Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes believes his side will be ready to face Hamilton and Celtic if the Scottish Government allow the games to go ahead.
McInnes has been embarrassed after eight of his players have had to self isolate after a night out in Aberdeen city centre last weekend. This led to the postponement of the Dons’ clash with St Johnstone on Saturday (Sky Sports).
Hamilton and Celtic are next up for the Granite City side, who would be without those same eight players including ex-Hoops man Jonny Hayes. That is, of course, if the game is to go ahead.
Kris Boyd stated his belief that the two games should be postponed in the interests of “sporting integrity” (Scottish Sun). McInnes, however, has claimed that Aberdeen are prepared if the games go ahead. Speaking in the Press and Journal, here’s what the Dons boss had to say:
“We need to be guided by the health professionals. If we can meet our responsibilities and can go ahead and play games then fine we would do that. We would be happy to get back and play football and if that means playing against Hamilton on Wednesday and then Celtic on Saturday we will deal with that. What we are advised to do we will do.
“We were going to be hampered massively with selections but we were prepared to play the St Johnstone game. It actually might not have been the worst thing for us to go out and play a game of football.
“I totally understand the decision for the game to be cancelled. There will be further testing over the weekend and hopefully we can have a clean bill of health for the rest of the squad.”
Why should Celtic be punished?
Boyd’s comments on postponing the game for sporting integrity just don’t stand up.
If a team was to receive seven or eight injuries to their first team, and then four or five recover for the next round of fixtures, is that not the same idea? Nobody cries for sporting integrity when a team is injury-hit. This surely falls under the same bracket.
Why should Celtic potentially miss out on a round of fixtures and then have to cram it in somewhere down the line? Rangers could potentially open up a five-point gap at the top if that were to be the case, and mentally that’s a deflating aspect from a Celtic perspective.
Besides, after seeing Aberdeen’s toothless performance against Rangers on matchday one, can you truly say they would be that much weaker without some of those players? It’s not as if the Pittodrie side are firing on all cylinders.
The only man who will know whether Aberdeen are prepared is McInnes. In fairness to him, he isn’t shirking the challenges either. He’s been thrown into a ridiculous situation thanks to a group of players who totally underperformed on opening day then went out as if they’d won the match.
So it’s good to hear this from McInnes. He may not be the Celtic supporters’ biggest fan, but he’s certainly handled himself well in such a shocking scenario.
In other news, an English pundit has urged a 26-goal League One star to make “awesome” Celtic move.
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