Motherwell and Aberdeen meet at Pittodrie on Wednesday with a place in the Scottish Cup quarter-final up for grabs.
This re-arranged tie comes only four days after the teams met at Fir Park in the league. Motherwell were the better team and deserved the 2-0 win. The supporters who travel from Lanarkshire will hope for a similar outcome to earn a trip to Dunfermline on Saturday 7 March.
Aberdeen fielded a much changed side on Saturday as they introduced winter signings to their fans in the South stand. There was a change in the dugout too with Tony Docherty adding some experience to the leaderless team but there was no upturn in their run of disappointing results.
Motherwell will be not be able to include Stephen Welsh as his appearance for Celtic against Auchinleck makes labels him cup-tied. Better news is that Lukas Fadinger’s suspension does not apply in the cup competition and we can expect to see him back in midfield.
Tawanda Maswanhise looked frustrated as he failed to score on Sunday but his determination to win the ball caused much discomfort to the Dons’ defence. They collected six yellow cards in their attempts to end surging ‘Well attacks.
Eli Just scored his fifth of the season at the weekend to give Motherwell a winning platform. He has been a major cog in Jens Berthel Askou’s revolution and he will likely play an important part if Motherwell are to progress.
Some long memories
will recall Stevie Kirk fire the gun for the winning cup run in the early
90s. Others will celebrate Craig Reid
bundling that ball into the beach end goal in 2014 to make Motherwell league
runners-up at the cost of the Dons.
It is time for another
to write his name into ‘Well history with an extra-time goal after a 1-1 in
regulation time.
