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.