McINNES HITS BACK AT DEILA
DEREK McINNES has taken a swipe at Celtic boss Ronny Deila by claiming any Premiership manager would feel confident about winning the league if they had 10 times the budget of their rivals. The Norwegian claimed this week that table toppers Aberdeen will not be able to live with his team once they fire on all cylinders — and has already said he deserves the sack if he does not lead the Parkhead side to a fifth successive title this term. Dons boss McInnes, whose men have established a five-point lead over the champions and will be seeking their ninth league win in a row today at Inverness Caley Thistle, has so far avoided making any rash statements about mounting a serious challenge. But he admitted he would be more comfortable making such predictions if he had the same massive financial advantage enjoyed by his Parkhead counterpart. ‘I know he said they’ll win five in a row,’ said McInnes. ‘But I think any manager in our league would be confident saying something like that given the level of finances Celtic have when the rest of the clubs are working on playing budgets of between £1million and £2m, and they’re working with £20m. ‘I think any manager in our league would be confident of that statement. I have no problems with that at all. ‘Every manager has to
concentrate on their own team and we’re no different.’ McInnes, meanwhile, believes his players will bounce back from the bitter disappointment of their first domestic defeat in midweek, when Hibs knocked them out of the League Cup at Easter Road. He added: ‘We can’t win every game. There will be defeats at stages of the season and, as we normally do, we’ll do our best to respond in the right manner. ‘In the main, when we’ve put out our strongest team after a set-back we’ve always managed to get a result. ‘It doesn’t guarantee we’ll get a result at Inverness but it shows the response is normally there and a determination to get back to winning ways is usually associated with us. We’ll have 3,000 fans there and there will be two good teams fighting for every advantage.’ McInnes will be forced into two changes to tomorrow’s starting line-up as Willo Flood and Graeme Shinnie are both out injured.