CELTIC V ABERDEEN
Make sure it’s you sitting there with a beer in your hand and a winner’s medal around your neck.
If a picture is worth a thousand words then that image will save Derek McInnes his team talk on Saturday.
The Aberdeen manager has painted it for the players he knows he’ll be losing in the summer, key men who have helped him build the Dons into Scotland’s second force.
Men he thinks deserve to write a f itting conclusion to their Pittodrie story.
Niall McGinn, Ryan Jack, Peter Pawlett, maybe more, will be gone in a summer of flux after four years of stability.
And McInnes insists for them it’s less about denying Celtic the glory of a Treble and an unbeaten season – and more about making their own history.
He said: “We’ve done well not to lose more players than we have before now but there’s a natural course to these things – and if we lose good players, we’ll sign good players.
“But I’ve already spoken to two or three of them, who we know for sure are leaving. I said it before the semi-final. First of all, make sure you are in that team for the Final.
“Make sure your last game for Aberdeen is us sitting in the dressing room together, bottle of beer and a winners’ medal in your hand.
“It’s important you arrive at a club with a certain perception but it’s really important how you leave a club.
“And if players can leave with a winner’s medal, if McGinn, Pawlett, whoever else may be leaving can write their own story then it’s a great way to go. It would be really fitting if they left as winners.”
When it comes to the Scottish Cup, McInnes is an incurable romantic, a kid who grew up treasuring the time spent with his dad Duncan on the biggest day of the season, who now makes it a family occasion with his own boys every year.
Except this year, when he’ ll be standing on the touchline instead of sat in front of the TV – and the romantic will become the realist as his club chase a trophy they haven’t won in 27 years against a side who still haven’t lost to domestic opposition all season.
The 45- year- old admitted: “I’ve probably not had a bigger day than this in my career.
“I’m just delighted we have a shot at winning it because the players have earned the opportunity. We’ve beaten some good teams to get here but we now face the best team.
“The Cup Final has always been special for me, when I was a boy growing up, the last game of the season, regardless of who was playing.
“I loved the build-up, my dad sitting with a couple of cans of beer and we’d watch the game. It was always a big deal in the house and it’s a big deal in my house as well. The last few years