Willo Flood: Celtic are scared of us

For months, Aberdeen’s mantra has remained the same.

A title challenge? No chance. It has been a ‘one-game-at-a-time’ sort of season. Nothing more.

As the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months, nothing changed.

Derek McInnes wrote the script and his players followed it to the letter.

So when Willo Flood sat down on Friday to look ahead to today’s clash with Hamilton, nobody expected anything different.

But then he opened his mouth and at long last a title race was born!

“We need to make sure we can stay with Celtic all the way to the split,” he said.

“If we can stay with them, then let’s have a go. Let’s try and win it.”

The stunned silence which followed from the assembled Press was telling but the Irishman had barely begun.

“There’s a belief there. Why not?” he insisted. Out of the last 33 points, we’ve taken 29. If we keep that form up and don’t challenge, then we’ll have to put our hands up and say Celtic were just too good.

“But if we stick to that form, I don’t see why we can’t challenge them.

“If we can get to the split and we’re within four to six points of Celtic, then it’s game on. We’ll have to play them, and games at Tannadice or Inverness will be tough for them.”

Nobody in the Aberdeen dressing-room understands the Hoops’ mentality better than Flood, who spent a year in Glasgow’s East End.

That it was he who decided to break ranks and heap pressure on his old team at this point of the season is telling.

It turns out his reasons for doing stretch back to the Hoops’ seemingly pivotal 2-1 win at Pittodrie in November.

And asked whether he thinks Celtic know they are in a title fight, Flood didn’t miss.

“They recognise it alright,” he said. “When they beat us 2-1 here in the game I got injured, with the celebrations after it, I thought they’d won the League!

“For me, it was a bit overboard. I thought: ‘Wow, you obviously think we’re putting up a challenge here.’

“They obviously fear us a little bit. They can say what they want. They can say if they do this or that, then they’ll win the League.

“But after that game at Pittodrie, Scott Brown was celebrating in the tunnel as if they’d won the title.

“I thought: ‘Yeah, they fear us, so let’s have a go.’”

Having missed the last four months through injury, Flood’s enthusiasm is understandable.

And having done a job on Celtic, he displayed the same forthright attitude in relation to his return to the Dons’ first team.

He declared: “I think a fully-fit Willo Flood will play at Aberdeen Football Club.

“I have confidence in my own ability. The manager wouldn’t have offered me another extension in the summer if he didn’t think that.

“I know I have to bide my time as the lads are doing well.

“But I know when Willo Flood is fully fit and gets in the team, he’s there to stay.”

If he plays with as much conviction as he talks, there can be little room for doubt.