Whether he would have been quite as candid had the draw worked out differently is another matter but Derek McInnes was refreshingly honest in stating that he was pleased not to have to deal with the champions at Hampden again, for now at least, after the Scottish Cup semi-final draw was made yesterday.
The Aberdeen manager even felt sufficiently confident of his ground in doing so as to speak on behalf of the man against whom he will now pit his wits in the semi-final as he suggested that Neil Lennon, his Hibs counterpart, will be of like mind on having avoided a clash with the club he won six Scottish Cups at, four as a player and two as their manager.
“It’s a good draw. Hibs will see it exactly the same,” McInnes asserted.
“If we’re all being honest, the three other teams wanted to avoid Celtic, the strongest team at the minute.”
It was the sort of statement of the obvious, given Celtic’s superiority in the domestic game, that is often avoided because of a wariness about any possibility of being interpreted as showing disrespect to another opponent. However McInnes quickly added the caveat that made it clear that his team will be treating Hibs as the cup holders rather than as opponents from a lower division which they may, in any case, no longer be by the time the semi-final takes place on April 22.
“It’s nothing against Hibs. I’m sure Neil will be just as pleased as us,” McInnes reiterated.
“In a semi-final you get tough opponent and we are up against an experienced manger who has experience of them winning cup. They’re the holders and the players they have, it will be a very close game. We just need to go there in good form.”
He noted that Hibs have already faced one of the biggest possible challenges to a successful defence of the trophy they had waited so long to win when they met Edinburgh rivals Hearts in the previous round and beat them after a replay and while their personnel is very similar he reckons they are better equipped than they were a year ago.
“They weren’t favourites in the last round but that counted for nothing,” McInnes pointed out.
“They’re arguably better than last year, when they weren’t expected to win but did and they all get a lift from beating their closest rivals. It is well documented how strong they are, so we will give them every respect.”
He is also anxious to see his side, that has looked the best other than Celtic this season in drawing clear in second place in the Premiership having reached the League Cup final, give themselves another chance of rewarding that form with silverware
“We are 90 minutes away from another final,” said McInnes.
“We said at start of season we wanted to win two cups. One final didn’t go how we wanted, but we said after that game that we can start to feel better about ourselves by revisiting another final as quick as possible.
‘We’re close now, so hopefully we can get to the final and find a performance to win the thing.”
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