Derek: Rangers better but they are beatable
Derek McInnes last night challenged his players to believe they can topple title-chasers Rangers on Wednesday night.
Aberdeen were thrashed 5-0 at Ibrox at the end of September, a wounding result for the Pittodrie men and their manager.
However, after watching his side see off St Mirren at Pittodrie yesterday with their 500th goal under his time in charge, McInnes was in bullish mood.
“We needed to knuckle down after losing to Celtic and other than last week when we should have had a penalty it could have been five wins out of five,” said the former West Bromwich Albion midfielder.
“Four out of five is not bad shooting and now we face one of the strongest teams in the country, because Rangers and Celtic are playing at such a good level at the minute.
“Rangers are a better team than us, they have better players but we can win the game.
“It is important my players believe that when they go out there that we can do so well in the game and can get close to what we want.”
His message was echoed by keeper Joe Lewis, whose late penalty save from Tony Andreu helped secure the points.
“We need to show a much better mentality,” he said.
“Even if we could have made things easier for ourselves we need to take the momentum of a win into the Rangers game.
“Rangers will be aggressive, they’re a good team but we need to not sit off them, not have too much respect for them.
“We need to have an aggression and competitiveness about us that the shirt deserves.
“We know roughly how they’ll play, they’ll be here to win but we’ll make sure we’re ready.
“We have to win our games against them if we want to catch them.”
St Mirren manager Jim Goodwin insisted Lewis should not have been on the pitch to save the penalty as Steven McLean should have sent him off for the foul on Obika.
Lewis himself, though, begged to differ.
“I think it was a penalty, to be honest, I did catch him, although it was a genuine attempt for the ball,” said the 32-year-old former England Under-21 international.
“I’m not sure if he flung himself into me but there was contact.
“My protest was a bit half-hearted so I knew I had no choice, I had to save it.
“The ball was almost too close to me to parry it wide with the first save but there was good pressure on him for the rebound.”