Derek McInnes is famous among the Parkhead support for moaning about Celtic.
When he was the Aberdeen manager, McInnes was forever crying about decisions that went for Celtic and against his team.
And that didn’t change much when McInnes took on Celtic when he was in charge at Kilmarnock.
Now at Hearts, the Edinburgh club are being tipped to challenge Celtic for the title but it seems McInnes is not having it as he drags up what the Parkhead club did when he was in charge at Pittodrie.
Derek McInnes ‘at pains’ to talk down Hearts title challenge to Celtic
Aberdeen ran Celtic close for the Scottish Premiership title one year when McInnes was in charge at Pittodrie.
And after being asked if Hearts can push Brendan Rodgers all the way, McInnes painfully remembered what Celtic did the last time he tried to overtake the Bhoys for the league title.
McInnes told The Scottish Football Social Club, “I’m at pains to stress that we’re coming from a long way back. We were a bottom six team last year. We’ve got a lot to do.
“I remember when we got to second in the league, I think we were a point behind Celtic at Aberdeen in January, and we didn’t have the money.
“We just didn’t have the money to go and compete. Celtic spent millions I think in January just to try and get themselves away from us.
“And they showed the strength of them and I remember thinking at the time that we’re going to have to try and get through the season. We lost Danny Ward back to Liverpool on the last day of the window in January and we lost to Adam Rooney the second day into February.
“So I lost my number nine and my number one and we were weaker when the window closed. I think for any manager and any team that regardless of where you are in the league come January, you want to try and come out the window stronger.
“And I do believe that if we’re in a strong position or if we’ve got work to do still, I do believe that we will get stronger, such is the belief in the recruitment and analytics, I believe we will get stronger every window regardless where we are in the league.”
The year Derek McInnes got close to Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic when at Aberdeen
To be fair to McInnes, he did get close to Celtic in the race for the title when Brendan Rodgers was in charge.
Season 2017/18, the year after Brendan Rodgers took over, Aberdeen ran Celtic close for the title.
With Celtic garnering a points total of just 82 to win the league, McInnes ended the season just nine points behind Rodgers and three ahead of Rangers.
Clearly, this still rankles with the Hearts boss and is the reason why he won’t allow himself to get carried away with Hearts’ good start to the season.
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