McINNES’ DATE WITH DESTINY
Rangers and Scotland may come calling if McInnes sinks Celtic
IN 17 months as manager of Celtic, Brendan Rodgers has yet to experience defeat in a domestic game. Change that tonight and Derek McInnes will be beating off suitors with a sharp stick.
Ending Celtic’s 60-match unbeaten run in this evening’s Premiership clash at Pittodrie would make quite a statement.
For Aberdeen, though, a sweet, satisfying victory over Scotland’s champions might be swiftly followed by a bitter aftertaste.
Their manager, after all, would become the instant favourite to succeed an embattled Pedro Caixinha at Rangers. And the SFA sub-committee selecting the next manager of Scotland would be forced to shuffle their pecking order.
A withering disregard for the SPFL amongst English club chairmen might even be shelved just long enough to cast covetous glances towards the Granite City.
McInnes would make no claim to be the next Alex Ferguson. It’s 31 years since Manchester United changed the course of British football by spiriting an Aberdeen manager south, and England’s biggest clubs no longer drill for black gold in the north east of Scotland. Yet Championship side Sunderland were keen enough to offer the 46-year-old another crack at English football after a chastening experience with Bristol City. Appreciated and feted at Pittodrie, the Dons responded by laying down a new contract until 2020.
But football is a movable feast. The price ambitious clubs pay for success is the inevitable loss of their best people. McInnes (right) confirmed yesterday that midfielder Kenny McLean plans to leave Pittodrie next summer — if not January — for more money and a new challenge.
Knock Brendan Rodgers off his perch whilst removing Celtic from the summit of the Premiership and it’s not impossible Aberdeen’s boss could be offered the chance to beat him to the exit.
‘I am committed here,’ said McInnes to an inevitable question about his future. ‘My work is here and, like everything else, you get used to speculation.
‘That’s the way it is for managers doing well. Just as you run the risk of losing your job if you are perceived to be doing less well.
‘It’s been a decent period for us and you might well get linked to other jobs.
‘But I am neither up nor down with all that, to be honest. I am just trying to live with it. You possibly get used to it.
‘I understand that’s the way it is and it’s not the worst thing in the world to be mentioned, but at the same time it’s not the most important thing at the minute.’
Last week Rodgers publicly backed his opposite number for the Scotland job.
‘I think Brendan would be a great Scotland manager,’ joked McInnes in response. ‘I think he has always been very complimentary but you just try to get your team as well prepared as they can be.’
Ending Celtic’s unbeaten record is easier said than done. Aberdeen’s last win in the fixture came in February 2016. The Parkhead side won all six encounters last season, scoring three goals in the first 11 minutes of their last visit to Pittodrie, a week before the teams met again in the Scottish Cup final.
Asked how that felt, McInnes responded with one word: ‘Shock.’
He added: ‘We asked the players to go out and win the second half and see if they could get the next goal (with the score) at 3-1.
‘I thought we threw everything at them. We were good value for 80 minutes or so but Celtic can do that to teams if you give them too much encouragement.’
Aberdeen were a Jekyll and Hyde team that night. But they mustered their good side in a cup final where they only succumbed to a last-minute goal by Tom Rogic.
That performance is just one of the reasons people fancy the Dons on home turf tonight. Celtic’s run has to end sometime. This might be the night. Last season’s Treble winners have endured gruelling matches with Bayern Munich and Hibs, while Aberdeen rested up after beating the Easter Road team to maintain their own unbeaten sequence in the league.
Only three Pittodrie sides have racked up more points in their opening nine league games. The last was two years ago, a 2-1 home win over Ronny Deila’s Celtic featuring in a run of eight straight wins at the start of the season. After losing some of his big players in the summer, including Jonny Hayes to Celtic, McInnes turned down Sunderland then set about rebuilding. Gary Mackay-Steven was signed and faces his former club for the first time tonight after scoring the winner at Easter Road. Young Scott McKenna has also made a promising start beside Kari Arnason in central defence. With Ash Taylor in the back line, ‘solid’ wasn’t necessarily a word you would have used to describe Aberdeen’s defending in recent seasons.
After three clean sheets, you might now.
‘In the three games Scott has played, the last one against Hibs he came up against a different type of striker in Anthony Stokes,’ said McInnes.
‘I thought Scott and Kari Arnason — as well as the role played by Anthony O’Connor — were very important. Scott has done very well and hopefully he can continue that.’
McKenna has still to come up against a Moussa Dembele or Leigh Griffiths. Yet McInnes sees Celtic danger everywhere. In key areas of the pitch.
‘There are threats all over the pitch and you need to try to nullify them but you have still got to be confident at your work,’ he said.
‘We have a way of playing we want to impose on them and try and work things out in an attacking sense as well.
‘We feel we have players that can light up the game and players who can have a huge impact.
‘Hopefully, if we can produce the performance we are capable of, it might just get us the result.’