Graeme Shinnie has warned his Aberdeen team-mates there can be no Viaplay Cup final hangover as they bid to improve their cinch Premiership predicament.
The Dons lost 1-0 to Rangers in the Hampden final on Sunday, just a few days after their gruelling Europa Conference League campaign came to an end.
Aberdeen’s league form has suffered amid their cup commitments and they sit 10th in the table after winning just four of their opening 15 matches.
Captain Shinnie has told his colleagues they must ensure they are now fully focused on their upcoming Premiership matches, starting with Wednesday’s visit of Livingston.
“I told the boys after the game we need to use the hurt as fuel for the rest of the season,” said the midfielder.
“We can’t afford any sort of hangover, we need to turn our league season around.
“It hurt, but we have to digest it, forget about it and move on.
“There is a long way to go, we have a lot of league games and there’s also the Scottish Cup to go for.
“The league is where we are focused now so it’s a good thing to be playing again on Wednesday.
“In football it’s always a good thing when you have a game quickly after a defeat because it’s a chance to get going again.
“We need to put a run together now, put the league form right and start climbing up the table.
“We had a good result in Hearts in the league so we need to build on that, get some momentum and get up the league.”
Aberdeen had a strong finish to last season to nick third place from Hearts and Shinnie still believes they can do likewise now they are about to revert to playing domestic matches only for the remainder of the campaign.
“This season has been gruelling, to be honest,” he said.
“It has been tough, one of the toughest I’ve had in football.
“We have done a lot of travelling and had a lot of big games, but that’s what it’s like when you’re at the level of playing in European group stages and cup finals.
“It comes thick and fast and you have to deal with it.
“It has been tougher than playing down south because in the European games you put so much into them.
“But that’s what you want to be doing as a club, so we have to get used to it and learn how to deal with it.
“Now we have a run of league games we need to win to get to where we want to in the table.
“We went on a great run last season to get up to third so of course we believe we can do it again.
“We have had some poor games this season, but we have also had some good performances as well.
“We know what we’ve got in the squad and the quality we’ve got.
“But there has been enough talking now, we have to start doing it on the pitch and pick up.”
Indonesia 0-4 Japan: Visitors stay unbeaten with rout
Japan continued their unbeaten start to World Cup qualifying with a 4-0 victory over Indonesia on Friday.
Two goals from the visitors in either half were enough to seal the three points and get them back to winning ways after a stalemate with Australia last time out.
Ragnar Oratmangoen should have put Indonesia ahead, but he hesitated one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and Japan did not look back after that. They got a bit of fortune with their first goal, Justin Hubner deflecting a cross into his own net in the 35th minute.
Takumi Minamino got their second just before the break, finishing off a pacy counter-attack by darting onto the end of Kaoru Mitoma’s cross to sweep it past Maarten Paes.
While there was not much the goalkeeper could do with that one, he was at fault for the third as he gifted the ball to Hidemasa Morita, who coolly picked out the bottom corner just after the break.
Yukinari Sugawara came off the bench to round off the scoring in the 69th minute. He raced down the right wing and instead of looking to his options, he rifled it in from a tight angle at the near post.
Japan are up to 13 points after five games, sitting top of Group C, while Indonesia are bottom, still in search of their first win.
Data Debrief: Clinically done
For a team still chasing their first win, Japan are probably not high on the list of opponents they would want to face, and Indonesia were undone by their visitors.
Hajime Moriyasu's side created 0.79 expected goals (xG) to Indonesia's 0.72, while they only had four more shots than their hosts (12 compared to eight).
Japan took their chances, and though the win margin may look harsh, they were deserving of the three points, having dominated throughout the game.
Jamaica 0-1 United States: Pepi give visitors advantage in Nations League quarter-final
Ricardo Pepi's first-half strike gave the United States a 1-0 advantage over Jamaica after the first leg of their Concacaf Nations League quarter-final.
The hosts saw a penalty saved in the first half before their frustrations were compounded late on thanks to Mason Holgate's red card.
The USA had the lead just five minutes in – having smothered a Jamaica attack at one end, the visitors caught them out with a pacy counter-attack, with Pepi sweeping it into the back of the net.
Shortly after, Shamar Nicholson was brought down by Matt Turner when he tried to take it around him, but the goalkeeper made amends, diving low to his right to deny Demarai Gray from 12 yards.
In the second half, Holgate was denied a tap-in by Yunus Musah before Turner scrambled to stop Leon Bailey's corner from nestling into the net as Jamaica searched for an equaliser.
With 86 minutes on the clock, Holgate received a second yellow card in just over 10 minutes for dragging Brandon Vazquez back, meaning he will miss the return leg in Missouri on Monday.
Data Debrief: Hitting the mark
Pepi got the all-important goal on Thursday, and is the fourth player to score 12 goals for the USA before turning 22 years old, joining Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore and Christian Pulisic.
But it was perhaps Turner who actually had the most vital interventions; he has now saved three of the eight penalties he's faced for the USA, including two against Jamaica.
Mauricio Pochettino also could not have asked for a better result from his first competitive game in charge of the Stars and Stripes as he became just the third full-time manager to win his first competitive away match, joining Bob Bradley (2008) and Steve Sampson (1996).
Real Madrid hit Twente for seven, five-star Wolfsburg also win big
Real Madrid had six different goalscorers as they trounced Twente 7-0 in the Women's Champions League on Wednesday, while Wolfsburg beat Galatasaray 5-0.
Signe Bruun opened the scoring three minutes into the Group B encounter at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano, then Maria Mendez's header gave Madrid a 2-0 half-time lead.
Madrid, who had won one and lost one of their opening two games in the tournament, got a third through Naomie Feller five minutes into the second half, then Caroline Weir made it 4-0 with a brilliant free-kick.
Mendez headed home her second of the encounter shortly after the hour mark, while Oihane Hernandez and Carla Camacho got on the scoresheet late on to complete the rout.
The victory took Madrid second in the Group B standings ahead of Chelsea's trip to Celtic.
Wolfsburg were also convincing victors in Group A, getting off the mark for this season's competition as Rebecka Blomqvist scored a hat-trick in their 5-0 thrashing of Galatasaray.
The Bundesliga side – who failed to pick up a point or score a goal in their opening two matches – had a narrow 1-0 lead at half-time through Joelle Wedemeyer, before Blomqvist took centre-stage in the second period.
She tapped home after Janina Minge struck the crossbar, then added her second goal in the 77th minute and her third six minutes into stoppage time.
Vivien Endemann powered home a fifth for Wolfsburg one minute later, as they provisionally moved within three points of Lyon and Roma ahead of their meeting.
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