Leighton Clarkson makes bizarre Celtic claim ahead of Scottish Cup tie vs Aberdeen

Away from the tension of the Scottish Premiership, Celtic have a welcome distraction as they face Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup this weekend.

Brendan Rodgers has been in the thick of an intense title battle and is still on course for a league and cup double.

But first, the Celtic manager needs to get past Aberdeen at Hampden this Saturday and the 1230pm kick-off will prove to be a tough test now that The Dons have appointed Jimmy Thelin as their new boss.

So the Pittodrie side have every reason to go into the fixture with confidence now despite their poor league form but it doesn’t mean they can rewrite History from the last 1-1 Pittodrie draw.

Clarkson says Aberdeen ‘should have’ beaten Celtic

Now I am not going to deny that the Pittodrie draw was a close-knit affair. But Leighton Clarkson seems to have forgotten some key and vital information about the match.

Clarkson said [Press & Journal], “We should have won that Game as we performed really well against Celtic that day.

“Of course, they are a really good team and you do have to nullify them.

“You also need stages in the Game when you have to keep the ball off them and make them run a bit.

“On the day we will have a Game plan and set-up that will be successful.

“Rangers and Celtic are two really good teams as they’ve proved in Europe and all season in the league.

“But we have gone to Ibrox and won and should have beaten Celtic at Pittodrie with the chances we had at the end.

“We do go into every Game knowing that we can win.”

Celtic dominated the first half but were wasteful in possession. However, Bojan Miovski put Aberdeen in the lead in the 50th minute until Nicolas Kuhn equalised in the 63rd.

Admittedly, Aberdeen did have their chances but let’s not forget, Celtic were poor and the match stats still tell us that we were the better side.

Celtic had 70.8% of the possession and 22 shots on goal compared to the seven of the home side. Of those shots the Hoops had, four were on target, nine were blocked and three were saved. We also had nine corners which we squandered. [Sky Sports]

If Celtic had their shooting boots on we would have been out of sight. And let’s also not forget that Matt O’Riley and Stephen Welsh both had chances to win the match at the end.

Like I said, it was a close match but let’s not pretend and say Aberdeen should have won when it was Celtic who were the dominant side.

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