Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes hailed his side’s mental resolve after they blew the Scottish Premiership title race wide open with a 2-1 victory over Celtic last night.
A blistering strike from Jonny Hayes and a debut goal from Simon Church gave Aberdeen a commanding two goal half-time lead.
Leigh Griffiths scored a late consolation for the Hoops but the Dons held on for a deserved victory in front of a crowd of 19,003.
The result cuts Celtic’s lead at the top to three points and McInnes felt his side proved once again that they can handle the pressure.
He said: “I always think it’s very unfair on my players when people refer to that, I really do.
“We have handled a big occasion tonight and been very consistent for two and a half years.
“The amount of points we have put together deserves credit.
“My players demonstrate consistently enough that when we bring a performance, have that intent and have our better players playing at a level we win more often than we don’t.
“The players deserve a lot of credit for that.
“We have 14 games to go and we just want to win as many as we can.
“You can roll out games where people think we have not handled the pressure but there have been far more where we have dealt with it.
“Sometimes that gets forgotten.
“We had to deal with that tonight with 20,000 odd in here again.
“It was a brilliant atmosphere that was and they were all here expecting us to win.
“That has not been the case for a long time.”
Dons defender Graeme Shinnie, who again captained the side in the absence of the injured Ryan Jack, said the players would not get caught up in any hype surrounding a second win of the season over Celtic.
He said: “We are just going to keep our feet on the ground.
“We don’t get carried away as we know what we have to do. We have an even bigger game now on Saturday against St Johnstone.
“We have a great squad and everyone worked hard for each other.
“We have the belief in the dressing room and we showed what a good unit we are tonight.
“It is not always you have a night where you feel as comfortable as that against Celtic.
“I thought we deserved to win and played really well on the night.”