Michael McGovern believes Aberdeen have become such a force to be reckoned with because their strength in depth makes it almost impossible to develop a rock-solid game plan for taking them on.
The Hamilton Academical goalkeeper was given a torrid time by Derek McInnes' title challengers on Sunday during a match in which the visitors to New Douglas Park scored three goals and had two perfectly legitimate ones disallowed.
He admits, however, that his side's headaches started long before the game had even kicked off as a result of the difficulties involved in trying to predict their starting line-up with confidence these days.
As it was, McInnes only made one change from the side that had beaten Ross County 4-0 the previous week, but the presence of Jamie Langfield, David Goodwillie, Willo Flood, Barry Robson and Cammy Smith on the substitutes' bench gave clear evidence of the talent he has at his disposal.
McGovern still expects Celtic, the club he started his career with as a trainee, to win the SPFL Premiership this season, but he has nothing but admiration for the longer-term strategies currently being executed at Pittodrie.
"They've a very strong squad and they're signing good Scottish talents as well," said McGovern. "They have their best players signed up and they're building for the future.
"It's a strong set-up there and it is good they're challenging Celtic. I think Celtic will kick on and go on to win the league, but it's refreshing to see Aberdeen doing so well. Their squad's brilliant. We did analysis of them on Saturday and we didn't know what their team would be.
"When you see their options, they have an embarrassment of riches. Outwith Celtic, they definitely have the strongest squad. They are a big, big club."
For all Aberdeen's inventive play, the biggest talking point from their 3-0 win at Hamilton was the failure of the referee, Willie Collum, and his linesman, David McGeachie, to notice that a 42nd minute effort from Adam Rooney had gone at least a foot over the goal-line.
"It was in, obviously, but we didn't get a stonewall penalty (against Kilmarnock) last week," said McGovern. "Aberdeen won comfortably, so I don't think they'll be complaining too much. If we'd come back into the game, it would've been more of a talking point."
By that stage, Aberdeen had already strangled the life out of the match thanks to scoring twice in the opening eight minutes through Andrew Considine and Ryan Jack. "The early goals left us with a mountain to climb," said McGovern. "It was so unlike us because we've been starting games fantastically well, in general."
Accies still haven't won a match under their new manager, Martin Canning, but McGovern sees enough to suggest that their recent slide in form can be rectified. "Everyone's behind him," he said. "We want to do it for the manager, ourselves and the supporters.
"We're not playing badly. If Aberdeen hadn't scored early goals, the game could've been completely different. The last two games before that, we probably should've won. We are just not getting the results.
"When we've gone in front this season, we've gone on to win or draw and we haven't done it in a number of games now. It's crucial at this level and for the way we play. Our set-up and shape's good if we get the first goal."
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