Kinda glad Rangers beat Hearts to be honest. Aberdeen v Rangers in the League Cup is always a bit special.

I think the first ever League Cup final was Aberdeen v Rangers 1946/47. Fergie's first cup final with us was Aberdeen/Rangers 1978/79, the first final to go to penalties was Aberdeen/Rangers 87, the first cup final I remember was the 88 Aberdeen/Rangers final, first one I remember us winning was the 89 Aberdeen/Rangers final, and the first final I went to was the 92 Aberdeen/Rangers final.

Nothing to fear. We'll be underdogs, aye, but we've won two of the last three meetings with Rangers, and we've shown up well enough in big matches this season.

And we've shown yesterday that even when we're second best we have match winners in our team.

I fully expect Rangers to get the majority of the tickets but hopefully we'll at least push strongly for a 50/50 split. The whole average crowd/how many you sold for the semi, is irrelevant. Cup final, both teams are meant to have the same chance - same number of players, same numbers backing them.
 

Ah well,here we go.Wouldnt say Im optimistic,but this is as good a chance as we'll ever have.Got the personnel to do damage if we let them do their thing

  COYR  

Pleasantly surprised we have gone with the two up front. 

Not too pretty a first half to be honest.Could use someone better at moving the ball about,maybe Barron or Polvara.Maybe McGarry on for Hayes,too reckless at the back,gives me the fear

Edited December 17, 20232 yr by Elgindon

Very few pass marks today. Froze in the first half. McGrath was awful, Clarkson just didn't feature apart from free kicks. 

We all knew that the midfield was too lightweight and so it proved to be. Barely managed a pass, never managed a shot.

Sadly this was totally predictable. We're a horrible watch.

Well, got what we deserved, better team won. Good finish from tavarnier to be fair. While we weren’t bad we weren’t good. No shots on goal means we can’t score. Created virtually nothing the entire game. Little composure on the ball in the middle of the park for much of the game, although second half was better. Beginning to dislike duk, he’d rather dive/fall than keep going. He had the beating of his man 2-3 times but prefers to dive rather than see what he can create. I felt he could have created more than the free kicks he won gave us. We’re also poor from set plays, got nothing.

interesting to see if our league form can pick up, we’re really not that far off third but need to go on a winning run. we’re pretty painful to watch though, hoping post Xmas and January bring those 2-3 players that change our season. 

If anything, we should have let them score much earlier than they did, only way we would have been forced to try and attack them. As it was, it came too late and every entry into the final third was riddled with panic and chaos. 

Deserved nothing.Capable of much better,...so frustrating.

Only plan today seemed to be hang on for penalties and maybe sneak something off a punt up the park. When it was clear that wasn’t working the plan seemed to be to make like for like changes and continue with the original plan. No shots on target is a disgrace. Sad thing is the Tribute Act were shite as well. Adams wasn’t wrong with his comments on quality of Scottish football. 

Need to hope players can lift themselves quickly as we need to be winning next 4 games if we are to have any chance of getting 3rd again. 

I agree with everyone that we didn't do enough today. But I did think there was a plan which was to hit them on the break. It worked so well at pittodrie a few weeks ago, so I think it was worth a try. It just didn't work today. Rangers weren't good, we just weren't good enough. 

Hoofball to their two centre halves who won every header. 

Then Morris and Duk on to save the day. They were both far too wide and both did nothing to hurt Rangers.

The distribution all day was woeful. The three centre halves won headers but none of them could pass to anyone in red.

So many opportunities from set pieces yet wasted them all.

Roos excellent and kept us in the game. Unlucky with the goal as think it deflects off Rubezic. 

Convinced our midfield is stronger with Polvara & Barron in it.

Much as I loved Shinnie first time around, I'm far from convinced that he is part of our strongest team 

Should never have been given the length of contract he was.

Cheque book should be thrown at Barron and the team built around him.

Bring on the scorn 😉

5 minutes ago, BigAl said:

Convinced our midfield is stronger with Polvara & Barron in it.

Much as I loved Shinnie first time around, I'm far from convinced that he is part of our strongest team 

Should never have been given the length of contract he was.

Cheque book should be thrown at Barron and the team built around him.

Bring on the scorn 😉

I'll defend Shinnie.

You're suggesting Barron starting ahead of him. That's not because he's a better player, it's because they are two different players. Shinnie today was being asked to play as some sort of playmaker which he has never been in his entire career. 

Shinnie is still a good player but doesn't fit into Robson's system. And what was evident today is that Clarkson doesn't fit into it either, he's wasted. You had the final 10 minutes, out most creative midfielder on the pitch, just switching play to Devlin because he had the space available to lump in a long ball before being closed down.

Slightly less controversially potentially, Hayes needs to be used far more sparingly

Agree with pretty much everything said and moved my comment to the January window. Change of approach needed. We cannot continue with the current shit.

Worst thing is thr BBC Scottish Football websites first 12 articles are now all about The Rangers.

 

But why do we freeze in the games that count? Did it against Hacken at Pittodrie. Did it against PAOK when we had alteady done the hard work. Did it again here. 

15 hours ago, OrlandoDon said:

Beginning to dislike duk, he’d rather dive/fall than keep going. He had the beating of his man 2-3 times but prefers to dive rather than see what he can create. I felt he could have created more than the free kicks he won gave us.

