Jimmy Thelin’s first season in charge of Aberdeen will be defined on Saturday with the Scottish Cup final against Celtic on the south side of Glasgow.
Win the Scottish Cup final against all the odds, ending the club’s 35-year wait in the process, and the campaign will go down in history with the Swede becoming just the fifth manager to lift the famous trophy.
He would join David Halliday, Eddie Turnbull, Sir Alex Ferguson and Alex Smith in an exclusive group.
Lose it – and let’s be honest, that is the more likely outcome – and I am afraid it will have to be chalked down as a disappointment.
On the face of it, a semi-final, a final and qualifying for Europe would be acceptable enough.
But despite the upheaval of 2023/24, the team achieved the same record in the cup competitions that season, and although finishing in the bottom six, amassed just five points fewer than Jimmy’s side has done.
Celtic go into this afternoon’s game on a high, desperate to clinch a sixth treble in just nine years and further extend their utter domination of our domestic game.
Brendan Rodgers has never lost a Scottish Cup tie, and has never been beaten at Hampden.
Under him, across his two spells in charge, they have won 15 out of 15 at the national stadium, picking up seven trophies along the way, with five of those victories coming against Aberdeen.
A couple have been tight affairs – most notably the penalty shoot-out to settle last season’s Scottish Cup semi-final – while others have been less so, the main case in point there being the 6-0 hammering meted out in the League Cup semi six months ago.
First and foremost, that will be the kind of score-line Jimmy Thelin will be desperate to avoid.
That might seem negative, but when you are up against what can be a ruthless and potent Celtic team, you must have that as a starting point.
Shut them down, deny them space, and limit goalscoring opportunities, and you give yourselves the chance to begin to gain a foothold in the match.
It is only once you have done that, and perhaps created a few doubts in Celtic minds, you can then look towards causing them major problems.
There is, of course, the option of going at Celtic right from kick-off, trying to impose your game on theirs, perhaps get a goal or two in front – but that is playing right into their hands, and they almost always capitalise on the gaps that sort of approach will leave.
I would be surprised if Aberdeen even contemplate such tactics.
What Jimmy will need is a solid structure, with every player on the pitch giving everything to close down their opponents. They will need to be fully concentrated for the 90 minutes and beyond if they are to pull off what would be a major shock.
It would be wonderful to see the old trophy being paraded around the city again, and I hope that is the case, but the chances are slim; only the most blindly optimistic fan would see genuine reason to expect that.
Logically it will, unfortunately, be yet another Celtic celebration.
Ross County got of jail in play-off first leg – they’ll need to be better to continue incredible Premiership stat
For the third year in a row, the Scottish football season will end in Dingwall with Ross County fighting for their lives.
In both 2023 and ‘24, they preserved their Premiership status – comfortably against Raith Rovers last season, much less so 12 months earlier, when their ultimate success over Partick Thistle came as a result of one of the most dramatic encounters I have covered throughout my broadcasting career.
Now, they have to overcome Livingston if they are to extend their six-year stay in the top-flight, and having got out of jail with that late penalty in the first leg, they will fancy their chances on Monday night.
But Livingston were the better team on Thursday, and they cannot be counted out.
The fact that County have spent 12 of the past 13 seasons at the highest level is an incredible statistic; it will still take a huge effort to extend that run further.
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