Under Danny Lennon we have a pretty good record of making it to cup quarter-finals. This is the fourth out of a possible fifth we could have made under his stewardship, the only blip coming in his first attempt when Ross County put us out of the League Cup on penalties. The problem has been making it to the next stage - and our previous three quarter-finals under Lennon are all cases of what might have been. Last season's League Cup exit to Ayr was a joke, while dodgy refereeing did us out of a win over Hearts in the Scottish Cup. The most annoying, ironically, was against tomorrow night's opponents. Last year we were two minutes from putting Aberdeen out of the Scottish Cup before we conceded a goal in stoppage time and lost the replay. This is a chance for revenge and to right all those quarter-final wrongs.
With Lennon in charge we've also had a decent run of results against Aberdeen. During Gus MacPherson's era I can only recall one win (another last minute goal denying us at least another) but since Lennon came along we've only suffered two defeats from 11 games - one of those being the Scottish Cup defeat I mentioned earlier. We've won four of them, the others being draws, so we aren't doing too badly. We've even managed a win at Pittodrie, the only time that has happened in 25 years.
So, combine a Lennon St Mirren side, a cup game and a meeting with Aberdeen and you have a good chance of a Buddies win. Right? Wrong! Because our cup record against Aberdeen is absolutely atrocious. We've only ever beaten them in one League Cup tie and have only ever managed to beat them twice in cup games at Pittodrie - nearly a century ago! The last time we beat them in any cup match was the 1959 Scottish Cup Final. Clearly history is against us and is something we need to overcome if we're to book a spot at Hampden.
There wasn't a lot wrong on Saturday when we lost to Dundee United, the problem was there wasn't a great deal right either. We rarely looked in danger of losing the game but caused United few problems ourselves in a game that looked destined to finish goalless. Things have to improve if we don't want our run of defeats - or lack of goals - to come to an end. The crossing from the likes of Dougie Imrie and Graham Carey needs to be better as it wasn't particularly great at the weekend so it wouldn't be a surprise to see Gary Teale brought into the side. Sam Parkin could also be brought in as Steven Thompson and Lewis Guy rarely looked like getting onto the end of the few decent balls into the box.
Kenny McLean should return and will almost certainly take over the midfield slot from Jon Robertson. His step up from Cowdenbeath has not gone well so far, with starts few and far between. When he does get a game he doesn't do much to impress, partly because he's being played slightly out of position. The man he replaced, Steven Thomson, had a similarly difficult start to his Saints career so hopefully Robbo can come good and doesn't turn out to be the next Paul McQuade. Our options are somewhat limited through injury so it's hard to see too many other changes with Grant Adam, Paul McGowan and Darren McGregor still sidelined.
Before the season started a number of people were tipping Aberdeen to claim the second spot that was up for grabs following the demise of Rangers. I couldn't quite understand what logic this was based on as they haven't exactly been brilliant in the last few years under Mark McGhee or Craig Brown, places in the bottom six becoming the norm. However, their recent form suggests they may well be able to live up to the hype. Their opening day loss at Parkhead is still their only defeat so far and it's a run that has seen them shoot up to third, with only Hibs side keeping them out of the much coveted second place. They've still had too many draws but they have begun clocking up the wins so that second spot could become a reality.
Aberdeen have a striker who enjoys scoring against us in the shape of Scott Vernon. In the last two years the former Colchester frontman has scored five goals and after a patchy start to the season he'll be delighted at the prospect of boosting his tally against us. The problem for Aberdeen in recent years has been in finding someone who can play alongside him and score just as regularly. Chris Maguire did it before heading to Derby and since then the likes of Josh Magennis and Mo Chalali have been fairly incompetent. Fortunately for Aberdeen they now have Niall McGinn, who has been in terrific form in the last few weeks and even scored for Northern Ireland against Portugal.
Given Aberdeen's lack of goals last season it's probably just as well they had a pretty strong defence, which has been boosted further by the return of keeper Jamie Langfield and the arrival of Gary Naysmith. The capture of Russell Anderson earlier in the year was a good move by Brown, the former Dons defender having endured a horrific few years with injury in England. Putting him with Andrew Considine in defence is a pretty good move, as is getting Mark Reynolds back for another spell on loan.
Anderson isn't the only player in his second spell at Pittodrie, Chris Clark returning last year after a few seasons with Plymouth. The pair, along with Considine, are products of an Aberdeen youth system that is already producing it's next batch of talented stars. Cammy Smith is the next Dennis Bergkamp according to Brown, while Ryan Fraser has been compared to some of the tricky wingers from Scotland's glory days. Another winger capable of causing us problems is Johnny Hayes, another player who had a habit of scoring against us when he was at Inverness Caley Thistle. He doesn't seem to know what he's about to do most of the time which makes it rather hard for opposition defences to cope with him.
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