Last season’s League Cup final was a bittersweet experience for Aberdeen’s Jonny Hayes.
The Irishman injured his shoulder in the opening minute of last season’s penalty shootout win against his former side Caley Thistle and was off the field inside the opening five minutes.
The Dons will begin their defence of the trophy this evening against Championship side Livingston and, after being denied the chance to shine in last year’s showpiece, Hayes is determined to play a leading role in helping the Dons retain the cup.
He said: “Playing in the League Cup final, albeit for only a few minutes, is the sort of occasion you want as a player. I don’t want to be going out in the first round and have a season where there’s nothing to play for.
“We won the League Cup and were in the Scottish Cup until the semi-final and were in the mix for runners-up in the league until the last game of the season.
“So, we want to keep our campaign going as long as possible, we want to remain in the cups and not be lingering about down the league as we did in previous seasons.
“This year is about building on what we achieved last year.
“I’d love to be involved in another final or two and play a big part.
“We won the final but I missed out on most of it and the celebrations because I couldn’t move about thanks to the injury.”
Hayes knows there will be no room for complacency when the Dons host a Livingston side with nothing to lose at Pittodrie this evening.
The pressure will be on the cup holders and Hayes knows his side cannot afford a lacklustre performance. The Dons needed penalties to get past Alloa in last season’s second round and Hayes is prepared to go the distance once again.
He said: “Winning the cup last season was great for the club but that’s in the past now and we have to look forward to trying to retain it.
“We were given a fright against Alloa in the competition last season, so we know there are no easy games, but we’re looking forward to getting off on the right foot against Livingston.
“When you get teams coming to Pittodrie, especially on cup nights, they try to sit in and defend and hit us on the counter-attack. So we’re well aware what might happen and we know it might take penalties to get through.
“It doesn’t really matter. As long as we’re in the draw for the next round that’s all we want.
“A lot of people expect us to go through, just as they did against Alloa last year. But it’ll be an even tougher game against Livingston.
“The supporters had suffered disappointment in cup competitions in the past and to repay them by winning the League Cup was tremendous. Hopefully that’s only the beginning for us. We’ll go on and do the best we can in the Premiership and in both cup competitions.”
The League Cup has had a habit of throwing up surprise results in recent seasons but the Dons will be strong favourites to progress against John McGlynn’s side, particularly after an impressive display against Ross County on Saturday.
The Dons defeated the Staggies 3-0 thanks to goals from Adam Rooney, David Goodwillie and Peter Pawlett but it could easily have been more had Ross County goalkeeper Mark Brown not made a string of saves.
Hayes felt it was his side’s best display of the season so far.
He added: “We went for the throat straight away. It’s probably something we haven’t done often enough at home and we could have been 3-0 up after 15 minutes. The second half slowed down once we went to 3-0, but I thought our first-half display was the best for a long time.
“The manager was keen after last season to add a couple of options to the squad and brought in the likes of David Goodwillie so he could play two up front and is able to change formations. I wouldn’t say the formation we played against Ross County is set in stone.
“Our performance showed we can play in a number of different ways. We can sit-in, we can attack and we can play two up front which is good because over the course of the season we’re going to have to change the way we play a number of times.
“We don’t just have a strong eight or nine players in our squad, we have a lot more strength. The manager can rotate on any given day and he could have brought in five or six different players on Saturday and expected the same level of performance.”