SAM Cosgrove insisted Aberdeen did not lose control against Celtic despite having two men sent off and also the management team being sent to the stand.

The striker felt his team were hard done by with the red cards shown to Dominic Ball and Lewis Ferguson, plus Derek McInnes and his assistant Tony Docherty were also sent from the touchline by referee Craig Thomson.

Cosgrove, who was spoken to by Thomson after a series of robust challenges, didn’t have too much to complain about with regards the decisions which went against his own team but he felt Celtic players were allowed to get away with a few incidents during the semi-final.

“I thought there were a few the officials missed, a few ones off the ball, that they got away with,” said Cosgrove. “We just weren’t getting the run of the green today.

“I’m not exactly an old player myself. Fergie is a young boy and he has a very sensible head on him. This won’t affect him. You have to deal with boys trying to wind you up. We do it to some players sometimes and you just have to be professional about it.

“I didn’t manage to have a decent conversation with the referee. I tried arguing my case but didn’t get much out of it. I made a challenge where the emotions got the better of me, but I didn’t think there was any need for a talking-to. But it’s just a frustrating situation.

“I didn’t know Doc had been sent off and then I saw the manager go up to the stands for God know’s what.

“It looks from the outside like have lost control, which we absolutely haven’t. I think Dom’s very unfortunate to be sent off. With Fergie, it’s just a rush of blood and I can’t tell you what happened with the management staff.”

McInnes admitted he reacted to sectarian abuse which came from a section of Celtic supporters behind him – which he regretted.

It was a day of frustration for everyone at Aberdeen. Nothing went right for them on the day.

Cosgrove said: “I didn’t hear the chanting. But it is something that is very high profile at the minute in football at the minute. There is no place for it in football. I condemn it if any set of supporters do it.

“We are allowed to feel frustrated and be down about it. But we will get a day or two to recover and prepare for the games coming up. There are five vital games left for us and we have to pick up as many points as we can.

“The Kilmarnock game is a crunch match for us. We will definitely dust ourselves down and be ready for it.

“I can’t talk for the rest of the boys but me personally it’s complete frustration. It was such a good opportunity and such a big stage to get a performance on.

"We can’t blame other people and we have to look at ourselves but it was a very annoying afternoon.

"I’m sure my frustrations were pretty clear and that was before the red cards.

It’s something you have to deal with, as annoying as it is. We’ve still got a job to do and we can’t let that get the better of us.

It’s easy to say it does but we’ve come to these places and to Glasgow in general many times and got good results.

It’s a tough one to take. We didn’t get the rub of the green but that’s football.

"We knew what the game was going to be before the sending offs. It was always going to be a bit of backs to the wall day.

"But we came into the job high on confidence and we were going to take them on.

"Going one man down to a team like Celtic was always going to be hard. Going two down it was a near impossible task."