Dons captain Graeme Shinnie has slapped down Rangers manager Pedro Caixinha’s claims the Pittodrie bubble is about to burst.
The Dons were Celtic’s closest challengers last season in the league and also lost both domestic cup finals to Brendan Rodgers’ side having run it even closer in the title race the year before.
Caixinha claimed the Aberdeen cycle was about to end and his Rangers side would emerge as the only serious contenders to Celtic. That despite Rangers finishing nine points behind the Dons last season and already out of the Europa League this time round following defeat to Progres Niederkorn of Luxembourg.
Shinnie has completely dismissed the notion his Dons are done as Aberdeen try to reach the Europa League play-off round by completing the job against Cypriot side Apollon Limassol on Thursday night
And the midfielder is certain Aberdeen will be the ones who will take the game to Celtic in the new campaign.
He said: “It doesn’t give us any more motivation than we already had. He’s probably just said that to upset the momentum we have and the morale in the team. But it won’t give us anything extra. It would be nice to prove him wrong, but we did that last year.
“There were a lot of people saying Rangers were back and that they would finish second or first.
“But we don’t need that to motivate us. We know what’s in the squad and we will look to do the business.
“We don’t need to prove anything. We want to do well for ourselves and the supporters. We know the possibilities for this squad. We want to do the hard work and focus on ourselves, to try to achieve our goals.”
Aberdeen finished 30 points behind Celtic last season, with Rangers a further nine behind.
Shinnie knows his side must improve if they are going to have an impact on the Premiership title race.
He added: “We want to be up challenging Celtic and get as close as we can. They blew us away last year with the form they showed but we will try to get as close as we can.
“Up to Christmas, it’s about getting as many points as we can. Then we look at how far you can go.”