Kilmarnock 3 - 4 Aberdeen (aet): Last-gasp own goal sends Dons into quarter-finals

Kilmarnocks Connor Johnson scores a last-gasp own goal to make it 4-3 for Aberdeen. Picture: Ross MacDonald/SNS

Derek McInnes’ men seemed to be buried time and again in an encounter that for so long seem to be getting away from them only to find a winner in one added minute of extra time – a period which produced five goals, three inside the final five minutes as the outcome veered between a home win, and penalties, before the ultimate  turnaround.

The concluding goal of seven was the cruellest for the Aryshire men and in particular substitute Connor Goldson who deflected an Andrew Considine cross into his own net. Two minutes early, Aberdeen’s season was spared from disintegrating when Nick Walsh adjudged that Stuart Finlay had piushed Lewis Ferguson to award a penalty. Sam Cosgrove showed nerves of steel to slam in to even the score up to 3-3.

That came only three minutes after Kilmarnock appeared to have won the tie that they so long seemed to have in their grasp when a Ross Millen cross led Mikey Devlin to swipe at the ball, forcing his own keeper Joe Lewis to make a desperate block, only for Nicke Kamamba to knock in the rebound.

Extra time served up the end-to-end drama the tie had lacked for so much of normal time, until Considine’s 88th minute equaliser saved the skins of Aberdeen, who were behind from the closing minutes of the first period. First blood was drawn by McInnes’smen when Laurentu Branescu thwarted a Curtis Main drive. It led to the ball flashing across the box where an all-alone Matty Kennedy was able to crane his neck turfwards to nod into an empty net.

The Aberdeen double-whammy - that never looked likely earlier on - did not lead to a knock-out though thanks to Eamonn Brophy curling a pinpoint accurate free-kick beyond Lewis seven minutes later to put the tie back in the balance.

Killie’s unfortunate loss at home to Hibernian on Sunday brought to an end a four-game unbeaten run, so the pattern that developed, of a hungry home team pushing as their opponents’ floundered, ought not to have been a major surprise. However, the lack of goalmouth action for the first half-hour of a winner-takes-all encounter did perplex.

The deadlock-breaker, when it came two minutes before half-time, would certainly have been a head-scratcher for McInnes. A Chris Burke ball in from the right channel should have been cleared by the Aberdeen defence but a botched clearing header allowed it to drop in the middle of goal for Mohamed El Makrin. The Dutch striker attempted a rather ungainly overhead kick, which ended up working out for him as his shinned contact foxed Joe Lewis to waft past him. So airily did the ball travel, the Aberdeen captain will surely consider he should have had his body behind it.

A chain of events that summed up the visitors’ first half, McInnes demonstrated his displeasure by using all his three substitutions at the interval.

He hooked Conor McLennan, Dylan McGeouch and Craig Bryson – a painfully absent presence in the first period - replaced them with Cosgrove, Dean Campbell and Shay Logan, and went entirely back to the drawing board by switching to a 4-4-2.

The changes had little early effect. The partnership of Main and Cosgrove was as starved of service as the former had been on his own, and just after the hour the tie should have been put firmly out of Aberdeen’s reach when Brophy was clean through on Lewis in sprinting on to a ball over the top only to shoot straight at the keeper.

It seemed to, at last, shake Aberdeen from their torpor. An infusion of urgency was evident as Niall McGinn chopped the ball just inches past with the outside of his foot after the home side were opened up by a jinking run by Matty Kennedy.

Yet, Aberdeen pressure looked like it would count for nothing until McGinn fashioned a wicked, whipped free-kick from the right two minutes from normal time that Andrew Considine stooped to glance into the far corner.

Incredibly, Cosgrove nearly then won it in added seconds with a header off the bar, before extra time, and outrageously swinging fortunes, ensued.