Mcinnes: Celtic’s five-star show brilliant for Scotland but it makes my job harder
Derek Mcinnes has hailed Celtic’s destruction of Astana in Wednesday’s Champions League qualifier as a great result for Scottish football, even if it makes his job of besting them in the domestic game much harder as a result.
The Aberdeen manager’s side finished runners-up to Brendan Rodgers’ Invincibles in all three of Scotland’s major competitions last season and Mcinnes has spent the summer remodelling his squad to offer an increased challenge.
Ironically that has largely been done with the £1.2 million raised by the sale of Jonny Hayes to the triple champions but that’s still peanuts compared to the £30m Celtic are expected to pick up for reaching the Champions League group stages.
Mcinnes was blown away by Celtic’s performance in their 5-0 first-leg win over Astana but it also left him with a realistic appreciation of how tough it will be for Aberdeen to challenge them for honours as an already huge financial gap increases.
“It’s a brilliant result for Scottish football but makes it more difficult for the rest of us as Celtic have the capacity and ability to strengthen if they want to” claimed Mcinnes.
“It is difficult to try to get close to them although Brendan only has two weeks to spend the money so hopefully he won’t spend all of it.
“We have to applaud them for their performance. They’re not through yet but they are not going to lose a five-goal lead in the second leg.
“The performance was so strong. It was a very mature display and they looked a threat every time they made it to the final third.
“They look every bit as strong as last season which is why I said Celtic will win the league if they reach the standards of last season again.
“It doesn’t stop us trying to be as competitive as we can be and making them really work for it. We’ve made the signings which have given us confidence we can have a successful season.
“I don’t feel disheartened but I get how difficult it will be for us to overcome Celtic.”