ABERDEEN v RANGERS

McInnes ready to prove Dons are best of the rest by making life hell for Ibrox boss

RANGERS might have the finance but Derek McInnes insists Aberdeen have shown the fighting spirit in the battle for second place.

And he hopes his Dons side can deliver the knockout blow and all but secure a best-of-the-rest finish for the third consecutive Premiership season.

Figures released in The Global Sports Salaries Survey showed the Ibrox side’s average player wage is more than double the amount spent by Aberdeen.

But while the Light Blues are comfortably second in the Money League it’s McInnes’s men who are 12 points clear where it matters in the top flight.

Former Gers boss Mark Warburton splashed out £1.8million Joe Garner in the summer and shelled out around £20,000 a week on controversial midfielder Joey Barton.

Barton received a six-figure pay-off after a bust-up and that’s all McInnes has spent on a player in four years with midfielder Kenny McLean proving a shrewd buy. The Dons gaffer says you can’t put a price on the effort his players give him which saw him pick up the Ladbrokes Manager of the Month award for March after a perfect spell that saw them win three league games and a Scottish Cup quarter-final without conceding a goal.

And ahead of tomorrow’s lunchtime showdown with their bitter rivals McInnes said: “Rangers are the only

other club away from Celtic that can spend money in Scotland.

“But it is not just money that is needed to get a winning team. We have a lot more going for us. There is so much more and we have got that in spades.

“Rangers have four or five times what we can spend on a squad. We have spent £200,000 on Kenny McLean in the four years we have been here.

“The players work extremely hard and we’re getting everything out of this group of boys. In terms of the effort they give me and the club I can’t ask for more.

“That is something you can’t put a figure on. The manner of some of the performances have been excellent.

“Any personal award is the result of a collective effort.

“If we can continue with the form we are on it gives us a lot of confidence we can achieve what we want to achieve this year.

“At the minute we want to win the Scottish Cup and finish second in the league.

“If we win on Sunday and go 15 points clear with six games to go