Why Aberdeen's season rests on cup win over Motherwell

Last season, the Scottish Cup was Aberdeen's salvation. Nine months on from lifting the trophy, they are facing the same scenario.

Without a permanent manager and languishing in eighth place in the Scottish Premiership, they are 11 points off the top six never mind the European places.

The club have churned through a manager, a sporting director, and plenty of players since the summer, fielding four debutants in defeat by Motherwell on Sunday.

They face the same opposition in Wednesday's re-arranged Scottish Cup last-16 tie which now has the feel of a season-defining game.

Win, and the club have a quarter-final against second-tier Dunfermline Athletic to look forward to as they aim to defend the game's oldest trophy.

Lose, and a desperate top-six charge is all they will have left as well as a host of questions about the club's direction.

Given the importance of the game, Aberdeen would rather be facing almost anyone else than Motherwell - their kryptonite this season.

The sides have already met four times and Aberdeen have mustered just one goal in those games, losing three of them.

Regan Charles-Cook's winner at Pittodrie in September sent Motherwell on their way to the semi-finals of the League Cup and halted Aberdeen's charge.

Sunday's victory at Fir Park was just the latest example of how far ahead Jens Berthel Askou's side are of Aberdeen.

They created enough chances to be out of sight. Which in league terms they are, 19 points and four places clear of the Dons, to be precise.

The only consolation for Aberdeen's interim management team of Peter Leven and Tony Docherty was their side did at least threaten in the second half.

Toyosi Olusanya hit the post when he should have equalised, Kevin Nisbet also struck the frame of the goal before the break, while Liam Morrison should have buried a header.

That is a small win for Aberdeen amid a poor run, as well as the fact the rematch is at Pittodrie.

"Aberdeen created a number of chances," former Heart of Midlothian midfielder Michael Stewart told the BBC's Scottish Football Podcast.

"It wasn't from having great control in the game, but they definitely looked more threatening.

"The Scottish Cup is the be all and end all for them really now. They're the holders and being at home is a huge positive for them. If they were going to Fir Park again I'd say I don't see them being able to get a result.

"But at home, possibly. But the way Motherwell play, they are like a title contender.

"You'd regard them as like a Celtic of recent seasons - controlling and dominating a game and creating opportunities. That's how I see them."

Two years ago Derek McInnes' Kilmarnock side came to Pittodrie 14 points above Neil Warnock's winless Aberdeen and came unstuck in the Scottish Cup, and Leven then came close to leading them all the way to the final. So there is hope.

But Motherwell will travel north unbeaten in eight matches knowing they are better than their opponents as they seek to add a Scottish Cup tilt to their impressive league showing of fourth place so far.

If Aberdeen were to become just the fifth team to defeat the Steelmen this season, it would not only send them through to the quarter-finals but build some much-needed confidence around the club and the interim management team.

The alternative is altogether more bleak. Firstly it would put the club's search for a new manager firmly in the spotlight.

New sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel has been taking the reins and, after it was confirmed Docherty would be returning to Pittodrie to help Leven last week, the German said they hoped to announce a new head coach "imminently".

That is widely expected to be the former SK Brann and Saint-Etienne manager Eirik Horneland, who would take charge in the summer, reports suggest., external

Assuming that deal gets done, and it has yet to be confirmed, it still raises the question of whether Aberdeen should have got someone else in earlier.

When Jimmy Thelin was sacked on 4 January, the club were only two points from the top six and with the Scottish Cup to defend.

Six weeks on and they are 11 points off sixth-place Falkirk, albeit with two games in hand after terrible weather wreaked havoc with the Pittodrie pitch.

Appearing to write off the last few months of a season has been a familiar feeling for Aberdeen fans in the last five years.

Leven, in his third spell in interim charge, will have managed 18 league matches by the end of this campaign and 29 in total if he has to see out the season.

That is as many as Stephen Glass (29) and only just behind Jim Goodwin (35) and Barry Robson (36) - three of the club's last four permanent bosses, and the last four were all dismissed in January or February.

Season-ticket holders could justifiably feel short-changed - despite plenty of investment in the playing squad - as another campaign seeps away before the clocks change.

Seven new faces arrived in January to try to arrest the slide, taking the total number of players recruited over the last four transfer windows to 31.

It also means Aberdeen are now relying on players to make the difference who - regardless of their quality - have played very few minutes this season amid form and injury issues in the first half of the season.

The scrutiny on recruitment will increase to an even greater degree should they lose on Wednesday, too.

The counter argument is that change has to start somewhere.

Pfannenstiel only arrived in November and, if he believes Horneland is the man to transform Aberdeen, patience may well be a virtue.

The signings of midfielder Afeez Aremu and Dennis Geiger, both midfielders with Bundesliga experience and a better physical profile, are a nod to Aberdeen's ambition to rebuild again.

There has been an acknowledgement that more Scottish players are needed in their ranks to forge a stronger identity, with more energy and intensity.

That matches what Horneland achieved at Brann. This is work that will continue in the background regardless of the outcome against Motherwell.

And though being dragged into a relegation scrap cannot be discounted given they have lost seven of their last nine league games, they have an eight-point buffer on 11th-place Kilmarnock with two games in hand.

Nonetheless if Motherwell were to inflict a fourth defeat on Aberdeen this season and end their grip on the Scottish Cup, you can count on empty seats and the bleak smell of apathy at Pittodrie until May.

"There is a lot of work needing done at Aberdeen," Stewart added.

"They've got Peter Leven and Tony Docherty in until the end of the season which brings a little bit of clarity.

"But there is clearly a lot of upheaval and change that is going to happen by the time the season finishes."