Premier Sports League Cup: Quarter-Final Review

Let’s look at the three talking points as four Premiership sides booked their semi-final spot and a golden ticket to Hampden in the last eight of the Premier Sports League Cup…

Late Armstrong winner sends Kilmarnock to Hampden for first time since 2012

Kilmarnock 2-1 Dundee United

The sole tie played on Tuesday saw Kilmarnock face Dundee United at Rugby Park. A handball from Liam Smith gifted Kilmarnock a penalty in the eighth minute, which Kyle Lafferty slotted into the bottom right corner of the net. It didn’t take long for United to bounce back with Glenn Middleton equalising two minutes later – Smith made amends for his mistake earlier in the game by making his way past Chris Stokes to cross the ball to Middleton’s feet. Both teams entered the break in a stalemate.

As the game progressed, it looked certain that extra-time would be needed. The weight of expectation building for both teams turned the game a bit scrappy with quality chances hard to come by. But in the 73rd minute that piece of quality would come. Jordan Jones done well to work out a crossing opportunity and pinpoint on Danny Armstrong’s head to double the hosts’ advantage. With the visitors only having an ambitious shot from Steven Fletcher to offer in the last 15 minutes, Derek McInnes’s side were the first to slot their name in the hat for the semi-final.

Derek McInnes said: “I think there’s defining moments in a season, we knew this week would be very big for us. We have a home game against Ross County on Saturday and had an important cup tie tonight. Our record at home is very good, only Celtic have beaten us here.

“I thought we were naive the way we gave their goal away. We know how Dundee United play, so we wanted to play with width, but I didn’t expect Danny [Armstrong] to get the winner.”

Boring Rangers edge past Dundee at Ibrox

Rangers 1-0 Dundee

After four league wins in a row, Rangers would look to rest some key players as they took on Championship side Dundee. Seven changes led to Ridvan Yilmaz getting his first start since August - with Rangers fans advocating for him to take Borna Barisic’s place in the team over the past few weeks.  

Scott Wright impressed early on as his link up play with Malik Tillman and Ridvan caused Dundee some problems. It would be him that inadvertently caused the opener, after some nice play with Tillman on the left wing resulted in the ‘keeper spilling the ball for Steven Davis to head home. Despite the early goal, Rangers were unimpressive for the remainder of the first period with an Alfredo Morelos chance being all they could conjure up, as they took a slender lead into the interval.

The second-half was more of the same for Rangers as their turgid performance and low levels of urgency received boos from the home crowd. By the 70th minute the stadium was almost cleared as Dundee managed to put pressure on the home side. There were a few impressive flashes by Kemar Roofe on his long-awaited return as his cross almost found the back of the net, hitting both the crossbar and the post. Rangers’ performance was met with even more boos at full-time, after a real uninspiring performance against fourth placed in the Championship. 

Giovanni Van Bronckhorst said: “When you play well you get the applause but when you don’t play well at a club like Rangers they should boo you. Of course I understand, if you don’t play well for Rangers you will get criticism.

“I think Ridvan’s performance was good today. He is settling in really well and we needed to give him some more time to adjust, but I think he is in a good place at the moment and I am happy with his performance.” 

Celtic hit four past ‘Well in comfortable victory at Fir Park

Motherwell 0-4 Celtic

Thanks to their heavy rotation in the 6-1 thrashing of Hibernian at the weekend, Celtic were allowed to play a strong starting line-up. The visitors created a lot of chances in the first-half but struggled to convert. Kyogo Furuhashi missed a clear-cut chance after Liel Abada found him unmarked in the box and also couldn’t get the ball past Liam Kelly in a one-on-one situation. Despite this, Celtic continued to bombard the Motherwell goal and got their rewards seconds before the interval, as great play from Greg Taylor left Abada with no option but to slot the ball into the net.

It was Abada who doubled Celtic’s advantage in the 56th minute with Josip Juranovic’s shot too powerful for goalkeeper to deal with as the forward volleyed the rebound home. The floodgates opened for Celtic thereafter with Reo Hatate on the scoresheet four minutes later after nice ball-roll sneaked past Kelly and into the net. Kyogo finally got his long-awaited goal in the 76th minute, tapping in the follow-up after Abada’s effort hit the post. A much-needed boost for his confidence after struggling to find the net in recent weeks.

Ange Postecoglou said: “Our football was really good, we were really clean with our passing. There are seven games to go between now and the break and the fact I can change a team up is important. It’s great that the whole team has embraced that.” 

Other Results:

Aberdeen 4-1 Partick Thistle 

Semi-Final Draw:

Rangers v Aberdeen 

Celtic v Kilmarnock 

Ties to be played: 14/15 January 2023