Aberdeen attacker Adam Rooney believes the Dons are capable of pushing Celtic all the way this season.
Aberdeen moved to within two points of the champions after recording their fifth straight league win with a 1-0 victory against Caley Thistle on Sunday – courtesy of a Peter Pawlett goal.
Pawlett immediately dismissed suggestions the Reds are challenging for the championship, while manager Derek McInnes is content to let others talk up his side’s chances.
Rooney is also among those in the Pittodrie dressing-room happy to play down Aberdeen’s prospects of a first title since 1985, but the former Caley Jags forward hopes his team can at least take the challenge to title favourites Celtic all the way to the end of the campaign.
He said: “The main thing is we are not too far behind at this stage.
“We’ll keep focusing on ourselves but Dundee United, Hamilton and Caley Thistle are all going well. That makes it a tight and exciting league and we want to make sure we can keep this great run we are on going.”
The Pittodrie attacker added: “Celtic have run away with the title in the last few seasons and they have the squad to probably be able to do that same thing again.
“But if we can maintain our form we will be there or thereabouts as we are keeping a lot of clean sheets.”
The Dons have been miserly in defence recently, keeping eight clean sheets in their last 10 outings and Rooney knows that impressive run will need to continue if his side is to go the distance.
He said: “Defensively we are looking really solid and we are going really well attacking-wise as well, so there’s no reason why we can’t do well.
“You don’t want to be pushing away the ones below you, you want to be chasing the ones above you in the table.
“We are scoring a lot of goals and if we can play the way we have been lately then we can beat anyone.”
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