Aberdeen fans have never needed a reason to be right up for it when Rangers come to town. But when their fierce rivals arrive at Pittodrie having lost their previous two games 4-0, and with Aberdeen having the chance to go level on points with them if they win.
Jim Goodwin has no doubt that his team’s support will be in the mood to make Pittodrie a powderkeg on Saturday. And he makes no apologies for hoping that they really turn up the heat on a visiting side whose confidence looks shot to pieces after a week from hell at home and in Europe.
In fact, all Goodwin wants is the home fans to replicate the level of support the Dons have had in their travels the length and breadth of the country in the last couple of weeks. He said: “I’m led to believe we are not far off a full house and they certainly can add to the atmosphere and be the 12th man. Since I came in, I couldn’t say a bad word about them.
“They have been different class - especially the travelling fans and especially last week when 1000 of them had a 400-plus mile round trip to Annan, and the expense that involved, and then over 2000 to follow us across the country to Dingwall a few days later.
“It’s just remarkable. I’ve never experienced anything like it during my playing days or as a manager, so we are extremely grateful for the backing they give us and long may that continue in terms of them playing their part by driving the lads on.
“It’s important that we maintain that connection that we’re talking about and to do that we need to show the fans how much we care and show that passion and willingness to never give up for the jersey and try to win every game we go into. Hopefully that will be on show again this weekend against Rangers.”
Goodwin is urging his men to take advantage of any vulnerability in the Gers ranks and is adamant Aberdeen will be going out to add to their woes.
“We try to approach every game with the mindset that we can win. Even in the first game of the season at Parkhead, we had a game plan for that game. I want us to have the mindset that we are capable of not just stopping Rangers, but winning the game.
“In recent games (vs Gers) the club’s approach was maybe not to get beat but I want us to have the positive mindset going into it that we are capable of causing an upset.
“People might not look at it as a major upset but it would be an upset. Aberdeen haven’t beaten Rangers too often in the league in recent years but we want to try to put a stop to that this weekend.
“We have approached every game to be on the front foot, to be entertaining and to be aggressive with the opponent in the right manner. We don’t sit off teams and allow them to dictate to us, regardless of the opposition.
“We want to have that as our main focus in every game we go into and the players have bought into that. We have brought a lot of energy and a lot of pace into the team.
“You can’t be sitting off teams, especially at home at Pittodrie. We cannot allow Rangers to come up the road and dictate the pace of the game.
“They are coming into this game low on confidence, I should imagine, after the last two results. We are on the opposite end of that.
“We should be going into this with three wins in the last three. Unfortunately we couldn’t hold out for the last 20 seconds in Dingwall and finished up drawing the game.
"But we won the previous two games with two clean sheets, we are sitting third in the table and there is a great atmosphere and energy about the whole place at the moment. We want to make sure that is there come half past two on Saturday afternoon.”
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