Celtic's league rivals earn Leicester City & Leverkusen comparison as pundits discuss possible title challenge
Aberdeen have made headlines for their excellent start to the Scottish Premiership season
Scottish champions Celtic have kicked off the campaign with an exemplary record of five wins from five Premiership matches this season, leaving them five points clear of rivals Rangers at this early stage as they target a fourth consecutive title defence.
The Hoops kicked off the Champions League with a 5-1 victory over Slovan Bratislava and also progressed to the Premier Sports Cup semi-final with victories over Hibs and Falkirk.
Celtic won the league by eight points last term and have proven in the last few years that they are more than capable of running away with the title under both Ange Postecoglou and Brendan Rodgers.
So far this term, only one team has been able to keep up with Celtic’s fast start and that is Aberdeen.
The Dons kicked off the league campaign with a 2-1 victory away to St Johnstone and built on that momentum with further wins against St Mirren, Kilmarnock, Ross County and Motherwell.
Jimmy Thelin could not have wished for a better start to life at Aberdeen, and even boasts a perfect record of six victories from six matches in the Premier Sports Cup - leaving him with a combined record of 11 consecutive victories from 11 matches - the best start of any manager in the club’s history.
In fact, Thelin is now just one victory short of equalling Martin O’Neill’s Scottish record of 12 consecutive victories, which he set when he first arrived as Hoops boss back in 2000.
Aberdeen’s record-breaking start was the subject of discussion for Gary Lineker and Micah Richards on the Rest is Football podcast.
The Match of the Day duo were quick to heap praise on the entertaining brand of football that Thelin has been able to implement in such a short space of time.
Commenting on Thelin, Linker said: “Well, they’re absolutely flying. Aberdeen, since they brought him in. They’ve got Papa Gueye, who I think is their top scorer.
“Can they maintain it? We’ll have to wait and see. He [Jimmy Thelin] does like playing a high press.”
Richards added: “I’ll be totally honest I’ve only seen highlights of the games. I did a bit of research yesterday and like you said, Gary, he wants to play attacking football.
“He takes risks at the right times and free-flowing football. That is sort of his ethos. And I haven’t seen him play live this season so I don’t want to lie to people.
“I’ve literally watched an hour of their football yesterday and they do look impressive. Whether they can keep it going for the whole season, I’m not entirely sure, but it’s a great start.”
Aberdeen were the last team outside of the Old Firm to win the Scottish Premiership title and Richards believes it would be a ‘refreshing’ change for the league if they were able to get their hands on the trophy.
Richards said: “It’s like the Leicester thing, isn’t it? Once you win that many games, you get that confidence, you think, it’s sort of like Leverkusen last season where they just go on a run, you start to believe.
“And good luck to them because it’d be nice up in Scotland if they could shake it up a little bit, you know?
“We’re always talking about Rangers and Celtic, so it’d be nice for Aberdeen.”
Lineker agreed: “It would be refreshing.”