McInnes provides a vote of confidence to bargain-buy Sam
FOR the cost of a fairly standard weekly wage of a Celtic first-team player, Derek McInnes bought himself a striker in January. When Aberdeen handed over £20,000 in exchange for a young forward with eight English League Two appearances, it didn’t register as a piece of business designed to worry the Old Firm or for tackling tough European tests.
The selling club, it seems, were among the puzzled. ‘Carlisle were probably as surprised as anyone when we made the call,’ McInnes suggested of his swoop for Sam Cosgrove.
Doing the obvious clearly wasn’t part of the plan for keeping Rangers at arm’s length for the second-place sprint down the late-season stretch or central to another summer rebuild under McInnes in preparation for a Europa League start.
So it was the 21-year-old, with one goal in six starts for Carlisle, who impressively led the line at Burnley on Thursday as the seventh-best club in the Premier League required 210 minutes to beat Aberdeen over two legs.
McInnes remains on the lookout for a scorer to augment his squad but, until then, Cosgrove will share the load with Stevie May.
An ex-Everton youngster who was loaned out to Barrow, Chorley and — as recently as last year — North Ferriby United while on Wigan’s books, Cosgrove will challenge the improved Rangers defence today.
‘My chief scout spotted him and we viewed him as something different,’ said McInnes. ‘If you can’t bring someone better in, it’s vital it is something different. And he’s certainly that.
‘We were originally going to pre-contract him and do a cross-border thing at the end of the season but paid £20,000 up front with add-ons if he does well.
‘Sam has been thrown into a couple of games and done well for us. In every game he’s started we haven’t lost over 90 minutes.
‘His physical size gives us an out. We were quite English in our look at Burnley. We had to be big enough to deal with what they threw at us.
‘I’m confident Sam can get goals. We need another striker in to help him and Stevie and have options and ways of playing against different opponents. But he did his job well in the last couple of games.’
McInnes spent a third summer in a row hearing propaganda about Rangers being ready to reclaim one of the top two spots in the Ladbrokes Premiership.
The Steven Gerrard factor was the prime mover in this close-season’s hype. The Dons shopping in England’s fourth tier may have had something to do with that, too.
When asked what gives him the belief Aberdeen can see off a Rangers squad fresh from yet another revamp, McInnes said: ‘We’ve never had the ability to spend money so it’s all about how we work as a club, a squad and a staff. We have a way of working that helps us. We want to do things better than anyone else be it preparation or video analysis.
‘We have a close-knit group that has taken us a long way and we’ll lean on all those things to try and bridge the gap again. I just need us to be as competitive as we can again. Wherever you end up is where you deserve to be — apart from the first season when we finished third and deserved to finish second!
‘When Hearts and Hibs came up, it was said we’d be pushed aside — and the same with Rangers. But we just need to do our work as best we can.
‘The league will be stronger this year. With Steven Gerrard coming in, Rangers will improve. Hibs will be stronger again, as will Hearts. And it would be difficult to say Celtic won’t be stronger again. The challenge is for us to be that as well and make sure we’re in amongst it.’
McInnes believes the Aberdeen fans, set to give Gerrard a hot reception to the Scottish game today, should be filled with anticipation for seeing a more understated evolution take shape at Pittodrie in the weeks to come.
The Scott McKenna-Mikey Devlin partnership, Lewis Ferguson’s stunning goal and the prospect of more exposure for Scott Wright are among the teasers ahead of a bid for a fifth consecutive runners-up berth.
‘I felt over the two Burnley games and pre-season that the squad can do well,’ said McInnes. ‘And the ovation from the fans at the end at Turf Moor isn’t just in recognition of the players’ efforts in the last two games. There should also be excitement they’re watching a team they enjoy watching. ‘People always talk about what you haven’t got and “you need this or that”. I get that and we’ll try and bring in necessary support. But there’s enough here to be confident about. ‘We’ve made signings such as (Stephen) Gleeson, Ferguson, (Chris) Forrester and (Tommie) Hoban but Devlin and Cosgrove (left) seem like new players despite being with us last year.’ The blow of exiting Europe might have dragged the Dons down ahead of a domestic kick-off. With Rangers the visitors, there is little chance of that being allowed to happen.
McInnes said: ‘Some games would be more difficult to get up for but we’ve got an early kick-off against Rangers — and what a fantastic game that will be.
‘It’s a good game to drag us out of any physical or mental lethargy as we asked a lot of them over the two games against Burnley.
‘But that is the business we’re in. We’ll have to dust ourselves down and be ready because we want to get a good start to the domestic campaign.’