Jim Goodwin highlights crippling Aberdeen confidence before Darvel and Hibs double disaster

Jim Goodwin has claimed two late losses to Celtic and Rangers robbed his Aberdeen stars of confidence before a disastrous six days which ended his reign.

Goodwin was left packing his bags at the end of January after a 6-0 demolition at Hibs in a game that was dubbed 'El Sackico' days after a Scottish Cup shock for the ages against Darvel. The battering meant that Goodwin's contract was terminated just 15 minutes after the final whistle, with fans providing banners at Easter Road to show their dismay at the club's poor run of form.

But despite two huge losses in the capital and arguably the biggest cup upset of all time at sixth-tier Darvel, newly-crowned Dundee United boss Goodwin has stated that those games were insignificant in terms of his departure from Pittodrie - claiming that two losses to Rangers and Celtic did real damage.

A late winner from Callum McGregor at home to the Hoops was quickly followed by Scott Arfield's stoppage-time double just days later, leaving Aberdeen with zero points from what seemed like an almost guaranteed four. And Goodwin, speaking to the press for the first time since taking to the Tannadice throne, believes those defeats are what cost him his job.

He said: "After the World Cup break we had two extremely difficult fixtures back to back with Celtic and Rangers, now we could have easily taken four points with those two games.

"[We] lost to a goal within the last three minutes to Celtic, and then two injury time goals against Rangers.

"I think that was probably the turning point for us in terms of the confidence being knocked from the squad, and we found it very hard then thereafter to get the lads going again. There's been a lot of small margins in a lot of the games at Aberdeen, a