Brown: Dons will be main challengers, not Rangers

● Celtic captain tips Aberdeen to be main contenders for Premiership title

Celtic captain Scott Brown believes Aberdeen will remain the biggest rivals to his team’s status as Scottish champions this season regardless of the return of Rangers to the top flight.

Brown and his team-mates will begin their quest for a sixth consecutive title win with a trip to Tynecastle on Sunday and he has also tipped Hearts to build on last season’s third-placed finish by posing another robust challenge.

But the 31-year-old midfielder has reserved judgement on the potential of Rangers posing an immediate threat at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership following their fouryear absence from the fray.

“We’ll see when it comes,” was Brown’s response when asked by Sky Sports News how he expects Rangers to fare.

The defending champions will face Rangers at Celtic Park on 10 September in the first Old Firm showdown of the campaign.

“It will be good,” said Brown. “A Rangers-celtic game is always good in a packed stadium but we have a lot of huge games. That’s down the line.

“That’s the fifth game of the season and we have a few before that. Aberdeen and Hearts have been great in the last few seasons and we expect more of the same from those two.

“I think Aberdeen [will be our closest challengers] after the last couple of seasons. They have been exciting to watch and have taken points off us at Celtic Park. We struggled up there last year so we’ll need to do a bit better this season.

“The league is always the number one priority. It’s huge for us to get six in a row. We fought well last season and we deserved it.

“We are determined to defend the title this season. Last season was a little bit disappointing overall but we still got the job done [in the league].

“Hopefully we can do the same this year. We have started off really well in the Champions League qualifiers and hopefully we can push on in the league.”

Celtic face Astana in the second leg of their Champions League third qualifying round tie at Parkhead tomorrow night, having earned a promising 1-1 draw in the first leg in Kazakhstan last week.

“We could have nicked another goal over there but we are looking forward to Wednesday,” said Brown.

“These games will stand us in good stead for the league. We are eight or nine games deep into our season already and hopefully that helps us.”

Brown has praised the initial impact of new manager Brendan Rodgers at Celtic and expects the fruits of his labour to show themselves in increased standard of performances over the coming weeks and months.

“Training has been except tional,” added Brown. “He’s a great manager to work under. He had swansea and liverpool playing really good football and we are trying to do that at Celtic too.

“We have a long way to go but everyone is enjoying it. The manager has alreadystrengthened the team with kolotoure coming into defence and Moussa Dembele up front. Hopefully we can improve.”

SCOTT BROWN “I think Aberdeen [will be our closest challengers]. They have been exciting to watch and have taken points off us at Celtic Park”