THESE two League Cup semi-finals have been pigeon-holed from the moment Craig Paterson and Des McKeown drew them live on BBC Scotland three months ago.

The subtle narrative? Nice Aberdeen and Dundee United playing out a mere football match - bless their little cotton socks - before Celtic and Rangers take over and get down to their savage clash of the tribes. The fact that the first semi-final might produce one of the games of the Scottish season is neither here nor there; the implication is that it will not really matter. Somehow even some predictions of it being an attractive game have often sounded condescending. Yeah, yeah, whatever, let's not waste time not thinking about the Old Firm. It would be only natural if Derek McInnes and Jackie McNamara privately felt a bit senstitive about some of this at times, although as former Rangers and Celtic men they're streetwise enough to not lose any sleep over it.

The other day 50 Police Scotland officers carried out what newspapers call "dawn raids" in a co-ordinated operation against football-related violence. Seventeen addresses were visited shortly after 6am and 12 arrests made. The locations were in Aberdeen and Dundee, the alleged offences having occurred when Aberdeen and United clashed - on the field and off - in the Premiership just before Christmas. The rivalry between the two east coast clubs isn't on the same page as the animosity between Celtic and Rangers - it's not even in the same book, which is to their credit - but there is a mutual dislike and a competitive edge to it all. Their semi-final is a contest which deserves respect. The fact that around 30,000 will head to Hampden for it, the biggest crowd ever to watch a fixture between the clubs, is significant. There will be almost as many Aberdeen supporters at Hampden for their semi-final as there are Celtic or Rangers fans at theirs', about 21,000 of each.

Aberdeen and United supporters have entrenched views about how Celtic and Rangers are lauded, especially when the volume of coverage and attention devoted to one semi-final over the other does not reflect the abilities of the teams on the pitch. When was the last time a side made up of the best Aberdeen and United players might be fancied to beat one of the best Celtic and Rangers men? Given that Celtic have already signed one United player and have made a bid for another one - Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Armstrong respectively - it's reasonable to at least toss up the idea that the two squads in the east coast might produce a stronger composite team than the two in Glasgow.

The most likely outcome is an Aberdeen-Celtic cup final, but it's too tight to really call. There isn't much to choose between Aberdeen and United but McInnes's team is a little stronger all round. United have won only one of the last six games between the clubs. That was an emphatic 3-0 victory at Pittodrie on the opening day of the season, albeit Aberdeen's Ash Taylor was uncharacteristically poor on the day, Adam Rooney was a substitute and Johnny Hayes was out. In their only other meeting Aberdeen won comfortably at Tannadice last month. Aberdeen's defence has wobbled without Taylor over the past two games and the forwards take too few of the numerous chances they make in every game, but United have not kept a clean sheet in 12 games and it remains to be seen how Mackay-Steven and Armstrong will handle uncertainty and focus on their careers. Nadir Ciftci, another star, has lost form and is not certain to start.

These days it's hard to know quite what "New Firm" means, although it's a convenient enough shorthand and somehow seems to have endured despite both having had their years of competitive irrelevance. The breakthrough season for the New Firm was 1979-80. United won the League Cup and Aberdeen the league, before the pair of them sat back on the moral high ground to watch Old Firm fans go at each other in a riot after the Scottish Cup final. This weekend, 35 years later, there are fears of trouble around the Old Firm again. The biggest issue around the first semi is whether it will be a good game. The biggest issue around the second is whether the day will pass off without the west of Scotland descending into anarchy.

There is a sound which can go almost unnoticed but is synonymous with Old Firm day in Glasgow: the drone of a police helicopter overhead, with its hint that things are in danger of kicking off somewhere. It isn't right to be complacent or flippant about the trouble which accompanies the derby because all the clichés are based on grim precedent: accident and emergency staff do face a busy night, domestic violence is likely to spike in the hours after the game, police cells will be full of guys who lost it. But it sounds more interesting to blithely predict mayhem and bedlam than to acknowledge that the day may be very well policed, and that fans and pub-goers may impose just enough self-discipline to keep trouble down to an "acceptable" level, for all the debate that description may create. A couple of elements do offer some encouragement to the police. Games at Hampden, where the stands are further from the pitch and slope more gently, tend to be a little less frenzied and rabid than those at Parkhead or Ibrox, which in turn affects behaviour in the wider community. Secondly, Rangers fans aren't likely to hang around if their team is being well beaten, as many expect. If it went to, say, 3-0 Celtic, many would disappear from the stands and the potential for flashpoints and stand-odds in pubs and streets would reduce too. The police will have fingers crossed for another helpful, dampening element: rain or other bad weather.

The League Cup now has two compelling spectacles. Good football would be nice, but fingers crossed for common sense and relative calm.