The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Pawlett has some final Peter missed out on Reds big days
Missing out on big moments is something that would gnaw at most professional sportspeople but Peter Pawlett sees things in a different light.
A groin injury curtailed any hopes of featuring in the 2014 League Cup final with Aberdeen finally seeing off Caley Thistle on penalties to end a 19-year wait for silverware.
An Achilles problem threatened to keep him out of his swansong last year against Celtic but he was a frustrated bystander, remaining an unused substitute as Tom Rogic sank the winner.
Pawlett left the Granite City last summer for Milton Keynes Dons and his first foray out of Scotland.
He has sampled cup final day but never played, although he did scoop a winners’ medal in 2014.
The Dons face Motherwell tomorrow with the chance to reach a third final in two years and Pawlett appreciates the learning experiences Derek McInnes does not believe he has to guide Aberdeen to Scottish Cup glory in order to vindicate his decision to remain at Pittodrie – but the Dons boss would love to end the club’s 28-year wait for success in the competition.
McInnes, who spurned the advances of Sunderland and Rangers in the last 12 months, stands on the verge of steering Aberdeen to successive Scottish Cup finals if his side can defeat Motherwell at Hampden that came with missing out on some of the biggest days in the fixture calendar.
He said: “It’s part of the disappointment that comes with football. These opportunities don’t come around very often and you have to take them. Park tomorrow. However, should he end the club’s long wait for success in the competition with silverware next month, he insists he would not feel any extra justification in his choice to remain at Pittodrie.
He said: “I don’t think it does that, I have to be comfortable with my own decisions and I have nothing to get hung up on.
“You live and die with your decisions and I believe that while the chairman is here and I am here that we
“But you have to learn from the disappointments too.
“We maybe didn’t achieve what we wanted to, getting to so many finals.
“We won the League Cup – I didn’t play but still got a medal, as I’d played every game up to can be good enough to be competitive.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted Aberdeen to be and we weren’t that for a long time but we certainly have been for the last few years.”
While the club is making great strides off the park, with a new stadium and training ground in the pipeline, McInnes admits that winning trophies will mean more than all their off-field progress.
McInnes said: “I think what we’ve done in the last then. I tore my groin a couple of weeks before the final and could have played, but I would have to come off after a minute or two.
“Jonny (Hayes) came off after a minute and in a game that went to extra time and penalties, for two of us to go off early it few years has been a lot of good work from everyone on and off the park. There’s been a lot of good energy, we are now debt-free after coming in when we were so many millions in debt and didn’t have a team of value on the pitch. We are now knocking back offers of over £1million for Scott McKenna and we had seven players away on international duty last month.
“We now have that team of value on the park, the club is busy and there is a would have been detrimental to the team.
“It was disappointing but the main thing was we won the cup.”
The Scottish Cup is the one trophy that has eluded not just McInnes but every Dons manager dating back to Alex Smith. lot to do. We have a training ground and a new stadium to look forward to and that is all positive but ultimately you want trophies to show for that.
“That is what supporters want as I’m sure they will be grateful for a new stadium and pleased that we are getting a new stadium but it’s not the most important thing to them. It’s not the most important thing to me or the players either, it’s actually winning trophies.”