just break so I just had to write off the season and focus on the next one,” he added.

One thing to focus on will be the resuming of hostilities with newly-promoted Rangers, a rivalry that tends to produce more bad blood than a spiked bowl of punch at a vampire’s party. “I actually made my full league debut at Ibrox, I’m looking forward to that one,” said Pawlett with an obvious sense of anticipation.

So good memories then? “Well, we lost 2-1,” he added with a wry chuckle. “It was a good day but the result wasn’t a good one.”

Good days and bad days. Aberdeen had a few of those during a topsy-turvy season.