THESE are heady times for Aberdeen. Relatively speaking of course. If the first half of the 1980s, when they were winning league titles and European trophies, can be discarded as some sort of Fergie-inspired anomaly, then this is as good as it gets for the Pittodrie club.
Remarkable as it seems now, Aberdeen finished in the bottom half of the Premiership for four successive seasons prior to Derek McInnes’ arrival as manager. They hadn’t reached a cup final since 2000, hadn’t won a trophy since 1995. For a so-called giant of the Scottish game, it was a fairly appalling charge sheet.
The past four seasons have been substantially better. McInnes is on course to deliver second place for a third successive year, led Aberdeen to the 2014 League Cup and now into their first Scottish Cup final since the turn of the millennium, having also contested the League Cup final earlier in the campaign.
They have benefitted, of course, from Rangers’ fall from grace in 2012, a seismic shift that turned the Old Firm’s duopoly into a monopoly for Celtic while creating a vacancy for the second-best team in the country that Aberdeen have shown themselves more than capable of filling.
The reality of the situation suggests they are unlikely to ever challenge Celtic’s domestic supremacy, and that Rangers, at some point, while come again. All Aberdeen can do, then, is continue to show they deserve to be considered the best of the rest by finishing as runners-up in the league, while attempting to reach cup semi-finals and finals on a regular basis. They did not do themselves justice in the League Cup final back in November but the Scottish Cup final on May 27 now offers them a shot at instant redemption.
“It doesn’t sit well with anybody that we hadn’t reached a Scottish Cup final for 17 years,” said McInnes. “For a club like Aberdeen it is far too long. But we can only deal with our time here. That’s us now reached five semi-finals in four years and we have won three of them. That for me is a decent return.
“That period is what we concentrate on. We have won one final and lost one and it is a total contrast of emotions. Hopefully, the experiences we have gained over the past wee while will help us going into the final.
“There are always doubters out there who question our desire to reach finals and it’s not easy doing that. There are a lot of teams at the start of the season who see themselves winning trophies.
“But our players have proved they are the second best team in the country over the past few years. To have that focus in the cups and the league with such a tight squad makes me extremely proud. But I want us to get our reward fully. I want to cement second and win the cup.
“Celtic were way ahead of us in the League Cup final because we didn’t show our intent or impose ourselves. It is only by revisiting finals that we get the chance to give a far better account of ourselves.”
This can already be considered Aberdeen’s most successful season under McInnes but he is not of a mind to sit back and contemplate what they have achieved just yet. There are five league games in which to secure second spot in the Premiership before Hampden beckons and a chance to become the first Aberdeen manager to lift the Scottish Cup since 1990.
“The time for reflecting is at the end of the season,” he said, firmly. “The time for us to be pleased with our efforts is next month. It would be the ultimate if we could get second spot, be the team that is closest to Celtic and win a Scottish Cup. I actually feel that is a real possibility. We are close to doing that. We have a month of football left and it’s important we focus even more. We came back in June for pre-season when most people were still on their holidays and we are still going strong.”
They booked their place in the final following one of the most enthralling semi-finals for quite some time. A goal after 12 seconds and another midway through the first half seemed to have Aberdeen coasting comfortably through but Hibernian came back strongly, drawing within a goal and then equalising midway through the second half.
It was anyone’s game after that but Jonny Hayes’ deflected shot against the unfortunate Darren McGregor ensured it would be the Pittodrie side and not the holders who would progress to the final.
“Semi-finals are normally edgier and tighter to start with but I thought we were excellent in the first half an hour,” recalled McInnes. “The flow of the game changed with the Hibs substitution and their first goal and we had to dig deep to get the result.
“I still think over the piece we were dominant for longer spells than Hibs were. The fact we got a break with the goal is not an ideal way to win a semi-final. But we will take it as we have been on the wrong end of some misfortune on these sort of occasions before.
“When you work with the same group of boys you do learn to trust them. You could sense the question was being asked of them and it was important they found a way to win the game. They have done that more often than not during my time here.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here