Aberdeen defender Greg Leigh insists it is far too soon to be writing off his side’s hopes of competing against Celtic and Rangers.
The Dons moved up to fourth on Saturday thanks to a 3-0 win against Ross County and Leigh believes his side is capable of staying within touching distance of Scottish football’s big two, who have been tipped by many to ease clear of the chasing pack at the top of the Premiership.
He said: “It is too early to say. They are both in Europe, are going to have extra games there, have a lot of international players and we’re just into September.
“It’s too far off to say it’s a two-horse race. The European games will be a factor and heavy games on a Thursday followed by big games on a Sunday can take their toll on big players who have to play through them all.
“Hopefully we can make that evident.”
The Dons have slowly recovered from three defeats in a row to win twice and draw the other of their last three matches and Leigh believes he and his team-mates have proven their qualities.
He said: “When you look at our start it doesn’t look great.
“When you go from a 5-0 victory to some of the performances of late it doesn’t look great but you have to trust in the quality at the club.
“It was never the case it was not going to come together when you look at the players and the team we have.
“We have been playing games one after the other and this week is the first full week we have been able to work on our fitness, which helped me, our patterns of play, which helped the team, and the cohesion of the team.
“We went with a plan of how we want to play, like we have done in past games, but we were really on the same page for this game.”
Leigh scored the opening goal at Pittodrie when he headed a free kick which came straight from the training ground and he believes the credit for the goal should go to Dons assistant manager Tony Docherty.
He said: “Tony Doc really works with us on set-pieces and he comes up with some really good ones to be fair.”