JACK Ross has dismissed suggestions that his on-form St. Mirren side can catch Aberdeen cold in their first game back after the winter shutdown when the two clubs meet in the pick of the William Hill Scottish Cup fourth round ties this weekend, writes Matthew Lindsay.
Many Scottish football pundits and supporters fancy the Paisley club – eight points clear at the top of the Ladbrokes Championship and undefeated in their last seven matches – to overcome their Premiership rivals at Pittodrie tomorrow afternoon.
Ross’s side have drawn with Morton and beaten Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Dumbarton in the league this month while Derek McInnes’s team have been away in Dubai on a warm weather training break.
However, the St. Mirren manager recalled how the Clyde side he was a member of during his playing career was highly fancied to give Hibernian a fright in a Scottish Cup tie immediately after the break in 2001 - and ended up on the receiving end of a six goal mauling.
He said: “Allan Maitland, the Clyde manager, was very much like ‘we’ll catch them cold!’ It was 6-0 after 55 minutes. We got beat 6-1. They had (Russell) Latapy and (Franck) Sauzee playing and they were fresh and buzzing. It is difficult to say with certainty how Aberdeen will be, how the break will affect them. I am sure they will approach the game in a positive way.”
St. Mirren were thrashed 5-0 when they played Premiership opponents Partick Thistle in the group stages of the Betfred Cup back in July – but Ross is confident he will avoid a similar reverse in the meeting with Aberdeen as a result of that embarrassment.
“I got a lot of things wrong that day,” he said. “But it was good for me. I have learned from it. It is a balance for us. Our strength is that we are a good side going forward. But obviously we have to come up with a way to prevent Aberdeen from picking holes in our team.”
Lewis Morgan, the Scotland Under-21 winger who has been loaned back to St. Mirren for the second half of the season after signing for Celtic in a £300,000 move earlier this month, is sure to be the focus of a great deal of attention in the cup game against Aberdeen.
Ross, though, has no doubt Morgan can handle the pressure which will be on him to perform in the meeting with the second best team in the country.
“The one area Lewis has grown in over the last year is his ability to deal with pressure and expectation and also in his enjoyment of the big stage,” he said. “He kind of thrives on that. He is learning to deal with an increased spotlight on him naturally because he is now a Celtic player.”
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