Rooney: Dons will not give up on a double
HIS manager would sacrifice second place in the Premiership to lead Aberdeen to Scottish Cup glory.
But Adam Rooney believes the Dons can keep Derek McInnes happy by delivering BOTH this season.
The Reds’ gaffer admitted a fortnight ago that getting his hands on the Cup at Hampden is more important to him than finishing behind Celtic for the third season in a row. Rooney understands why. The Dons hot-shot, however, is determined to ensure his boss does not need to compromise at the business end of the campaign. “We’d like to get both,” said Rooney. “Whatever competition we’re in we’ve always tried to do the best we can.
“In the league, we always aim to challenge Celtic. In Europe, we try to get to the group stages of the Europa League. In the cup competitions, we try to win them.
“We always want to do as much as we can in every competition, so I wouldn’t say I’d sacrifice one for the other. “Ideally, we can go and do both.” Partick Thistle stand in the Dons’ way in today’s quarter-final clash at Pittodrie.
But having experienced defeat in the League Cup Final already this season, their desire to make amends is strong.
“After the League Cup Final, we said straight away that we wanted to get to
the final of the Scottish Cup,” Rooney said.
“We wanted to give ourselves another chance, and so far we’ve done what we needed to do.
“Hopefully we can go and win another trophy because that’s what all the lads and staff here want.
“It has been a long time since our last Scottish Cup Final, but it was the same with the League Cup before that.
“You can’t focus on the past and what teams haven’t done. We have to focus on ourselves.
“We’re confident we can win it. We just have to make sure we get past this round.”
It will not be easy for the Dons against a Thistle side who have not conceded in four matches.
But Rooney is confident Aberdeen have got the firepower to smash through the Jags’ rock-solid defence.
“They have had a few clean sheets, but we are capable of breaking that down,” he said.
“We’ve got players in the squad that can create, players with pace, players who can get the ball in the box and players that can score from distance.
“We’re also fairly strong at home, so we’re confident going into the game.
“Even if Thistle have had a lot of clean sheets, we believe we can find a way to break them down. We were the last team to score against them.
“We respect the run they are on but we can’t think too much about that. We have to focus on ourselves.”