Aberdeen vs Celtic has become Scotland’s main rivalry over the last several years.
The Dons have desperately been trying to reign in Brendan Rodgers’ men for multiple seasons now. Under Ronny Deila there was a chink of light, with many Dons-minded people thinking they missed a chance to win the league back in season 2015-16.
Celtic, however, have just motored on from there. Since Rodgers took over, they’ve been sweeping all side domestically en-route to seven consecutive trophies. The Hoops manager is untouchable in Scotland, and continues to win everything on offer.
And it finally appears that Aberdeen are broken after their third straight cup final defeat to Celtic. The pair met back in season 2016-17 on two occasions in Mount Florida. 3-0 and 2-1 successes brought Rodgers trophy number one and three to Parkhead.
In between those successes and the one on Sunday, Celtic have won all but one meeting with Aberdeen in the league. It’s quite natural then that the Dons would be fuming after Sunday’s result.
Graeme Shinnie has come out and slammed Scott Brown and co as classless. Derek McInnes was next to have a pop, this time at Mikael Lustig. Scott McKenna was keen to put a lid on it, but still couldn’t help himself from saying that “maybe they lacked a bit of class”.
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Aberdeen look a broken side
Make no bones about it, Aberdeen sound like a broken side. A club who now know that, no matter how well they do, there’s always that glass ceiling of Celtic waiting to knock them out.
It must be frustrating for McInnes and his backroom staff at Pittodrie. They’ve put so much work into Aberdeen and turned them from mid-table mediocrity into the second-best team in Scotland. Whether they can hold onto that mantra this season remains to be seen.
Their moaning after the Betfred Cup, however? That was the sign of a desperate team who are just sick of consistently coming in second-best to Celtic.
The likes of Shay Logan, Andrew Considine, and Niall McGinn now have more losers medals than wins over Celtic these days, and they’re all getting stick of it.
Rodgers’ domestic dominance has never been on better display than it is now. Aberdeen continue to throw classless jibes, whilst Celtic are polishing off their seventh consecutive domestic trophy.
The Dons will pick themselves up, they always do. But it’s going to take plenty of repair work considering Celtic have now smashed their mental state and behaviour both on the park and off it.