Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Dons boss confident of a shock
WEATHER reports suggest Hampden will crackle with thunder and lightning this afternoon but Derek Mcinnes is already raining on Celtic’s parade. The odds are stacked heavily in favour of Brendan Rodgers’ side, with five wins out of five already against the Pittodrie club this season. 1969. Mcinnes said: “You can only concentrate on your own performance and own team. We need a near perfect performance, each player to play at their level, and we still feel we’re capable of that. “We go into the game in good form. We’ve got to recognise the efforts of Celtic this season. They’ve had loads of plaudits and rightly so. “I’m surprised a Celtic team hasn’t won more trebles over the last few years and with the vast difference in resources I don’t think it’s too surprising for them to pick up a treble. “But the fact they’ve been unbeaten gives you an indication of their focus as well as having good players. “Once it started to be spoken about around September or October it’s something they’ve clearly aimed for and they deserve credit for that. “But there’s still one game left and hopefully we can have our own celebration and rightly be proud of our team.” Mcinnes added: “We take strength from our form and the fact we finished second in the Premiership – and comfortably as 76 points was a fantastic return. “We are going into the game with a clean bill of health and also with the players feeling good. We can put in a performance that can win.”