Tables prove Celtic were pushed harder by Aberdeen

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When you look at the Premiership table, it’s certainly looking pretty decent from a Celtic perspective.

Yesterday’s 2-1 win at Parkhead over Rangers means that Celtic went 13 clear of their arch-rivals. That’s despite the fact Rangers were level with the Hoops heading into the winter break, albeit Celtic had a game in hand.

As we spoke about yesterday, Celtic’s 13-point gap is larger than the gap between the two sides at the end of last season. The victory at Parkhead ensured that Rangers aren’t on course to eat into the points distance between the two teams.

And one eagle-eyed fan has provided a comparison of Premiership tables in recent years at this stage of the season. Take a look at this below.

Not the challenge we’re led to believe

Some in the media would have you believe that Rangers are back challenging again. That all comes from simply giving us some harder games than we’ve had over the past couple of seasons (as if they could’ve gotten any easier).

But the Premiership tables in 2015 and 2016 prove that Aberdeen actually gave us a tougher time of it at this stage of each campaign.

In both the 2015 and 2016 campaigns, Aberdeen were just seven points behind Celtic at this stage of the season. That’s not to say that Celtic had been performing worse with regards to their points tally either.

At the moment, Celtic are on 73 points in this season’s Premiership campaign. In the two years Aberdeen came close, we were on 72 for both. The Dons, meanwhile, were just seven points behind on 65. They didn’t even remotely have the same hype given to them.

Compare that to this apparent challenge from Rangers. Steven Gerrard’s side has 60 points – five points less than the Dons accumulated in the same amount of games in two different campaigns. It goes against any notion that Celtic are being pushed harder by Rangers this season than they have at any stage of the seven-in-a-row period.

It doesn’t read well for our rivals, but it says a lot about the smoke being blown up them. We’re cruising, and have been for a while. Don’t let anyone tell you different – this hasn’t even been a challenge in the end.