You can’t win the title if you can’t beat the Old Firm, so the cup’s still the Dons’ best bet
SAYS BILLY DODDS
AMERE eight points behind, with two head-to-head meetings still to come. It defies logic to say that Aberdeen are completely out of the running to be Scottish Premiership champions.
But since when has logic ever applied to football?
If even the Dons manager himself seems at ease with his team being written off, you cannot expect the most well-meaning of analysts to argue.
Former Aberdeen striker Billy Dodds is adamant that, even allowing for a drop in intensity from Celtic, his old club can’t be considered serious challengers.
Not until they start knocking over both Celtic and Rangers in direct combat. No mean feat, says Dodds, when the mere sight of a red shirt causes both Old Firm sides to raise their games.
The former Scotland forward sees the Scottish Cup as not merely a more realistic target — but a tournament where they should be under pressure to compete.
But, asked outright if he thought the Dons were in a title race, Dodds nodded towards Celtic’s weekend defeat in Kilmarnock and asked: ‘Just because of the result on Saturday?
‘If you sit Derek McInnes down here and ask him if they are in a title race, he will say 100 per cent no. I’m thinking, realistically, no. And he will want people to say that.
‘He’ll not want to say that they are bang in a title race.
‘He’ll be saying to his boys just to keep chipping away.
‘They don’t know how to handle that pressure, so you don’t heap that on players who haven’t had that experience before.
‘I’ve been in the game too long now to say: “Okay, they can win the title”. That would be unrealistic.
‘If they are (to be) realistically in the title race, they have to start getting results against the bigger teams.
‘Derek will be thinking: “We haven’t beat Rangers or Celtic, so how can we be in the title race?”.’ Aberdeen have lost their last nine consecutive meetings with Celtic across all competitions, the aggregate score in a run going back to 2016 standing at 23-5 to the champions. Although they split league honours with Rangers last season, the Dons have just been beaten three times on the spin by their Ibrox rivals. This inability to get even one-off wins against the Glasgow giants has officially become ‘a thing’. A trend made all the more baffling by both Aberdeen’s excellence against everyone else — and, particularly when it comes to Rangers, the frequency with which other teams get results. ‘It’s weird,’ acknowledged Dodds (left). ‘Celtic slip up against those other teams in the league. Rangers slip up against those teams. But Aberdeen don’t seem to. It’s a strange one. ‘Derek will just say that they need to keep winning those games and if they can turn round the big teams like Rangers and Celtic every now and again, then they could be in it.
‘But, right now, he will be saying: “That’s totally unrealistic. I’m not heaping that pressure on my players”.
‘I would be encouraged by Killie beating Celtic. But the one difficulty Derek has, as an Aberdeen manager, is the thoughts of the Celtic and Rangers managers.
‘It’s just human nature that, when they go into an Aberdeen game, they say: “Right, they’re a top team. If we’re not at it today…”.’
‘That’s the problem Aberdeen have. They know that Celtic and Rangers are going to raise it because, if they don’t, Aberdeen will turn them over.
‘No disrespect but Kilmarnock, Dundee and Ross County won’t raise the Old Firm (in the same way as Aberdeen).
‘Celtic’s result against Kilmarnock at the weekend is why people are asking the question.
‘It’s thrown it open and people are saying Celtic aren’t running away with it.
‘The one thing I’d say about Celtic is that they aren’t playing with the same intensity as they were last year.
‘When I was at Ross County last season, if you won the ball, they would be all over you — getting it back as soon as possible.
‘I don’t think that’s happening as much this season. Celtic still do it, but it’s not as consistent as it was when Brendan Rodgers first came in.
‘On the ball, they are brilliant but there was a real intensity to their press and I don’t see that as much now.
‘That comes down to trying to sustain that pressing style over a period of time.
‘You can ask for a high press but to continue that for two or three years is difficult.
‘They have lost a bit of intensity and that is why the gap is closing. But when we get to the crunch, Celtic will step up again in the league.’
The best Aberdeen can do is to keep Celtic honest, then. To keep beating all the other teams, force Rodgers’ men to set a blistering domestic pace and hope to be there or thereabouts come April.
If they cannot control the form and fitness of the leaders, the Scottish Cup offers a more direct route — at least until they run into more serious opposition — to instant gratification.
Failure to win more than a single piece of silverware, the League Cup back in 2014, is something that will have irked McInnes, according to Dodds.
‘It’s one trophy in 23 years,’ said the man who scored in their 1995 League Cup final triumph.
‘Derek will look at it with realism. He will say they probably won’t win the league — but he will want to go as far as possible in the cups.
‘They were so close last year, losing both finals — and it’s the one thing that will nip away at him.
‘Aberdeen is a big club and he will want to win the Scottish Cup. Other clubs have won it in the last few years. It’s possible to get a run and go and win it.
‘It will be nipping at Derek. He’s won the League Cup but he will want the Scottish Cup.’