Aberdeen manager Stephen Glass questioned whether his players needed Scott Brown to cajole them after they suffered a 1-0 defeat by Hibernian without their captain.
Brown was missing through illness and Glass appeared to be trying to spark a reaction after the Dons lost to a Ryan Porteous set-piece goal at Easter Road.
Glass told RedTV: “We looked lifeless and energy-less almost and there was no reason for it because we had the free week and they had a big week with a lot of big games and energy taken out of them. It didn’t look like that.
“I was almost asking the boys… the glaring omission for me is… do they need Scott to push them on and kick them and poke them and make them do it? Professionally they need to be better at it.”
Glass is looking for a response when Aberdeen host Dundee on Boxing Day in front of a reduced capacity crowd of 500.
“From here, we owe ourselves and our supporters a better performance on Boxing Day than we gave (at Easter Road),” he said.
“We’d won three in a row, the boys were feeling good about themselves and we wanted to keep that going at Hibs.
“We didn’t and so it’s even more important we go into the break on the back of a win.
“With Hibs playing Dundee United on Sunday, there’s an opportunity to jump up the table again and we need to take it.
“It’s important we get three points and push ourselves up the league.
“We want to go into the break on a high and obviously there will be a lot of people watching from home, which is unfortunate. You saw what an atmosphere does for a game at Easter Road.
“The fans travelled in huge numbers, which is brilliant for a Wednesday night, and we are just disappointed with the performance we put on for them.”
