Jimmy Thelin rubbished any claims that Celtic’s 6-0 victory over Aberdeen in the Premier Sports League Cup semi-final derailed his side’s season…
The day Celtic burst Aberdeen’s bubble
Thelin’s men were unbeaten in 16 domestic matches until they faced Brendan Rodgers’ side at the national stadium in November. Despite Aberdeen defeating Dundee 4-1 the following Saturday, the Dons then went a club record 14 games in the Premiership without a win.
Ending that stretch of losses and draws, Aberdeen have won back-to-back league matches after victories against Dundee at Dens Park last weekend and then Kilmarnock at Pittodrie on Saturday afternoon.
Thelin’s men have returned to third in the table and the Swedish boss is hoping to become the first Aberdeen manager since Derek McInnes in 2017/2018 to win at Celtic Park.
“I don’t think we lost any confidence in that game”
Questioned on whether that thumping 6-0 defeat at Hampden was the root cause of Aberdeen’s prolonged run of shocking results, Thelin said: “I don’t think we lost any confidence in that game. I think it was a quite tough week, we played (the)Rangers [on the Wednesday before it], and then the semi-final, and that’s football sometimes.
“And when you sometimes get wrong into the game, it can just accelerate. I think we won the game after that, and then just the run to come after that, there can be a lot of analysis about that. But it’s small, small situations, squad [issues], different reasons.
“It’s a lot of things [to blame]when you don’t get the results in that period we had. Sometimes some games were quite good, but we got some goals against us.”
🔴 “We have high expectation on ourselves…”
Jimmy Thelin wants his Aberdeen players to believe they can beat Celtic.
📺 Celtic vs Aberdeen, live on Sky. Tue from 7.15pm pic.twitter.com/ZmZhTVOG9H
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) February 24, 2025
‘We know what they’re going to do, they do it really well’
Asked on whether he will be wary of Celtic seeking vengeance following Rodgers’ reigning champions suffering their second domestic defeat of the season on Saturday at Easter Road, Thelin replied: “No, I’m not worried about that. They’re always good at home and away, but for us it’s more about what we want to do, how we want to grow as a team.”
“We need to take the challenge we’re going to face tomorrow and keep working on our things. We know what they’re going to do, they do it really well, and we have to be sharp and ready for that game.”
“If you look at their home record, they’re always good there”
“If you look at their home record, they’re always good there, but it doesn’t matter, tomorrow is one game, and we have to believe in our things.”
“Of course, we know what they’re good at, when they have the speed and the combinations, but still it’s one isolated game, and we have our strengths also, and hopefully we can get that in tomorrow, and our players can keep building on what we’ve done in the last games.”
Conor Spence
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