MARK Reynolds last night dismissed accusations that Aberdeen fail to turn up in big games as he looked back on their second defeat in Glasgow in the space of six days.

The Pittodrie club were beaten 2-1 by Rangers in a Ladbrokes Premiership match at Ibrox on Saturday to fall five points behind their rivals in the league table.

The result came the week after Derek McInnes's side had been beaten 3-0 by Celtic in the League Cup final at Hampden.

However, centre half Reynolds denied that Aberdeen froze in either game and insisted they could still finish second in the top flight for the third season running.

“We’ve never really bothered with it, to be honest," he said. "We answered it last season when all the talk was Aberdeen can’t beat Celtic. But we beat them twice and we’d beaten them in the league previously but apparently that didn’t count.

“So we don’t bother with it. We just need to go out and do it and we’ve answered that more times than not now.

“Yes, it was a big game that we’ve let slip again. But we feel that more times than not, we’ve given a good account of ourselves. Last week, the cup final was a massive disappointment but we’ve tried to bounce back from that and we acquitted ourselves well at Ibrox, albeit we missed the result to go with the performance.”

Reynolds added: “I think it’s tight and it would be disrespectful to Hearts to say it’s just between us and Rangers. We can’t say they’ll be nowhere near it - they are on the same number of points or thereabouts and they are putting teams away. They are a strong team. They beat Rangers through the week and I think it’s going to be tough.

“It’ll be a fight all season and we’ve been used to that in the last couple of years. Hopefully we’ve got that experience to fall back on.

“We know it will be tough but we know we have a changing room full of boys who can push on and secure second, and push Celtic as hard as we can for as long as we can.

“We have quality right through the squad and that will show over this next month, when we have eight games. We have strength in depth and we can change the team up a bit. We’ve got goals in it and on our day we have pace in the team that nobody can live with.

"It’s just about consistency. We showed at Ibrox how well we can do, but when you are playing teams at the top level, it’s fine margins.

“It doesn’t matter how well you defend for 90 minutes, the two split seconds on Saturday cost us the game.

“It’s still a sore one to take but we put a lot more into it and gave a better account of ourselves. It was a lot more like us and there is a lot more to come from us.

“We defended pretty solidly and in fits and starts we were positive going forward. We can certainly takes some things and learn and improve on them for Tuesday night.”

Meanwhile, Reynolds has insisted he has no issues with the uncompromising style of play of Rangers centre forward Joe Garner.

“He throws himself about but I’m quite happy giving it back as well," he said. “That’s why we’ve got referees. They are there to decide that.

“He puts himself about but he takes it as well. I had a few hits on him, but he doesn’t seem to moan. He just gets on with it.

“It’s not something we concern ourselves with. We try to win the ball as much as we can and he is coming in just as hard as you are. You go for it and see what happens.

“We have shown our battling qualities. We stood up to them during the game. They got a couple of half chances and they did what you want your strikers to do. Kenny Miller latches onto that half chance and flips the game on its head. All of a sudden we were chasing it.

“We acquitted ourselves more than well but the result didn’t go for us.”

Reynolds felt the Rangers result would have been different for Aberdeen if Jayden Stockley had netted when he had a chance in the second half and is looking for a better performance against Kilmarnock in the Premiership at Pittodrie tomorrow night.

“Jayden knows it was (a bad miss) and he has held his hand up to it," he said. "A chance like that has to go in the back of the net, so it’s hard to take.

“But mistakes are made - we can give away bad goals and he can miss open goals like that. It’s swings and roundabouts and we still had other chances on the back of that. We have more to offer going forward than we showed on Saturday.”