Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes wants his players to prove they are the second force in Scottish football by defeating rivals Rangers tomorrow.
The Dons have finished runners-up behind Celtic for the past two seasons but the Ibrox men are slight favourites with the bookmakers to win this weekend’s match – and go on to claim second spot in the league.
But McInnes insists his players aren’t prepared to give up their position as Celtic’s closest challengers in the top flight without a fight – even though the Light Blues are operating with a budget that far exceeds Aberdeen’s.
He said: “We will try to be as competitive as we can once again.
“I said at the start of the last few seasons that it would take Celtic to have a poor season by their standards to allow others to get involved in the title race.
“Ronny Deila’s Celtic team accumulated enough points for them to win the championship in previous campaigns.
“They were just beyond what we could do, to be honest.
“We had an unbeaten club record within that, we have had great unbeaten runs, we have accumulated the most points outwith the Old Firm and we still fell short.
“I still believe that over the course of a season that money does have an impact.
“It doesn’t over 90 minutes and that’s why we think this is a game we can win and we feel as if we can beat Celtic as well.
“We have taken full responsibility. We were the one team to put up some sort of fight and made Celtic work for it when Rangers weren’t in the league.
“Whether that is us this season remains to be seen.
“There are other good sides in the league but we certainly don’t want to drop our standards. We want to stay where we have been.”
The Dons, meanwhile, are sweating on the fitness of last season’s player of the season Jonny Hayes, who suffered a hamstring injury warming up for Thursday’s 1-0 Betfred Cup quarter-final win against Rangers.
There was, however, some good news for the 29-year-old yesterday as he was included in Ireland’s squad for next month’s World Cup qualifiers against Georgia and Moldova.
Aberdeen goalkeeper Danny Rogers, who is on loan at Falkirk, also received his first call-up to Martin O’Neill’s squad.
