Aberdeen star Nicky Devlin has insisted he has learned his lesson and won’t be side-tracked by Daizen Maeda’s antics again.
The fired-up Japanese international was a key figure for the Hoops as he hit a hat-trick in the 6-0 demolition of the Dons in the Premier Sport Cup semi-final back in November. Maeda was out of character as he barged in the Scotland, off the field, in the opening minutes and continually tried to rile him on and off the park.
Devlin said: “Yeah, I might try a different approach. There were a few early bumps in the game. I’ve not had anything with him before to be fair. It wasn’t something that was an intentional thing because I think as a defender, you’re always playing a risky game if you try and play games like that, because more often than not the strikers are going to attack and players get better opportunities to get one over you than you do on them.
“Listen, he did really well on the day. I’d hold my hands up and say he got the better of me on that day. He got a hat-trick, didn’t he? If I’m selected and if he’s selected on Wednesday then hopefully I won’t let it happen again.”
Devlin sensed that it wasn’t just Maeda that was pumped up. It was the entire Celtic squad who had been rattled by the fact Aberdeen had come two 2-0 behind to rescue a point at Parkhead in the league. Devlin admitted: “Yeah, I felt it, which is out of character for him (Maeda’s actions).
“I felt Celtic were really pumped up on the day. They probably didn’t like the result a couple of weeks before at Parkhead.
“So, yeah, that probably maybe added a wee bit for them to the game, but it’s something that happens probably in most games. Maybe because I’m not used to seeing anything with him.”
The 6-0 defeat was Aberdeen’s first defeat under Thelin. Devlin admitted it was a nightmare to play in and an even harder one to watch back. The right-back explained: “Yeah, it’s probably one of the only times the managers went over the game straight after it.
“In terms of the next day or a couple of days later, when we were back in and the manager obviously showed his areas that we thought we should have done a lot better or we have to improve. Those are areas we’re going to have to improve tomorrow night if we want to get a positive result.”
Some people are already talking Celtic up as possible Invincibles. Devlin knows Celtic are a quality side and just wants Aberdeen to give them the ultimate test.
He explained: “As I said, they’ve started the season really well in both domestic and European competition. But in terms of the Invincibles stuff and that, we can obviously only affect when we go up against them, hopefully it will be four times over the course of the season.”
“We can only affect those four games. So the other 34 games or whatever they play, we have no control over that. So all we can do is try and beat them when we play them. That’s all we focus on, really.
“We don’t want to win to stop Celtic winning every game or end their unbeaten run. We want to win because it benefits us.”
The ironic thing was that outside of the Hampden clash, the previous three games between the sides had been level at 90 minutes. Devlin knows the fight back at Celtic Park was big.
“That’s obviously the game we’d like to focus on more out of the previous two with Celtic. We weren’t in a good position in that game, getting in at half time, but we managed to change a few things at half time and we came back out in the second half and we were obviously much better.”
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