Aberdeen manager Barry Robson believes he had to keep his squad in Glasgow to give them the best chance of reaching the Viaplay Cup final.
With Saturday’s opponents Hibernian playing Ross County on Tuesday the Dons, who faced Motherwell 24 hours later, have based themselves at lesser Hampden, home of Queen’s Park, since their 4-2 win at Fir Park in midweek.
The gruelling fixture list, compounded by the midweek matches and the scheduling of the first semi-final for Saturday, prompted the Dons boss to take action.
He said: “We’ve got four games off of Europe away from home and we’re up in Aberdeen as well.
“When you look at our fixture list, what we’ve played and what we’ve got coming… but it’s good, it’s what we want. We want to be here playing all these big games.
“We looked at the travelling. We have something like five games on the road-in-a-row again and thought it was the best thing to do after the Motherwell game.
“It was good that we were able to keep everyone together.
“If we had gone back up from Motherwell we would have got back at 3am and then we would have thought about travelling back down again on Friday.
“We had already done that at Killie and the games we have coming. It was the right thing to do.
“We tried to take journeys and tiredness out of them.”
‘SPFL should be helping clubs in Europe’
Robson believes the fixture schedule has been unkind on his side and believes the SPFL, who run both the leagues and the League Cup, should do more to help Scottish clubs competing in Europe.
He said: “We want to be in there fighting and it’s going to be difficult as it’s the first time some of these players have ever done it.
“It doesn’t need me to tell the league that they should (be doing more). They should and they have to.
“Hibs got to play on Tuesday, we had to play on Wednesday, and then they make us play Saturday. That’s fair again, eh?
“After the other games when they’ve given us four away from home on the back of Europe. They’ve been really good to us.”
The Aberdeen manager’s frustration was clear to see but he is determined not to let it affect his side as they bid to reach the final at the expense of Hibs at the National Stadium.
He said: ‘You’ve just got to get on with it. I’m not going to get into it because the most important part for us is to try to perform tomorrow and we will do that.
“It’s not something for today but we all know it isn’t right.”
Dons boss would love to deliver more silverware for the Red Army
Robson was part of the last Dons team to win the League Cup in 2014 and would love to lead his own squad to cup glory.
The Inverurie-born Aberdeen manager knows what silverware means to Aberdeen and hopes he can give the Dons support another final to look forward to.
Robson said: “Winning the cup was special, especially for myself.
“I must have been 35 and I had just come back to Aberdeen.
“I had always wanted to play for Aberdeen but I had been away on my travels. And when I did I was lucky enough to win a cup with Aberdeen.
“It was great having my whole family there and then there were a couple of days of celebration, which was good.
“I couldn’t get people out of my house for the next couple of days then the next person came round then my uncle came round. But it was good.”
The 2014 final was expensive for Robson
For Robson, cup glory with the Dons proved to be an expensive affair with the team’s win hitting him financially after he found himself funding the celebration on the team bus back to Aberdeen.
He said: “I was late for a team meeting. The annoying thing about that was I was actually sitting in the hotel room and I was thinking: ‘I’ve got to wait another 15 minutes.’
“I was sitting around waiting but not realising the team meeting had started.
“So it wasn’t like I was late. I was sitting waiting in my room. I remember coming down to the meeting and they were the happiest team I have ever seen.
“There were set fines and I turned round and said to them: ‘I’m not paying a fine but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Go and win the cup and if we win the cup I’ll buy the biggest carry out you have ever seen.’
“They said: ‘right, let’s do that’ and I tell you what — they did do that. That was a sore one on my bank balance.
“They were just going into the shop and grabbing bottles of anything — I mean anything. And half of the stuff never got touched. It was just to try and do me in.
“I don’t know where all that alcohol went but they were great times. It was a brilliant day and a brilliant night.”
The Dons boss insists he has learned his lesson from that episode and there will be no repeat offer for his squad.
He said: ‘No chance. We have got enough games. They better not be drinking. They can leave that up to me and Aggers (Steve Agnew) but even we don’t get time for a beer.”
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