Russell Anderson is hoping to lead his Aberdeen side to a third victory over Celtic this season, but the defender's attention has also been drawn further into the future as his contract with the Pittodrie club nears its end.
Anderson, in his second spell at the club following an ill-fated period south of the border with Sunderland and Derby County, has performed consistently well at the centre of Aberdeen's defence this season. He will intend to maintain that form at Celtic Park tomorrow.
However, Derek McInnes, the Aberdeen manager, has remained guarded about whether he will offer the club captain a new deal when his current contract expires in the summer.
"I have had a good chat with Russell and we will continue to talk over the rest of the season," said McInnes, whose side are in second place with a four-point advantage over Motherwell. "I will speak to him and see what his thoughts are. Russell can hold his head high the way he has performed this season.
"He has played more than people anticipated and he has been a real solid fixture for us. He is a really dependable guy and epitomises what you want from your senior players."
The 35-year-old defender has also indicated a desire to stay at Pittodrie beyond this season and that a failure to agree a new contract would cause him to retire. Barry Robson, Scott Vernon and Nicky Low are also coming to the end of their contracts and McInnes refused to be drawn on their immediate futures.
Instead, the Aberdeen manager focused on tomorrow's match and the prospect of inflicting a third defeat on Celtic this term. "Any manager going into the away dressing room at Celtic Park will be saying the similar things about showing confidence on the ball and a belief that you can go and win the game," he said. "The fact that we have won there already this season may possibly help us.
"To their credit, Celtic don't look like they have one eye on their holidays. They still have a lot to play for and they showed that with the way they dismantled Inverness last week by scoring six goals and playing a lot good football with a lot of flair and good movement.
"There is a real balance about their team and plenty of goals at the top end of the pitch. There is a lot to like about Celtic at the minute. They are a good side. We will have our work cut out. But we know we have beaten them before and if we play to our level then we believe we can get our result."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article