I couldn't be arsed commenting after yesterday's disaster, but this point still stands out for me. The folk round about me were screaming at the ref for not giving a freekick for one effort, but Duk was bearing down on the box and chose to throw himself to ground in an attempt to win a meaningless freekick. We were at the point in the game that we needed him charging into the box and taking shots, and it was a pathetic, lazy decision to go down on each occasion - completely lacking in responsibility. I'd be having a right go at him this week in training if I were Robson.

He didn't lose us the final of course, the result was on the cards before the subs as they had significantly upped their game and we struggled. It was a fairly awful game to be honest, one that we didn't deserve anything from. That is the difficulty with Robson's approach I guess. He mentioned that we had a few opportunities in the first half, and I totally understand what he means. The way he has set us up in these matches, we need that pass (like the Polvara vs Frankfurt one, and countless Clarkson efforts) to be made perfectly and at the right time for the run of the striker. There were probably 2, maybe 3, occasions in the first half where we either delayed or chose the wrong pass (Hayes' fucking dummy!). Shots on target is, therefore, a largely meaningless stat for us, because it's actually the pass to create that chance that is key for us, and the one that gets us the goals. They knew what was coming though, and had clearly done their work in training to keep the centre backs close together and ready to turn when our strikers made their move. They were significantly more switched on than the recent Pittodrie game. It was all a bit disappointing, and boring really. Thankfully we'll beat them at Hampden in May.

16 minutes ago, Reekie_Red said:

Worst thing is thr BBC Scottish Football websites first 12 articles are now all about The Rangers.

As opposed to just the first 11 every other day?

17 minutes ago, Reekie_Red said:

But why do we freeze in the games that count? Did it against Hacken at Pittodrie. Did it against PAOK when we had alteady done the hard work. Did it again here.

I don't think we froze in any of those games! Hacken we were set up pathetically, and it failed for obvious reasons, PAOK we were just unlucky, and yesterday we just weren't good enough. Other than Hacken, we were playing teams who were better than us, and the majority of the time you lose those games. Just like when we beat teams who are worse than us - it's never a case of them freezing, just a matter of odds. In reality, we need a bit of luck to go for us, or for the opponent to switch off or have a bad day in order to get a result most of the time. I'd also say that the game against the Hun at Ibrox counted earlier this season, and also the game that they cheated to get a draw at Pittodrie a few weeks back. Probably the biggest game I've seen us freeze in was the cup final against ICT, which we won anyway! We were up against a decent side yesterday (despite what many people suggest) and gave them a reasonable game at times, with a lot of effort on our part. Hayes was probably most culpable in terms of being panicky on the ball, but the rest seemed not overly affected by the occasion, they just weren't good enough.

 

Andrew Dallas was on VAR for both of these games.

Neither of them are penalties, but of course one was given.

26 minutes ago, Panda said:

 

Andrew Dallas was on VAR for both of these games.

Neither of them are penalties, but of course one was given.

The reaction of the player is what's key though, isn't it? I don't remember Gartenmann going down like he'd been speared in the back (although he does like a dive with minimal contact), whereas the Hun did, causing the check. Shirt holding is not a foul, impeding a player is, so Gartenmann should have thrown himself in the air (headbutting a Hun in the process) and then claimed.

 

21 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

The reaction of the player is what's key though, isn't it? I don't remember Gartenmann going down like he'd been speared in the back (although he does like a dive with minimal contact), whereas the Hun did, causing the check. Shirt holding is not a foul, impeding a player is, so Gartenmann should have thrown himself in the air (headbutting a Hun in the process) and then claimed.

 

Exactly that. For all most people - probably justifiably - complain when players throw themselves to the ground at the tiniest of contact, they've really got to if they won't get the decision if they don't. Poor officiating is the cause but Gartenmann should have gone down yesterday and given the officials as decision to make.

Surprised by the criticism of Duk, thought he did more to cause Sevco problems in 20 minutes than Miovski did the whole game. 

1 hour ago, wee toon red said:

Exactly that. For all most people - probably justifiably - complain when players throw themselves to the ground at the tiniest of contact, they've really got to if they won't get the decision if they don't. Poor officiating is the cause but Gartenmann should have gone down yesterday and given the officials as decision to make.

Its similiar to the PAOK game in that sense. Our penalty wasn't given or even checked cause our players weren't kicking up a fuss and making the check happen. Then when PAOK were given there penalty its because they all surrounded the referee and got the game stopped to look at the incident. I don't know if Robson has told them not to do that but it's naivety. I know people hate it but part of the modern game is to be good at winning fouls and influencing the referee. 

3 hours ago, DantheDon said:

Its similiar to the PAOK game in that sense. Our penalty wasn't given or even checked cause our players weren't kicking up a fuss and making the check happen. Then when PAOK were given there penalty its because they all surrounded the referee and got the game stopped to look at the incident. I don't know if Robson has told them not to do that but it's naivety. I know people hate it but part of the modern game is to be good at winning fouls and influencing the referee. 

I think the PAOK one was actually probably a penalty though. We're really arguing here for Gartenmann to engineer us a penalty to give us parity with the Hun, which I don't think any of us actually want.

5 hours ago, Kowalski said:

Surprised by the criticism of Duk, thought he did more to cause Sevco problems in 20 minutes than Miovski did the whole game. 

The criticism is because he could have caused even more problems by driving into the box instead of diving at the first point of (minimal) contact. Miovski put in a shift, but couldn't get in the game, he didn't shirk his responsibility - his game relies on the vision and accuracy of others. Duk decided to go down when he could have gambled on something better. I'd put him in the same category as Hayes yesterday, who just didn't take any responsibility on the ball. Playing within himself is not what we needed in a final, and that's what he did. He's capable of so much better.