DONS CAN’T DWELL ON THE PAST
‘Revenge’ against Celts not on Docherty’s mind
Aberdeen assistant boss Tony Docherty insists revenge is not on his mind as the Dons bid to end Celtic’s unbeaten domestic run in Saturday’s Scottish Cup Final.
The 46-year-old, who grew up in Greenhills, is number two to Derek McInnes at Pittodrie and they stand between the Hoops and an historic treble at Hampden Park.
Over the course of the season, Aberdeen have lost all five encounters with Brendan Rodgers’ invincibles, who wrapped up the league title at a canter and beat the Dons 3-0 in the League Cup Final in November.
However, Docherty insists all that goes out the window ahead of the showpiece match.
Aberdeen go into the clash off the back of their first victory over Rangers at Ibrox for 26 years and a 6-0 thrashing of Partick Thistle in Sunday’s final match of the Scottish Premiership campaign, while Celtic are on a streak of 45 games without defeat.
Docherty told the News: “We are not looking at anything else or our previous games this season.
“It’s one game, us against them and that’s what we focus on.
“What’s happened before is in the past.
“They are a great side Celtic, nobody has managed to beat them all year, but for us it comes down to Saturday 27th of May, 3pm, 11 against 11.
“We will do everything we can to win this particular game with no reference to what’s happened this season.
“We’ve had a fantastic run of games where we beat really good opposition to get to the final.
“After the defeat in the League Cup final, the players wanted to get back to Hampden and they’ve done that. “Now we need to address this game. “We are in a good place right now. We’ve taken a lot of confidence from last couple of weeks when we beat Rangers at Ibrox for the first time since 1991.
“That’s no mean feat and the boys take a lot of credit for that.
“We are buzzing that we are back at Hampden and have given ourselves the opportunity to go and win it.
“We will try as best we can to get our game plan across and exploit Celtic’s weaknesses.
“If we can impose our strengths on them as much as we can that will give us the best chance to win the game.” Meanwhile, the man in the middle for the crunch clash will be East Kilbride referee Bobby Madden. Both Madden and Docherty are former players for local amateur side East Kilbride YM, although they never played together at the club, and Docherty has welcomed his appointment.
He said: “I never knew Bobby was an East Kilbride boy until recently.
“Since I found out I’ve had a good blether with him and I’m delighted for him to get the game.
“He’s a good guy and I have a lot of time for him.
“I think he’s the best referee going about at the moment.
“On merit, he has been handed this game and I’m really happy for him.
“I’m really happy for us as well because we know we’ve got a strong referee.
“It’s going to need a strong referee on the day to handle the magnitude of this game and Bobby has certainly shown in his recent form that he’s the man to do it.”