Tonight’s match is live on BT Sport, whose lead Scottish commentator Derek Rae is always chuffed to be back on his home patch.

The Title Race

Although we’re already well into January, this represents the first Pittodrie trip of the season for the BT Sport team. Why have we waited so long, you might ask?

Selecting live TV matches can be a complex business. Each of the SPFL’s two live broadcast partners can only go three times to any one Premiership ground before the split, so the utmost care is needed in making sure that a key game towards the end of the campaign isn’t missed.

For my own research though, I’ve been to quite a few home games this term and of course we’ve covered a couple of Aberdeen away matches with two more to come in the month of February.

The last Pittodrie game against Partick Thistle was one I did attend and while the result was disappointing from a Dons point of view, just compare and contrast this season with most others throughout the past quarter of a century. To be this close to the league lead would normally resemble living in cloud cuckoo land.

Maybe this is just an old football romantic talking but while Celtic are clearly favourites to take the title, why shouldn’t Aberdeen fans believe that the defending champions can be toppled? Fans don’t need to be realists. Leave that to managers in media conferences.

I’ve been lucky enough to commentate on unfashionable teams in other European leagues, bucking trends and winning championships. Twente in the Netherlands, Lille in France and even Wolfsburg and Stuttgart in Germany all come to mind. As the Germans like to say, ‘belief can move mountains.’ I hear a lot from many fellow media members and football fans generally that ‘there is no title race.’ Now granted, Aberdeen missed two big opportunities over the festive period recently but Celtic have been similarly wasteful in this campaign. Would the title race deniers put their mortgage on another Celtic title success? I thought not! They can’t be entirely sure for the first time in a while.

To repeat, Celtic have the edge but this is no foregone conclusion and there have been many plot twists already in this Premiership season. Who’s to say what will happen next?
Everyone of course is entitled to their opinion but I’ve seen too many odd things in football in thirty years behind the microphone to declare something ‘over’ this early, especially when the point’s gap remains comparatively small.

Just because only two Scottish teams have won the title in the past three decades, doesn’t guarantee that scenario for life.

Enjoy this title race and keep believing.

The League Cup

As many of you will know, BT Sport will be the exclusive broadcast partner of the rebranded League Cup beginning next season. A four year deal, pumping £8 million into the Scottish game, is surely a winwin situation for all concerned, especially looking at the huge increase over the current deal for that competition. Every Scottish club will benefit financially.

It will mean an earlier start for most clubs, nothing new for Aberdeen, given the last couple of years in the Europa League. Teams representing Scotland in Europe won’t have to compete in the new group stage, instead receiving a free pass into the last sixteen, so I would expect you’ll be observers rather than participants this summer.

I must say, I very much like the plan to invite the champions of the Highland and Lowland Leagues into the group phase. This is purely a personal view, but it would be wonderful to see the eight groups named after Scottish football greats. Instead of a bland Group A, B, C set up, why not create for example, The Law Group, The Baxter Group, The Stein Group, The Miller Group? An annual poll could even be done involving fans of every team to find out which of their respected figures they would want heading up a section. Then one team in each group could be selected and the naming done on that basis. It’s a small thing but the kind of nod to our Scottish football history that I feel is sometimes missing.

Summer Football

The mid-July 2016 start has been welcomed by many, and there is a school of thought that believes we should go the whole hog and play throughout the summer. My own view is that this is the future.

A lot of money goes down the drain every winter when matches are postponed, affecting all stakeholders. It can be miserable experience on a raw, wet January day. Yet we somehow accept this as just a fact of being a football fan. It needn’t be.

Opponents of summer football will trot out the same arguments. I’ve heard them all: people on holiday, tradition, weather can still be bad, fans would be bored in winter, major tournaments get in the way.

Yet we are pretty much alone among countries of a similar latitude in ploughing on from August until May with a multitude of postponements year in, year out. To me the positives of summer football outweigh any negatives.
Better pitches mean better technique in the long run. As fans, think back to some of those July nights in Europa League qualifying of the last couple of years. Wasn’t it more enjoyable to go the football without four layers of clothing?

It would have the added benefit of giving Scottish football its own window away from the behemoth that is the English Premier League. I have a feeling the revamping of the League Cup with an earlier start will give us a taste of something the majority will like.

Follow Derek Rae on Twitter: @RaeComm
Follow BT Sport SPFL on Twitter @btsportspfl