Aberdeen have been tipped to topple Celtic and Rangers in the Scottish Premiership title race by Gary Lineker and Micah Richards.
The Dons have made a perfect start to this year’s campaign, winning five league games from five and booking their place in the League Cup semi-final last weekend. Jimmy Thelin’s side sit joint-top of the table, level on points with last year’s champions Celtic and five points ahead of Rangers.
A Scottish football fan sent a question to Lineker, Richards and Alan Shearer on The Rest is Football podcast, asking the pundits for their thoughts on Aberdeen’s season so far.
Lineker said: "We'll move onto a football question, a Scottish football question from Dan - 'What do you make of Aberdeen's start of the season under Jimmy Thelin? They've won 11 out of 11, joint top of the league and in a cup semi-final, can you remember any other manager's having a start like this?'
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"Well, they're absolutely flying, Aberdeen, aren't they, since they've brought him [Thelin] in. They've got Pape Gueye, I think it is, who’s their top scorer. Can they maintain it? We'll have to wait and see. They like playing a high press, I've caught a couple of their games."
"Interesting though, isn't it?” Shearer added. “At least there's some other team that's challenging other than the big two, so that's good to see."
Richards likened the Dons’ early form to Leicester City’s shock Premier League win in 2015/16, along with Bayern Leverkusen’s unbeaten season under Xabi Alonso last term.
He said: "I'll be totally honest, I've only seen highlights of the [Aberdeen] games, I did a bit of research and, like you said Gary, he [Thelin] wants to play attacking football. He takes risks at the right times, free-flowing football, that is sort of his ethos and I haven't seen them play live this season so I don't want to lie to people. I eventually watched an hour of their football and they do look impressive. Whether they can keep it going for the whole season, I'm not entirely sure but it's a great start.
"You know what happens? It's like the Leicester thing, isn't it – once you win that many games, you get that confidence, you think it's sort of like Leverkusen last season, where they just go on a run and you start to believe. Good luck to them because, it'd be nice up in Scotland if they could shake it up a little bit, you know?"
Richards added: "We're always talking about Rangers and Celtic, so you know, it'd be nice for Aberdeen [to win the league]."
Lineker joked: "It would be refreshing. The only thing is I can't ever remember Aberdeen producing a great manager before. I'm being ironic there, obviously that's where Sir Alex Ferguson started his epic, epic rise in the managerial world."
