GLASGOW (AFP) - Gordon Strachan admits his Celtic players must pick themselves up from their Scottish Cup heartache and go on to pip Rangers to the Scottish Premier League title.

On Tuesday night the Parkhead side's league and cup double dreams were dashed by Aberdeen, who knocked them out of the national cup quarter finals with a 1-0 replay victory at Celtic Park.

Now Strachan is facing his first trophyless season since taking over as manager of the Hoops in the summer of 2005.

And to make matters worse, Old Firm rivals Rangers are on course for a remarkable four trophy haul after lifting the Scottish League Cup on Sunday.

In addition to leading the SPL by three points with a game in hand, the Ibrox side still have the Scottish Cup and UEFA Cup to play for.

Strachan, though, believes his players can still make the season a successful one by winning the league for a third time in a row.

He said: "We have to pick ourselves up now and win the championship. There were plenty of positives to take from Tuesday's game but unfortunately we didn't take our chances and are out of the cup.

"But at a club like Celtic you have no option but to pick yourself up and now we must go and try and win the league."

Although Celtic dominated the Scottish Cup replay they could not make the breakthrough and Aberdeen's Darren Mackie took advantage by scoring the only goal of the game with the Dons' only shot on target.

Celtic have now failed to win in their last four games - drawing 0-0 at home to Dundee United and losing 1-0 away to Barcelona in the Champions League, in addition to their Scottish Cup exit over two matches against the Dons.

However, Strachan believes his side have not been getting the rewards their play deserves.

The Celtic manager said: "We were very unlucky against Aberdeen. There were plenty of positives to take from the game in terms of the chances we created but the problem we now have is we're not taking them.

"It wasn't as if we had a lot of possession against Aberdeen and didn't do anything with it, we had some good headers, got into good positions from the wide positions and Aiden McGeady was terrorising the full-back.

"Shunsuke Nakamura was doing some great things again and so there are plenty of positive things to take from the match.

"We're supplying the forwards with chances but we're just not finishing teams off. Scott McDonald has had a great seven months for us but he can't get frustrated after a few bad weeks."

In Tuesday's game Celtic controlled the play throughout the match without over-working Aberdeen goalkeeper Derek Soutar.

Vennegoor of Hesselink wasted a great chance to put Celtic in front in the 22nd minute.

Japanese international Nakamura's perfectly weighted chip put him clean through on goal but his attempted volley floated harmlessly over.

Australian striker McDonald, with 25 goals to his name this season, should have opened the scoring for the Parkhead side in the 39th minute, but from 10-yards he shot wide.

On the stroke of half time Aberdeen were nearly gifted the lead.

Celtic captain Stephen McManus' careless pass-back rolled into the path of the Dons' Richard Foster but Polish goalkeeper Artur Boruc was quick off his line to save at his feet.

But in the 69th minute Aberdeen scored the only goal of the game when former Celtic captain Jackie McNamara headed the ball into the penalty area for Lee Miller to knock it into the path of Mackie and he fired low past Polish goalkeeper Artur Boruc from eight-yards.