It may be 18 years since Aberdeen last won at Ibrox, but ending the Dons’ miserable run of results at Rangers pales in comparison to beating Dundee tonight, insists Mark McGhee.
The Dons manager is well aware of the club’s love-hate relationship with the two national cup competitions and with the Pittodrie boardroom having been empty since 1995, McGhee knows where his priorities lie.
A trip to First Division side Dundee tonight represents another daunting banana skin of a game for the Dons players, many of whom will never forget the names Queen of the South, Queen’s Park or Dunfermline, lower league teams who made McGhee’s predecessor Jimmy Calderwood suffer.
The former Motherwell manager, however, is taking no notice of what has gone before his arrival, preferring to focus on matters he can control, and winning at Dens Park tonight is his number one priority this week.
He said: “The tie with Dundee is more important than the game with Rangers on Saturday. We can recover if we lose at Ibrox and maybe only drop a place in the league if we do.
“Saturday is way down in terms of importance because no one expects us to win there whereas everyone expects us to beat Dundee. This is a tie we should expect to win but at Ibrox we will go out and try to win. Tomorrow night is the priority. There is more pressure on Aberdeen than Dundee, there always is when a team from a higher league plays opponents from a lower division.”
The weight of expectation may rest heavily on the shoulders of the Aberdeen players, but McGhee believes his club is meeting another team struggling to cope with a demanding supporter base in Dundee.
The Dark Blues are promotion favourites in the First Division after their well-publicised financial clout, but they have struggled to get wins on board so far this season and McGhee wants to take advantage tonight.
He said: “I think this is the right time to play Dundee. There's been a fair bit of investment in their team but it is early days, they are only going to get better and become more dangerous.
“They are not getting it all their own way. Their fans are expectant, they have high hopes which brings pressure. There is a little more discontent and less forgiveness when a mistake is made.
“They have nothing to lose and if they work hard and lose narrowly they will be forgiven. But no matter hard we try and how well we play, if we lose there won't be a lot of forgiveness around.
“We are getting better and must use the game to move forward. But at this stage, I don't believe that the need to win a trophy brings too much pressure on us because the final is too distant."
The Dons are unchanged from the squad which beat St Mirren on Saturday, although defender Zander Diamond is going to see specialist in Glasgow today for a third opinion on his ankle injury which is failing to ease.