Devlin calls on Granite City side to take blame for Glasgow no show

LOSING to Rangers will always be tough to take for any Aberdeen manager, player or supporter. But the manner of this defeat will ensure the latest loss takes that bit longer to recover from for Aberdeen.

The aftermath of any reverse – especially a 5-0 thrashing – sees the blame game immediately begin and everyone on the park and in the dugout will need to take their share here.

Aberdeen made the trip to Ibrox on the back of a heartbreaking night in the

Betfred Cup as they missed out on a semi-final berth.

It didn’t exactly give the Dons the ideal pick-me-up. Outplayed and outclassed for the 90 minutes, perhaps the only positive that Derek McInnes could take was the fact that his side didn’t lose by an even greater margin.

“The basics were missing,” Mikey Devlin, the Aberdeen defender, said as he reflected on a torrid afternoon at Ibrox. “The appetite to get after them, we barely made a tackle, gave them too much space, lost poor goals, goals which were similar. That all comes from not doing the basics right and against a good

Rangers team you are punished if you let them play.

“It was 5-0 but it could have been worse and we all need to take a look at ourselves. I’ll start by doing that. It wasn’t good enough and collectively it wasn’t good enough but we have to pick ourselves up for the Hibs game next week.

“We’ve gone out of the cup at Hearts after extra-time and now we’ve lost another big game when we were miles off it.

“There are 11 players on the pitch who have to take responsibility for that. The manager set us out gave us tasks.

“He asks us to do the basics and represent the shirt of this club and we didn’t do that. This has nothing to do with the manager. It’s the players who have to take responsibility for what they gave out there.

“It’s not ideal that we’re missing key players and losing Andy Considine, who has been such a crucial player this season, was a blow but there were still players here who I thought could cause an upset. There were enough players out there who were here last year.

“The most disappointing thing is the nature we lost the game.

“You can lose to a good side but as an Aberdeen player in an Aberdeen team, there is far more demanded of you and it was miles away from what is expected by the manager or the supporters.”