ANY notion that Aberdeen were somehow relieved to be out of the League Cup in order to concentrate upon their Ladbrokes Premiership title bid was quickly dispelled by a glance at Andrew Considine's ashen face. The Pittodrie defender had just been unable to prevent the Dons being eased out of the competition at the expense of Hibs and Considine looked like he had seen a ghost. While there was precious little between these teams, this was a strangely off colour display and utterly out of keeping with the eight league wins to start the season which represents Aberdeen's best ever start to a campaign.
Whether this was a bubble bursting or just a warning shot across the boughs will be determined in Inverness on Saturday, when the Dons will hope to maintain their five-point advantage on Celtic at the top of the table.
"It could be [a blessing in disguise] but if you ask any of the boys or any of the supporters they would rather have won this tie," said Considine. "We were well warned about Hibs but they bit us on the bum big time. It is a competition we would have liked to go far in. We got to experience winning this trophy a couple of years ago which was fantastic so it is a bit doom and gloom right now but the boys have been on a fantastic league run and it is important we continue that."
If this match, which saw the Premiership league leaders vanquished by the Championship one, was a corrective to events at Ibrox on Tuesday night, in truth both matches illustrated that if you get the right game plan and execute it well enough good things can happen. While Rangers were cavalier on Tuesday night against St Johnstone, Hibs were conservative, playing a resolute 3-5-2 shape and attempting to keep as much of the ball is possible. It made for a far poorer spectacle but Aberdeen eventually ran out of steam and the Easter Road club got the result.
"It definitely is our first setback," admitted Considine. "We just fully weren't at the races. We had a couple of chances second half, nothing clear cut, but ones we could have taken, and probably would have taken the way we were playing at the weekend against Hearts. It is a real sore one to take but hopefully we can just forget about it and move on to Saturday. Ever since I have been a young boy watching Aberdeen in the stands, the start of this season really has been something special. There were about 3,000 fans at Easter Road on a Wednesday night, which is unbelievable so it is great to see they have that faith in us. Inverness will be a tough one, it is always tough up there, it will be a tough atmosphere and a battle. It is always very close we just need to have our heads screwed on to get the result we are after."
Aberdeen's attempts to get up to speed will almost certainly have to proceed without Willo Flood and Graeme Shinnie, both of whom limped off during the win at Easter Road, although Jonny Hayes returns after suspension. "Willo has done his ankle again, the same one which was kept him in and out over the last wee while and Shinnie, some sort of heel problem is going on there, he felt after the first few runs there was some sort of impingement going on with his heel," said McInnes. "He had difficulty pushing off but hopefully it will disappear as quickly as it arrived."
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