Boss McInnes wants Aberdeen to relish challenge of taking on improved Celtic
Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes has urged his players to rise to an even greater challenge in competing with Celtic.
Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes has urged his players to rise to an even greater challenge in competing with Celtic.
The Dons have comfortably been Celtic's closest challengers in the past two seasons and were within touching distance before two late collapses in form.
However, McInnes accepts that Celtic have gone up a level under Brendan Rodgers, who has taken 25 points from his first nine Premiership games.
Celtic will go 10 points clear of second-placed Aberdeen with a game in hand if they win at Pittodrie on Saturday, but McInnes is refusing to accept the champions will run away with the title.
“We feel a bit of pride that we managed to put up some sort of fight in the last couple of years and our team and other teams will feel they have to fight even harder to stay close to them,” he said.
“At the minute, and it's still early on, they do like like a team that aren't going to drop as many points as they have maybe done in the last couple of years.
“I don't see it as disheartening, but it's a bigger challenge and we need to take that challenge on rather than just accept it.”
McInnes does admit that Aberdeen need to do some damage to Celtic themselves - as they did with two home wins last season - to ensure they remain competitive.
“I have said often enough, and this is before their improvement this year, which I think is clear, that Celtic have to have a poor season by their standards to allow everyone else to get close to them and I feel that's still the case even this season,” he said.
“There's a few clubs, and I include ourselves, who try to hang in there and be as competitive as we can. We have been the team that gave them some sort of challenge over the past couple of years.
“But for that to happen again it's important, when you get a chance to play them, to beat them, because that helped us stay close to them last year.
“I feel Celtic have improved rather than coming back towards the rest of the teams, they are actually getting better.
“But it's a long season and we won't want to get too far away from them. We have a chance to actually do something about that on Saturday and we are looking forward to the opportunity.”