Aberdeen v Celtic
Football : Scottish Premier League
Sunday 7 August 2011 - Kickoff 12:15pm (Local Time)

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Aberdeen

It has not been the start to the new season that Craig Brown and the Aberdeen fans would have liked as the team have failed to score a goal in their first 2 games and they find themselves down in 10th spot at this early stage of the new Scottish Premier League season.

The team finished with a 6-2-11 record at Pittodrie last season, scoring 22 goals and conceding 21. This season they opened their campaign with a 0-0 draw here against St Johnstone, but the lack of goals must be concerning.

Aberdeen have won just 1 of their last 5 Premier League games following on from the end of last season and it is an issue when they have failed to score in 4 of those games. They have failed to score in 6 of their last 7 games at home in the League, losing 5 of those games.

Ryan Jack is suspended for this game and Chris Clark, Youl Mawene and Fraser Fyvie are all injured and are doubtful for this game.

Celtic

The early start of the Scottish Premier League may have caught out the Celtic administration as they were actually involved in a pre-season tournament on the same weekend that all the other teams were playing their 2nd League games of the season.

Celtic are desperate to regain the Scottish Premier League title after the disappointment of last season and started this season in good fashion with a convincing 0-2 win at Hibernian on the opening day. The struggles Rangers have faced would have boosted confidence, but it is still far too early to be handing out trophies. Celtic finished with a 14-2-3 away record last season, scoring 34 goals and conceding 11.

Celtic have won their last 4 Scottish Premier League games since losing at Inverness, a result that effectively cost them the title. They have kept clean sheets in each of those games, and have conceded just 5 goals in their last 12 League games. The Bhoys have kept clean sheets in 6 of their last 7 away games in the League and have won their last 3 games.

Mark Wilson will miss this game, along with Glen Loovens and Thomas Rogne. Scott Brown completes his 2 match suspension.

Head to Head

Aberdeen have had a tough time against Celtic in recent games, losing 9 of their last 10 meetings against the Glasgow side, including all 5 games played last season.

Celtic scored 21 goals and conceded 1 in those 5 wins last season, including a 9-0 home win in November.

Celtic have won 3 of their last 4 visits to Pittodrie in the League, and each of those wins have come by at least 2 goals.

Prediction

I was split between two picks for this game- either I was going to back Celtic to win to nil or I was going to back Celtic to win by a couple of goals.

Aberdeen have struggled for goals this season and at the end of last season, while Celtic's defence has been tough to breach and it looked like that would win out.

However, I have noticed that Aberdeen had scored at least 1 goal in 7 straight home games against Celtic in the Scottish Premier League before losing 0-3 here last season.

So that left me looking at Celtic to win this game by a couple of goals instead, and their last 5 wins at Pittodrie have come by a couple of goals or more.

The Celtic squad looks strong this season and they have plenty of attacking options and they have an extremely strong record against Aberdeen in recent games. Much like the game against Hibernian, I think Celtic will be good enough to win by a couple of goals again at Pittodrie, and increase the pressure on Craig Brown.

The Pick :

Aberdeen 1-3 Celtic

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

I'll back Celtic - 1.5 Asian Handicap @ 1.95 (Pinnacle)