THE history books will show that it was a second minute injury to goalkeeper Jim Leighton which put Aberdeen's tactical plans into disarray, writes Rob Robertson.
The look on the face of Ebbe Skovdahl, as he turned to the heavens in anguish, showed just how much damage the forced substitution of Leighton by Robbie Winters had had on his plans. That incident may have given Aberdeen an even harder task than they ever envisaged, but it was the injury to full- back Russell Anderson in 41 minutes which finally put paid to any ambition they had of winning the game.
He was replaced by Rachid Belabed who slotted into the right side of midfield with David Rowson dropping back to defence.
Until Anderson hobbled off Aberdeen had managed, in the main, to keep Rangers out of the danger areas although
schoolboy defending had allowed Giovanni van
Bronckhorst to open the
scoring five minutes earlier.
Till that point Skovdahl's decision to give responsibility to midfielder Eoin Jess had paid off and the 29-year-old was showing he wanted to run the show. It was fascinating to watch the battle in the middle of the park between Jess and Barry Ferguson, a confrontation that the more experienced Aberdeen man won early on.
However, after Anderson went off Ferguson upped a gear and by the end it was Jess who had become anonymous, lost in the slipstream of the Rangers midfielder who was motoring from penalty box to penalty box.
Another confrontation was between Andrei Kanchelskis and full-back Jamie McAllister. The Russian has had an
inconsistent season, but early on he realised he had the beating of the former Queen of the South defender, who was run ragged, particularly in the
second half.
Skovdahl did realise his defender needed protection and for a time in the first half moved Rowson, before he was forced to drop back to defence, on to the left-hand side in a swop with Andy Dow but the experiment was abandoned when it became clear Kanchelskis was in an unstoppable mood.
For Rangers, there had been much talk about Dick
Advocaat's decision to gamble on the fitness of Craig Moore in the centre of defence in place of Sergio Porrini.
The appearance of the
Australian was certainly a
surprise, especially considering that last Tuesday Advocaat said Moore ''was definitely out.''
As it turned out the defender was never put under serious pressure, although Arild Stavrum caused some problems in the channels down the right-hand side between Moore and Claudio Reyna.
Although it may have been a gamble, Advocaat always knew he had Porrini on the bench who could easily slot into the Rangers defence if needed and it was no surprise that the Italian got a run near the end when Moore started to tire.
In midfield Jorg Albertz was given too much room by Paul Bernard and the German always looked likely to score.
Up front for Rangers, Rod Wallace and Billy Dodds had the upper hand over Thomas Solberg and Derek Whyte and both of them were culpable for Rangers' opening goal when Van Bronckhorst was allowed to run from deep to score.
Overall, injuries to Leighton and Anderson and the fact that Rangers were four goals ahead in around 50 minutes, meant the game was over as a spectacle much too soon, with tactical decisions secondary to the knowledge that the Ibrox club simply had the better players.
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 hereComments are closed on this article