Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Cosgrove out but Dons boss feels his side can still progress tonight
ABERDEEN have been dealt a major blow after top scorer Sam Cosgrove was ruled out of their Europa League showdown with Rijeka tonight.
However, Pittodrie boss Derek McInnes insists his Dons still have enough firepower to overturn their 2-0 first-leg deficit.
The Reds crashed to defeat in Croatia last Thursday but will not be able to rely upon Cosgrove, who has already found the back of the net eight times in just six appearances so far this season.
The 22-year-old sat out Sunday’s surprise defeat at St Mirren with a tight hamstring and has failed to recover in time for the Rijeka return.
McInnes said: “Sam is out and so is Craig Bryson.
“But as important a player as Sam is, we’ve shown we can get to a level of performance without key players in the past.
“We’ve got enough attacking threat in the team that we shouldn’t be solely reliant on Sam. We hope to show that tonight.”
The Dons have previous with the Croatians, having dumped them out of the competition in 2015 but it was the hosts who last week claimed the upper hand as McInnes’ team paid the price for a lack of cutting edge.
However, the Aberdeen boss believes his side can create one of the great Pittodrie nights by overturning Rijeka’s lead and securing progress to the play-off round.
He said: “That’s t he intention. We would love to make this a game to be remembered.
“I’m not looking at this as an impossible task.
“It’s half-time in the tie. We’ve come back from Croatia kicking ourselves that we’ve allowed it to get to 2-0.
“Having watched it back, the game was uneventful and, for the majority of it , a lot of our work was good. But we’ll have to carry more of a threat.”