WILLIE Miller always had a strange way of raising a trophy. Where other captains went straight up and over-the-head, Aberdeen’s greatest player splayed two arms in opposite directions and clutched the cup in one hand. From Glasgow to Gothenburg, the one-handed lift became a potent symbol of Aberdeen power.
The Granite City was an intoxicating place to be in the 1980s. Success and prosperity stalked the streets and even impoverished students, like this one, could smell the money. On cup final days a convoy of buses filed south to taunt fans of Celtic and Rangers over life in their Glasgow slums. By 11pm the victorious hordes would be back in town, heading to Ma Camerons or the Prince of Wales to spend their disposable income on a celebratory night cap.
By the 1990s the trophies, like the oil, had slowed to a trickle. Planners approved giant shopping arcades either side of Union Street and, like most main streets, all the old thoroughfare has to offer these days is vape shops, fast food joints and vacant signs.
For Aberdeen, then, the Scottish Cup is more than a rare bloody nose for Celtic. It’s an injection of civic pride to a city battered by a decline in oil and gas production, job losses, pay cuts, plunging house prices and a football team which spent years failing to win a goldfish in a fair. When the supporters’ buses hit Union Street on Saturday night, it felt like old times.
No one gave them an earthly of rolling back the years at Hampden. No one, that is, but the legendary captain who acquired his god-like status by lifting all those trophies with one hand.
The Nostradamus of the North East, Miller caused some guffawing amongst Celtic supporters heading for the national stadium when he took to the Sportsound airwaves and predicted a penalty shoot out and some Dimitar Mitov heroics. They’re not laughing now.
It’s not hard to imagine what the reaction might have been if Jimmy Thelin’s men had gone down meekly to Celtic yet again. Three times this season his team had shipped five goals or more to the champions. Another walloping and the knives would have been out.
It doesn’t take much these days. Since 2019, when chairman Dave Cormack took charge, Aberdeen have gone through five managers. That sounds like a guillotine until you consider that Hearts, Hibs, Dundee and Kilmarnock will all be on their seventh boss in six years come the start of next season.
The average lifespan of a manager in the Scottish Premiership these days is now 12.75 months. It’s a precarious way to make a living.
Thelin’s Dons had won four of their last 13 games. After an outstanding start they contrived to finish fifth in the league. Defensively they leaked like a sieve. If they’d turned up and shipped another five goals on Saturday, you can bet your life there would have been fans calling for the Swede to go the same way as Jim Goodwin, Barry Robson and Stephen Glass and Neil Warnock.
It’s been a good week for managerial pragmatism. Ange Postecoglou found a way to win a dreadful Europa League final by replacing Angeball with Angewall. Ditching his usual 4-2-3-1, Thelin nicked Stephen Robinson’s tactics and went with five at the back.
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Aberdeen’s first-half display was woeful, failing to improve until Thelin threw caution to the wind with brave substitutions. Low on quality, big on courage, the Pittodrie men were losing the cup until Kasper Schmeichel’s howler dragged them back in.
Maybe the fans in the Celtic end of Hampden should have clocked the warning signs when their team opened the scoring with a stroke of luck before half-time.
When Alfie Dorrington turned the ball past Mitov there was no jubilation, barely any celebration at all. Celtic looked like a team so accustomed, so desensitised, to winning they’d forgotten how to enjoy it. They reeked of complacency.
Every team needs to feel the pain etched on Callum McGregor’s face at full time. In recent times Celtic have played like a team wrapped in a comfort blanket, insulated from football’s harsh realities. They’d lifted trophies they’d barely deserved to win and at some point they were bound to come unstuck.
Now that they have, questions abound. Brendan Rodgers has yet to commit to a contract extension and, before he does, he’ll look for evidence of an ambition to up the ante in the transfer market.
They did it last summer and that’s half the problem. Handed a king’s ransom by SPFL standards, the Parkhead boss spent £11 million on Arne Engels, a player hooked after an hour at Hampden. Adam Idah cost £9m and made no impact. Auston Trusty? Despite lavishing £6m on him they’re still fielding Liam Scales at the heart of defence.
For the Celtic board this stuff poses a fiscal dilemma. The choice seems to be to trust Rodgers with tens of millions of pounds for more of the same, or reverting to type by targeting project players in the £2.5m-£3m range. The middle ground never seems to get a look in.
A club with £80m in the bank shouldn’t be finishing a cup final against Aberdeen with Jonny Kenny up front, Greg Taylor in midfield, the infuriatingly inconsistent Yang shanking cross after cross off the pitch and Schmeichel chucking in goals.
Take the injured duo of Jota and Reo Hatate out and the squad lacks depth and quality; a situation exacerbated by the sale of the unhappy Kyogo Furuhashi to Rennes in January.
Rodgers can’t escape scrutiny for what happened at Hampden. It didn’t feel right to go with the same starting eleven as trophy day against St Mirren when some players seemed more intent on playing their way out of Hampden team than playing their way in.
Nicholas Kuhn started the season like a man on fire and finished it playing like a man with one eye on the exit.
With Idah up front, meanwhile, Celtic racked up 82 per cent possession, won 15 corners and still fail to test the opposition keeper until Daizen Maeda squandered a golden chance for glory at the death.
Rodgers has plenty of credit in the bank. Since his first spell Celtic have won 21 of the 27 trophies up for grabs. They’ve claimed eight out of nine titles, seven League Cups and six of the nine Scottish Cup.
They’ve wrapped themselves so tightly around Scottish football you can hardly blame fans of the other clubs for laughing up their sleeve at their weekend demise. Even Celtic have to acknowledge that a different name on the trophy is good for the game.
When push came to shove, the Scottish Cup went to the team which wanted it more. And blowing a final they shouldn’t have lost to Aberdeen might be the reset Celtic need.
The wake-up call which reminds them how painful defeat can be. And how joyous it should feel to win.
