It’s impossible to know what was going through Adam Rooney's head as, watching from the Aberdeen substitutes’ bench, he witnessed the man poised to replace him as No.1 striker at Pittodrie endear himself further to the Aberdeen fans.

Step forward Stevie May: mobile, energetic, innovative and offering a vastly different style to his fellow front man, the club’s top scorer for the previous three seasons. But the Irishman is now set to play second fiddle to the man for whom Derek McInnes paid £300,000 to Preston North End for his less than a fortnight ago.

May’s double, the winner coming 10 minutes from time as Dundee appeared to be heading for their first point of the season, perhaps underlined how deserving he was of the pre-match hype surrounding him.

Graeme Shinnie, the Aberdeen captain, recognised his side’s overall performance was not a sparkling one, but he was impressed with what his new colleague offered.

“We didn’t play well from start to finish,” Shinnie admitted. “And it’s something to look at.

“I suppose it’s the mark of a good team and with the squad we’ve got that it only takes one moment of magic and there are players in the team who can do that.

“It was Stevie who came up with a beauty of a goal this time and won the game for us.

“You can see his link up play; he likes to come and get the ball and bring other players into the game and he’ll look to score as many as he wants as that’s what strikers want to do.

“He got two brilliant goals and his all-round play is brilliant and he will bring a lot to the team.”

Neil McCann, the Dundee manager, was irked at the suggestion that losing his opening three Ladbrokes Premiership fixtures – their worst start to a campaign since 1998 – bordered on catastrophic, insisting he was reasonably comforted by his team’s spirited display.

Marcus Haber’s first-half header struck the crossbar while James Vincent, on a one-to-one with goalkeeper Joe Lewis, botched his opportunity before Roarie Deacon’s 54th-minute strike through the Aberdeen goalkeeper’s legs had levelled the scoring.

Even Scott Allan’s late miss just a few yards from goal would have presented the Dark Blues with a deserved point.

Deacon, a former Arsenal youth player, insisted he and his team-mates are in a false position – the foot of the league table – but pointed to a belief at Dens Park that better times lie ahead.

“Of course, we could be standing talking about three points, at least a draw,” he said.

“But we came in after the game knowing that we have to be a bit more street-wise.

“When they scored the winner, we were down to nine men with two [Haber and Faissal El Bakhtaoui] off injured.

“We should have put the ball out of play in order to get our substitutes on but we didn’t and they’ve taken a good goal.

“You could say it was naivety. We should put the ball out of play – someone could have gone down injured. Something. Ifs and buts don’t help, though. We’re standing here with another loss.

“We did more than enough to get a point – if not three. You could hear their crowd moaning and groaning. We frustrated them.”