Gary Lineker and Micah Richards have Aberdeen favored to win the Scottish Premiership title over Celtic and Rangers.
With five wins out of five in the league and a spot in the League Cup semi-final secured last weekend, the Dons have had an ideal start to the season. Jimmy Thelin’s team is tied for first place in the standings with Celtic, the defending champions, and five points ahead of Rangers.
A follower of Scottish football asked Lineker, Richards, and Alan Shearer on the podcast The Rest is Football what they thought of Aberdeen’s current season.
“We’ll move onto a football question, a Scottish football question from Dan,” Lineker stated. “What do you think of Aberdeen’s season opening performance?
Now that they’ve brought him [Thelin] in, Aberdeen, they really are flying, don’t they? They have their leading scorer, Pape Gueye, I believe. Can they keep it up? All we can do is wait and see. I’ve seen them play a few of their high press games; they seem to like it.”
“Nevertheless, isn’t it interesting?” Shearer continued. “It’s encouraging to see that there are teams other than the big two that are at least challenging.”
Richards compared the early form of the Dons to both Bayern Leverkusen’s undefeated campaign under Xabi Alonso last season and Leicester City’s unexpected Premier League victory in 2015–16.
“To be completely honest, I’ve only watched highlights of the [Aberdeen] games. I did some research, and Thelin wants to play attacking football, like you said, Gary,” he stated. I don’t want to lie to people because I haven’t watched them play live this season, but he takes calculated chances and plays free-flowing football. After all, I watched an hour of their football, and they certainly appear talented. It’s a terrific start, but I’m not sure if they can maintain it for the entire season.
You are aware of what occurs? It’s similar to the Leicester situation, isn’t it? After winning so many games, you gain confidence and begin to feel that this season will be similar to last year’s when Leverkusen went on a run and you started to believe. I wish them well because, let’s face it, it would be good to see some change in Scotland.”
“We always talk about Rangers and Celtic, so you know, it would be nice for Aberdeen [to win the league],” Richards continued.
Lineker chuckled, saying, “It would be reviving. The only issue is that I don’t recall Aberdeen ever producing a fantastic manager. I’m being ironic there, of course, because that’s where Sir Alex Ferguson began his extraordinary ascent to prominence in the world of management.”
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