Derek McInnes praised the appetite of his Aberdeen players after they overcame Ladbrokes Championship club Dundee United to secure their place in the quarter-finals of the William Hill Scottish Cup.

Dons boss McInnes has now thrown down the gauntlet for his side to make their mark on the competition following a 4-2 victory that set up a last-eight clash with Kilmarnock at Pittodrie.

Gary Mackay-Steven scored twice, with Adam Rooney and Kenny McLean also notching for Aberdeen while Sam Stanton and Paul McMullan responded for United.

McInnes said: “If you’d told me before the game that we’d score four goals at home and go through to the next round of the cup we’d have taken it. I thought we were worthy winners.

“The conditions weren’t conducive to playing good football, but we had moments of quality and the goals in particular were fantastic.

“Other then a moment of slackness, we were maybe worthy of going in with more than a two-goal advantage at half-time.

“Loads of teams will say they feel this is their year, but only a few would be genuinely disappointed if they don’t win the cup, and I feel we are a team that can go and win it.

“We visited Hampden four times last year and that’s invaluable to get used to that kind of occasion.

“I want to get back there again and hopefully we can go one better and bring the trophy home.”

United boss Csaba Laszlo felt there were some positives to take from the match, despite suffering a heavy defeat.

He said: “We gave up two very easy goals and that maybe killed us, but generally I can be very satisfied with the spirit and how we came back in the second half.

“I was confident when we pulled it back to 2-1 that we could hold that scoreline until the break and let us reorganise. But we gave away a poor third goal and we have to defend that better.

“In the second half we showed spirit and I was satisfied with the performance. We can talk about the number of changes we’ve had to make in defence, but that’s not an excuse.

“The cup run is over and we have to concentrate on the league but hopefully we’ll be back visiting clubs like this next season. We have to believe we can do that.”