Rangers vs Aberdeen

By: TheNorthernLight | November 21st, 2008

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Outside of the Old Firm derby, this game is probably the most charged fixture in the Scottish Premier League.

Some of this certainly stems back to the early to mid 80’s when Aberdeen regularly beat Rangers to both League and Cup wins. To illustrate, consider that between September 1980 to about September 1988, Aberdeen did not lose in 30 of the 33 meetings between the sides. Since then it’s been mostly one way traffic though, but Aberdeen have a habit of pulling results out of the bag just when they need them; consider the last game of season 2007/08 when Aberdeen’s 2:0 win at Pittodrie ended Rangers’ title campaign and sent the trophy to Parkhead, while a 1-1 draw earlier in the season made Aberdeen the first team to take points of the ‘Gers, something that Walter Smith will be hoping to put right tomorrow.

Rangers have history on their side in this fixture. A League Cup game in 1995 was the last time Aberdeen beat Rangers at Ibrox, Billie Dodd’s two goals sealing the victory, but for the last League win you’d have to go back to 1991 when the Dons won 2-1.

There’s not much to say about Rangers really – their season is progressing according to form and – again – tradition. Unbeaten since that shock win against St. Mirren back at the start of October, they’ve ploughed a steady furrow, the 0-0 with Motherwell the other week perhaps a surprise to many. Rangers lost influential midfielder Kevin Thompson for up to eight months due to a cruciate ligament injury inflicted during their 4-0 win at Kilmarnock, but there’s plenty of backfill in the middle of the park for Rangers, including of course talisman captain Barry Ferguson, to give Jimmy Calderwood plenty to think about.

Aberdeen are still without Bertrand Bossu, Tommy Wright, Stuart Duff and Jamie Smith, while Darren Mackie will undergo a late fitness test to see if he’s available for selection. For the first time since Scott Severin’s 2 minute cameo against Lithuania in 2006, Aberdeen had one of their own playing for Scotland – striker Lee Miller came on for the second half in the midweek friendly against Argentina and had few chances, but found the going tough against the more experienced (and skilfull) Argentinian defenders.

Rangers trail Celtic by four points and with the Hoops playing second-from-bottom St. Mirren, don’t expect the gap between 1st and 2nd to close anytime soon. Aberdeen’s defence has been noticeably absent, if not incompetent of late. Losing a two goal lead against Hibs was bad enough and Rangers are a different proposition altogether. Kris Boyd just cant stop scoring at the minute, so Aberdeen would do well to keep him in check.

It’s hard to see anything other than a Rangers win here.