Injured Dons defender Mark Reynolds says he wants to stay at Pittodrie beyond the summer.
Reynolds hasn’t featured for Aberdeen this season after rupturing a cruciate ligament in a pre-season friendly against Cove Rangers at the Balmoral Stadium on July 15.
The 31-year-old’s contract with the Reds is up next summer.
Reynolds, who joined the Dons on loan in 2012 before signing permanently in January 2013, is keen to stay at the club. But he says the situation has not come into his thinking at the moment as he tries to get back to fitness.
He said: “I’ve never hidden my desire to stay. I’ve really enjoyed playing here and if that opportunity is made available, I’ll be delighted.
“Football is a funny game and you never know what’s around the corner.
“All I can influence is rehabbing my knee, getting back as fit as I can, playing as well as I can when given the opportunity and see where that takes me.
“My contract doesn’t really come into my thinking. I can’t really influence it – I’ve been injured, which isn’t ideal.
“I’ve still got six months left, so I’ll come back and keep doing what I’m doing, then see what the manager says.
“It’s not something I can influence by worrying about it. All I can do is go out and play when I’m given the opportunity. That’s what I’ll continue to do.”
Reynolds still feels he can make a major contribution on the pitch for Aberdeen.
The centre-back made 20 appearances for the Reds last season and added: “I feel I’ve still got a big part to play. Last year was the first year I didn’t really play the majority of the games, but I still played a lot of big games.
“I played three or four of the top-six games (after the split) and I played at Parkhead when we beat Celtic on the last day of the season to clinch second.
“I’m one of the older boys in the changing room and I feel I’ve got experience to pass on to younger boys.
“I’ve still got an influence in the changing room and I feel as though I can influence things on the park as well.”
Reynolds is hoping to return from his knee injury to full training in January and believes the Premiership’s winter break, when the Dons will jet off to Dubai for warm weather training, can allow him to get up to speed.
He said: “I’m getting there and hopefully I’m back start of January. We had originally thought it would be end of January start of February so I’ve managed to take a couple of weeks off that.
“The aim is to be in full training for Dubai, which will give me a couple of weeks towards the end of the year where the boys will be off and it will let me be back to full fitness.
“Hopefully I’ll be able to take part in training and be available for selection as of then.”
When he initially hurt his knee, Reynolds didn’t think it would rule him out for six months.
He said: “I didn’t expect it would be this bad. When it happened at the time the physios had an inkling because of the mechanisms.
“At the time it was agony but then it eased right off. I went back on the pitch and tried it and it just felt a bit stiff.
“I spoke to the physios and the manager and they said it was a friendly on astroturf so there was no point in risking it.
“There was no bleeding in it, no bruising, it just felt stiff and then I went and got the scan and it came back that I’d ruptured the cruciate.
“Luckily I went to see a surgeon in Glasgow, Gordon Mackay, the next week. I saw him on the Monday and he operated on the Wednesday.
“I’ve been all systems go since then, but I never expected it to be a six-month job.”
Mark Reynolds was speaking as Aberdeen Football Club announced Health Shield as the club’s official health and wellbeing partner
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