Aberdeen icon Frank McDougall tells Sam Cosgrove and Curtis Main to keep faith - goals will start to flow

Pittodrie legend Frank McDougall has challenged Aberdeen’s misfiring attack to shoot down high-flying Rangers.

McDougall reckons the Dons top two strikers’ goal return is not good enough at the halfway stage of the season, even taking into consideration injuries.

Sam Cosgrove has netted only three times this campaign, after finishing top scorer last season with 23 strikes.

Cosgrove, who rejected a £2.7 million move to French second tier side Guingamp in the summer, was ruled out for the first three months of the campaign with fractured knee cartilage.

Fellow frontman Curtis Main has also only bagged three goals this season, and the opening months of his campaign were disrupted by injury.

Curtis Main takes a shot for Aberdeen against Dundee United – but fires over.

Now back to full fitness, McDougall reckons Main and Cosgrove can both hit the goal trail.

And he reckons there is no better platform than against the league leaders at Pittodrie on Sunday.

McDougall said: “As a striker confidence comes from scoring goals. For both main strikers to be on three goals at this stage of the season is not a good enough return.

“You want guys like that to be on about 14 or 15 goals each.

“Cosgrove is a bit like Adam Rooney, a big physical player who puts himself about.

“Strikers feel pressure to score goals. Then when the goals come they get confidence.

“I felt pressure when I first went to Aberdeen from St Mirren under Fergie (Sir Alex Ferguson).

“For the first six games of my debut season I didn’t score and felt under pressure.

“Then Fergie took me into his office and said ‘listen son, don’t panic. A ball can hit your head, go in and then you’ll go on a run.’

“And I did go on a scoring run straight after that.

“It can be the same with Cosgrove and Main.”

McDougall, a European bronze boot winner with the Dons, was a past master at scoring against both Rangers and Celtic.

The goal which completed McDougall’s hat-trick against Rangers in 1985.

A £100,00 signing from St Mirren, he netted a hat-trick in the 5-1 demolition of Rangers at Pittodrie on January 19 1985.

He led the attack with 24 goals as the Dons won the Premier League, then, the next season, he scored four against Celtic in a 4-1 home win on November 2 1985.

For the Pittodrie great, the key to overcoming Rangers and Celtic is simple – self belief.

He insists Derek McInnes’ Reds are strong enough to end Rangers’ 22-game unbeaten start to the Premiership campaign.

They just have to go into Sunday’s clash believing that.

McDougall, 62, said: “The key to facing the Old Firm is belief.

“When I was at St Mirren we would go to Ibrox and Parkhead thinking we were going to get beat there. At Aberdeen we went to those grounds thinking we were going to win here – again.

“That was the Fergie mentality. When Rangers and Celtic came to Pittodrie under Fergie there was only ever one winner – Aberdeen. We destroyed them every time.