I would love it – and I mean a real Kevin Keegan-style “luv it” – if Aberdeen could win the 2015-16 Ladbrokes Premiership.

It would be great news for the Dons. It would be terrible news – and possibly the end – for Ronny Deila at Celtic. It would also be a huge and improbable feat by Derek McInnes.

More than anything, it would be fantastic for Scottish football, as well as a reminder of those great football years past in Scotland’s north-east.

Being honest, after 30 years of either Celtic or Rangers winning the top honour in Scotland, which neutral wouldn’t fancy a new champion?

While many countries enjoy football duopolies, there must be few mainstream leagues in world football that have suffered the stagnant repetition of winners as in Scotland.

Aberdeen are solely to blame for this current bout of excitement. Their win over Celtic a Pittodrie on Saturday – a deserved win – followed by the routine clubbing of Hamilton Accies on Tuesday evening have put them five points clear of Celtic after seven matches.

There are various complicating factors in football but this is all down to one man: Derek McInnes.
The Aberdeen manager is in the perfect zone. In that old-fashioned way, he is in total control of his club, in a way that Sir Alex Ferguson, his most illustrious predecessor at Pittodrie, would admire.

McInnes has that intangible quality called “presence”. He looks assured, he is confident in his judgement, he has an air of authority about him. The way McInnes carries himself these days, Aberdeen fans must feel an instinctive and unflinching trust in him.

It is an enviable position for any manager to have, but it has to be created from within. McInnes, in his tactical thinking and thoughtful rebuilding of Aberdeen, has earned his current good fortune. The Red Army has total faith in him.

It has been uplifting to see Pittodrie sold-out with 20,000 fans on a number of occasions this season, in Europe and in the league. Ferguson himself complained three decades ago that Aberdeen couldn’t always attract the numbers their football deserved, but the club’s crowds are up dramatically since McInnes arrived on the scene in March 2013 I was at Tannadice for the opening game of the league campaign between Aberdeen and Dundee United. Yes, it is a favourite venue for the Dons away support, an easier geographical hike to make.

But the scene that day was still impressive. The 4000 Aberdeen fans at Tannadice were a recurring montage of colour and noise.

All of this being said, no-one can have any illusions about the almighty task McInnes and Aberdeen face in beating Celtic to the flag. The old argument remains as valid as ever – it’s about economics, stupid.

McInnes’s playing-budget is between a quarter and a fifth of that of Celtic. In terms of salary and access to talented footballers in the market place, Celtic hold a significant advantage.

Come January 2016, in the unlikely event of Aberdeen holding a 10-point lead over Celtic, the reigning Scottish champions could simply go out and buy £3m worth of new talent to address the situation.

Aberdeen could not match that.

McInnes right now looks an excellent football manager, but he cannot thwart capitalism. The danger would always be that Celtic could simply erase his superior work by buying in new tools.

But there still is a way for Aberdeen.

It is fascinating how, in one way, McInnes is working with “rejects”. Niall McGinn was a Celtic reject. So was Adam Rooney at Birmingham City. So was David Goodwillie at Blackburn Rovers.

There is no sin in taking good players who have suffered a period of failure. In the 1980s Jim McLean built a fine Dundee United team on just that strategy.

From David Bowman to Eamonn Bannon to Jim McInally and countless others, McLean waited for good Scottish players to come up short in England before bringing them back north to Tannadice and restoring their game. It is a useful trick.

McInnes has also acquired shrewdly, with Graeme Shinnie and Kenny McLean being shining examples of excellent young Scottish talents who have chosen Aberdeen for a career move. It all speaks volumes for what is happening at the club right now.

We’ll know in the early months of next year how this anticipated Premiership title race is panning out. It might well have petered out by then, with Aberdeen faltering, though somehow I doubt it.

Celtic, even in their vulnerable state, remain the favourites. But Aberdeen, in their current form, have got more than a few of us excited about a potentially thrilling outcome.