Aberdeen look to have the bit between their teeth as they go in search of a sixth win in a row on Thursday.
The Dons’ response to losing on the opening day has been excellent with five straight wins and only one goal conceded showing the progress being made by Derek McInnes’ side.
You can see the sharpness improving with each game and while Kilmarnock pushed them all the way on Saturday at Pittodrie the Dons were worthy winners and could have won by more than Ross McCrorie’s goal.
Stavanger awaits the Dons now and while Viking FK are midway through their season and look to be scoring a lot of goals, Derek and his players should have too much for their opponents.
Home advantage is always a big factor in European games but Aberdeen are buoyant just now and they have so much depth.
The fact they were able to come to terms on an agreement to end Craig Bryson’s contract early emphasises that point.
The idea of letting Bryson leave six months ago would have been unthinkable but as I said a couple of weeks ago I cannot see where Bryson was going to play given the options available to the manager now.
I was also pleased to see the fans back and I’m sure the players enjoyed having a crowd, even a small one, to play in front of again.
I do worry about when we’ll seen fans back inside our grounds on a regular basis though. The number of positive cases in Scotland is on the rise again and I cannot see the Scottish Government approving more people congregating in one place, even socially distanced.
I’m not sure I’d want to go and watch a game with the restrictions that were in place anyway.
I was at Victoria Park on Saturday but the same rules were in place for both games which featured 300 spectators. No shouting, no standing, no singing. For some they must have questioned whether there was any point of being there.
The positive tests for the two St Mirren goalkeepers ahead of their match against Hibernian also highlighted just how delicately poised this whole situation is.
For Premiership clubs who are testing players on a weekly basis it’s daunting enough but the decision to allow Hearts to play friendly matches against sides who are not testing shows the problems which potentially lie ahead. We’re approaching the start of the season for the lower league clubs and I’d be concerned about whether playing these matches behind closed doors is financially viable.
The likelihood of that is increasing as the coronavirus numbers go up with each passing week.