Facing Celtic on Sunday will provide a litmus test for an in-form Aberdeen but manager Derek McInnes is already confident his players are on track for another successful campaign.
The Dons’ build up to Sunday’s match couldn’t have gone much better with seven wins in their previous nine matches, three successive clean sheets and seven matches without defeat at Pittodrie.
However, manager McInnes insists his players won’t be getting carried away with the hype surrounding the dominant Dons.
He said: “We are not perfect but we are working to improve on last year. We are almost exactly where we were last year. We are in a cup semi-final and only a point behind where we were in the league.
“Everyone has been saying our form has been up and down this season but we are actually where we were last year.
“There was a lot of excitement at this stage last year because it was an improvement on where we had been – it is all down to perception. But the players and staff just need to remain level headed and not get too down when we lose or get carried away when we win.
“In the last nine games we have won seven, drawn one and lost one. We would take that run of form throughout the course of the season as that would get us to where we want to be.
“If you put a few wins together people can get a bit excited and predict we are going to do this or that but we just need to remain focused on the next game.”
The Dons are predicting a crowd of more than 19,000 and McInnes says he is relishing the challenge of going toe-to-toe with Ronny Delia’s Celtic in front of a packed Pittodrie on Sunday.
The Aberdeen manager added: “I can’t wait for the match. We lost the game against Hamilton and we couldn’t wait for the next one.
“And it is the same when you win games, who is up next. We need to have that focus for every game now.
“The Celtic game will bring excitement, a big support and it is live on television. It has all the ingredients and we just need to make sure we bring a performance to the game.
“We have managed to run Celtic close recently and we beat them a couple of times last year.
“We feel it is a game we can win if we have enough strong individual performances and a strong team performance.”