Jimmy Thelin will put Aberdeen’s Scottish Gas Scottish Cup semi-final on the backburner as he focuses on a strong end to the league season.
The Dons beat Championship side Queen’s Park 4-1 at Pittodrie to take their place in the last-four along with Hearts.
Celtic play Hibernian on Sunday and Livingston host St Johnstone on Monday in the other quarter-final ties.
Aberdeen dropped from third to fourth in the William Hill Premiership, two points behind Hibernian, after a 5-1 hammering at Celtic Park and a 2-2 draw at home to Dundee United.
And the Dons boss wants them to reassert themselves before the semi trip to Hampden Park in April, where he will look to make amends for the 6-0 thrashing by Celtic in the Premier Sports Cup semi-final last November.
He said: “It’s good to have it there in the future to look forward to and it’s going be a big game. Everybody wants to be at Hampden and fight for a final spot and try to win something.
“So that’s the first part. It’s good also that the last time we played against Queen Park (Premier Sports Cup last August) it was a 1-0 win in the last minute.
“So we never knew before this game and so I’m happy that we did score the goals and were quite stable today and they deserve a semi-final spot – let see against whom – and of course, when you go to the semi-final, the thought is the final.
“But now we have to focus on the league first because it’s so tight in the table, but when we are in the semi-finals, of course we have to try to win and reach the final.”
Queen’s Park, who beat Rangers in the previous round at Ibrox, started promisingly but fell behind to two goals in two minutes from Kevin Nisbet, celebrating his 28th birthday, and fellow striker Dons striker Oday Dabbagh.
And seconds before the break, Dons captain Graeme Shinnie, previously of Inverness, Derby and Wigan, celebrated a landmark 600th professional appearance when he fired in a third.
Dabbagh added a fourth in 52 minutes and although Spiders striker Zak Rudden reduced the deficit in 68 minutes, there was no prospect of a comeback.
Thelin said: “The first five minutes, we were a little bit unstable and they created some opportunities from the crosses.
“But during the first half we get more and more connections, they found the rhythm and we get more and more stable and did a good job as a team with an important win.”
Spiders boss Callum Davidson claims his side’s troubles began in the morning when defender Adam Montgomery called off with a calf injury.
He said: “The first 20 minutes we were in the game. We had some chances but then little things are pivotal. They score from a set-piece, we don’t play percentage football and then it’s 2-0.
“They got all the confidence and then for the next 20 minutes we really struggled, right up to when they got the fourth goal.
“I lost Adam Montgomery this morning to a calf injury, another left back and then Nikola Ujdur had to come off.
“If were to beat Aberdeen these little things had to go for us and they didn’t today.”
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