Aberdeen host Motherwell in Saturday’s Premier Sports quarter-final before going to Tannadice to meet Dundee United on Tuesday, and then another meeting with Motherwell, this time at Fir Park, in the league on Saturday.

Thelin affirmed his belief that “our team has grown, and every week we get stronger”, which is perhaps not being reflected by results.

And he said: “You are building two things – the short term and the long term, but you can’t think about this week, tomorrow is the game and we want to go to the semi-final.

“We play against a good Motherwell so how can we show ourselves with the intensity and the way we want to play tomorrow for our fans and get the result we need to go through?

“Everybody is working so hard to go in the right direction and sometimes when the results don’t come it can feel that it is not in the right direction, but maybe it is but the result hides it.

“You always get what you deserve, we have to do more to deserve better results and we still have a strong belief in what we are doing, but we have to get the results of course.”