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Aberdeen Stumble, But A Challenge Is Coming

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Aberdeen 1983

Aberdeen are the architects of their own downfall this year.

Part of that is the arrogance of their manager, a guy who believes his own press.

Another part of it is the inexperience of his team.

I’ll get to that part later in the article.

First let’s look at ourselves.

Celtic hasn’t been playing well; everyone knows that. We’ve dropped points in seven games, and our form has been poor, even when we’ve been winning. If those figures average themselves things out over what’s left of the season, we will either lose or draw a minimum of two more matches before the current campaign comes to an end.

We could have been caught.

We might have been caught already.

In an article earlier in the month I said Celtic would still win the SPL title, because Aberdeen aren’t ready. Last night, they showed that in technicolour. They were dreadful, and deserved to be beat, but we shouldn’t be taking any kind of satisfaction from that at the moment.

This isn’t over, and if we’re going to forestall another challenge from them, and probably from Hearts, next season we have to get a Hell of a lot better.

Fortunately, we can definitely improve.

Had we taken full advantage earlier in the season when they beat us with ten men we’d already be out of sight.

Games like that can decide title races; this season it won’t, but we might not be so lucky in the future.

There are players in the current team who will benefit from a close race where we’ve come out on top. Something like that builds mental fortitude, and one or two of our players – in particular, Nir Bitton – are already proving themselves battlers with the requisite will to win.

That is hugely important; winners aren’t born. They are made.

The more players are part of a winning team, the greater the drive to succeed.

Other players in our squad need a good boot up the arse, if you’ll pardon me for saying so.

The mental weaknesses we saw this year aren’t the stuff of which champions are made. We will be champions, of that there is little doubt, but it will because no-one has been able to put real, and sustained, pressure on us throughout this campaign.

And therein lies the real problem for Aberdeen.

Their inability to ratchet up the pressure on us, and to keep it on us, has been their real downfall. Three points last night would have sent us into the Inverness game at home knowing it was a “must win.” In terms of the manager’s position it still is; but in terms of the league race, we have some breathing space again. That makes us more likely to emerge from that match with the three points than we would be if were under pressure, with Aberdeen close behind.

Last night, they were the victims of a series of poor refereeing decisions but those decisions weren’t the reason they lost the match.

They lost because they, like Celtic, are lacking mental toughness, the kind that goes with having been over the course and won titles under pressure.

If their players were made of stronger stuff, with the winning mentality, we’d be in real trouble.

Part of this is their manager.

Derek McInness has won a lot of plaudits over the last couple of years, but in my humble opinion he has spectacularly underachieved.

Take his cup record; it is terrible. They have a solitary League Cup to their name, won in 2013-14 and he really ought to have done better.

The club itself has not won Scotland’s main cup competition since 1989-90, and that’s dreadful for a club of Aberdeen’s ambition.

He has shown few signs of changing that.

In interviews he often comes over as quite full of himself. At other times, he sounds like a guy who’s forever casting around for someone else to blame. Today the papers are full of him telling the world how the ref cost his side the game; it’s a nonsense, really.

He hasn’t instilled the proper level of belief in his team, that’s where the real issue lies.

Here’s the thing though; McInness is definitely a talented boss. If he can get a grip and stop blaming other people for his team’s mistakes, and actually start learning from them instead this team of his will go far, and mount an even more serious challenge next year, even allowing for a change of strategy at Parkhead.

Aberdeen have yet to find the consistency of a title winning side but that’ll come as this team grows and gets mentally stronger.

What this means to us is that we’ll need to be better to beat them.

That will spur us onward and change the dynamics at Celtic Park, and not before time.

What it mean for other clubs is that Hearts will have to channel their own positives and focus if they’re going to become our biggest threat.

What it means to Scottish football, as a whole, is that a certain Championship club is already in real trouble for its own arrogance and its oft-spoken belief that they have some kind of entitlement to be considered a big team.

I’ve long argued that other clubs will have something to say about that, and Aberdeen are so far ahead of them on the pitch (and only a mug or a tabloid journalist could argue otherwise) that it would be embarrassing for the two teams to meet at the present time.

Last night’s result didn’t surprise me.

Aberdeen are a good side, and no mistake, bit the SPL title hasn’t been won by a team outside Glasgow in 30 years, and although it was the Dons who last did it the fortitude to do it again simply isn’t there at the moment. It’s going to take more than a good team to accomplish that goal; it’s going to take one of almost superhuman belief, and right now this particular team doesn’t have the mettle.

I am grateful for that, but a challenge is going to come … and we better be ready when it does.

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