Ryan Naderi is developing the happy knack of turning up in the right place at the right time for Rangers. And, by Jove, how they needed him to deliver something to break the deadlock in this one and book a spot in the Premier Sports Cup final back at Hampden next month.

Derek McInnes’ side weren’t as bad at the national stadium as they were midweek in scraping a 2-2 draw away to Hearts, but they certainly weren’t all that good. Aberdeen turned up to frustrate them last night and succeeded for the large part, making a number of notable chances themselves.

There’s an obligation to drop in some kind of pun about Hallowe’en in this account of what went down between these two sides, so lets discuss how Dons’ captain Kevin Nisbet must have spent last night suffering nightmares following his own personal horror show just 14 minutes from time.

With the game back hanging in the balance in the wake of a strong period of Rangers pressure, Stephen Robinson’s side broke forward in numbers and, even after Nisbet had failed to find substitute Mitchy Ntelo with a pass, the ball was picked up by Stuart Armstrong and fed back into the skipper’s path on the right-hand side of the box.

He had to smash it first-time. Hard and low across the keeper. Inexplicably, for a guy who does know how to find the net and has done it plenty of times throughout his career, he took a touch and allowed Olwethu Makhanya the opportunity to get across and put in a crucial block.

In that instant, you wondered if the Dons’ big chance had come and gone. Naderi provided the answer just seven minutes later.

The Czech internationalist endured a grim start to the season as a lone frontman, but has come into his own since being deployed beside Kevin Kelsy and shown that precious ability to score goals that really change things, really matter.

He scored the winner at Celtic Park in September, of course, as well as a home winner against Motherwell. Last time out against St Johnstone, his second-half effort to notch the second goal of what ended up a 4-0 romp was expertly timed as his team-mates had failed to wake up at the start of the second 45 and looked like they might fall flat on their faces.

Once again, he rode to the rescue again here, reading the play, making a run, getting into space and finishing from close-in for his eighth of the campaign. The kind of bread-and-butter goal you want your strikers to score.

A cross in from the left from Rangers’ best player Badredine Bouanani, turning up on the wrong wing for some reason, was cleared by Connor Ronan to substitute Dan Neil 25 yards out.

His short pass to James Penrice resulted in a low shot into the area and Naderi timed his run perfectly to ghost in and convert from close range.

It was a sickening blow to under-pressure Robinson and his players. They had dug in really well, pulled off the game plan nicely and kept themselves in it throughout. Their display belied the league form that has put the manager’s job on the line ahead of next Saturday’s teatime visit of Hibernian.

It all counts for nothing in the end, though. As they reflect on events in Mount Florida, they will know that they came up against a Rangers side that most definitely dominated possession — and probably deserved the win in the end — but was vulnerable at times and failed to function as McInnes would have wanted.

The Ibrox boss pulled something of a surprise in his starting line-up by dropping vice-captain Neil and putting left-back Penrice in beside skipper-for-the-night Nico Raskin. It didn’t really work, though.

Listen, those guys weren’t exactly the core of the problem. A lot of the time, the ball wasn’t even being played through midfield, but the switch-up just didn’t feel like it worked. The balance wasn’t right.

For most of the first half, in particular, not very much was right about Rangers. They had plenty of the ball but Aberdeen set up in a 5-3-2 formation and kept them quiet while managing to create good chances of their own on the counter-attack.

Rangers were too slow. Not creative enough. Everything truly positive and dangerous they did went through Badredine Bouanani on the right, but there has to be infinitely more variation in their play rather than just getting it to the on-loan Algerian and hoping those quick feet of his can work some magic.

When he was brought in from German side VfB Stuttgart, the chat was that the management team saw him as an ideal weapon to break down teams playing a low block. He has the ability to beat a man, play in tight spots, have a shot.

However, there’s got to be more about Rangers than that. In this game, as with the 2-2 midweek draw with Hearts and Tynecastle, there just wasn’t enough in the way of fluent, purposeful play. They’ve looked nothing like the side that blew St Johnstone away last weekend with some exhilarating football and that must be a worry for McInnes.

By this stage of the season, they should be starting to find their stride, develop more in the way of consistency.

It took Rangers 44 minutes, for example, to fashion a shot on target. Naturally, it came from Bouanani, a low effort from a central position being saved low to his right by Aberdeen goalkeeper Marius Muller.

Up until that point, the better of the opportunities had fallen to the Dons. Midway through the opening period, Raskin played a pass wide to Dujon Sterling that carried just too much jeopardy.

Nesta Guinness-Walker nipped in to steal possession and then took the ball for a run all the way into the final third before releasing a decent low effort which Ibrox No1 Ivor Pandur had to save to his left.

With ten minutes of the half to play, Nisbet then sent a header wide from a great position after moving onto a cross from Brad Lyons.

At that stage, all Rangers had to shout about was an appeal for a penalty turned down on the 16-minute mark when Dons striker Ayoub Mouloua clearly handled the ball in his own area under pressure from Manny Fernandez.

Referee Ryan Lee didn’t give the award with VAR John Beaton backing up that call. It was controversial and no mistake.

Towards the end of the first half, however, it looked like things might be starting to click for McInnes’ men. Naderi put a header just over from a Raskin cross after getting in behind Jack Milne and Min-su Kim, massively disappointing again and eventually replaced by Djeidi Gassama, sliced an effort wide directly in front of goal.

Yet, it remained stodgy for Rangers after the restart. In the wake of Naderi just failing to get on the end of a low shot from Bouanani at the back post, a deflected Nisbet shot at the other end had to be saved low and smartly by Pandur.

Kelsy missed a sitter just after the hour when putting a header miles wide from a brilliant Bouanani cross and Muller had to block a shot from the Algerian wide man with his right boot as Rangers enjoyed their most dangerous and insistent period of the match.

It didn’t last, but Nisbet dallied when it mattered while Naderi just let his instinct take control for a sharp little conversion from that Penrice effort.

McInnes now has his first shot at silverware as Rangers manager pending and that’s what he wanted going into this game.

However, he needs to find a way to get this team slicker, tighter, more joined-up. More relentless. More focused. More composed in key areas.

As if a reminder of that was needed, it came in time added-on when Armstrong picked up the ball at the edge of their box and bent a fine effort just wide of Pandur’s left-hand post.

So near and yet so far. The story of Aberdeen’s night, really. A night where a big chance definitely existed, but just couldn’t be taken.