Jimmy Calderwood has warned his Aberdeen players they will have underachieved if they fail to finish their league campaign with a flourish.The Dons' European adventure was ended emphatically by Bayern Munich on Thursday when their 5-1 defeat in Germany saw them exit the UEFA Cup 7-3 on aggregate.

Aberdeen's foray into continental competition also featured games against Dnipro, Panathinaikos, Lokomotiv Moscow, Atletico Madrid and FC Copenhagen.

However Calderwood's side have been inconsistent in their Scottish affairs and currently sit in the bottom half of the SPL - a long way from the ambition of finishing third for the second season running.

Aberdeen were dumped out of the CIS Insurance Cup with a 4-1 semi-final defeat by Dundee United, while in the Scottish Cup they must face Celtic in the last eight.

If they fail to climb into the top six in the SPL, and crash out of the cup to Celtic next month, they will have little to show for their season.

Calderwood said: "If that was the case, then by our own high standards then it would only be a reasonable season."

He added: "As strange as it seems after a 5-1 defeat, I am very proud of the players in where they have taken the club.

"But that is gone, it's history and in 20 years' time it might pop up again that we drew with Bayern.

"You want more of it though, and now it is back to our bread and butter."

Calderwood believes both he and his players have learned a great deal from their UEFA Cup run, the highlight of which was their 2-2 draw with Bayern at Pittodrie.

The Dons boss was delighted to have added to his experience of managing outside of Scotland, having previously taken charge of Willem II and NEC Nijmegen in Holland.

Calderwood hopes his players can put what they discovered about themselves in the matches with Bayern into practice - starting with Sunday's trip to Kilmarnock.

He said: "I know what I have learned from a tactical point of view and I always wanted to test myself with that.

"In Holland there were a lot of good teams who were very tactically aware and I've also played against a lot of German teams in pre-season such as Schalke and Dortmund.

"So it was good for me, but for the players, which is the most important thing, hopefully they have learned about the things we try to tell them about every day.

"That includes the pace of their passing and organisation.

"To be honest Bayern were far too far ahead of us on Thursday night.

"But in certain phases of the games we have still done well against them and the players need to bring that into their league form."

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