Paulo Bernardo seeks Aberdeen revenge as Celtic ace shrugs off 'biggest game yet' tag

Paulo Bernardo insists Celtic's trip to Pittodrie is not their biggest game of the season so far, but he has warned Aberdeen they will be looking to widen the gap at the top of the table.

The Hoops could go seven points clear at the Premiership summit if they beat Jimmy Thelin's men on Wednesday night, who go into battle having picked up just two points from their last three games.

Aberdeen surprised the Celts with an astonishing Parkhead comeback to pick up a point in their first meeting of the season, but fell to a heavy 6-0 defeat in the Premier Sports Cup semi-finals against Brendan Rodgers' men.

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And Bernardo was adamant the Celts won’t be raising the stakes for the showdown – because the champions see every game as massive, writes the Daily Record.

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The midfielder – who scored in Saturday's 5-0 Ross County rout – said: "I think every game is very important to us. I don’t have one game that I think of as the biggest in the season because we have 38 games.

"We need to win every game and to show that we can always compete. If we hadn’t won on Saturday, Aberdeen would be closer to us before Wednesday.

"It will be a good game. It’s first against second and those are always good games but I don’t see it as the biggest game of the season. We will try our best and try to win the game as always."

Bernardo is not placing any extra importance on Pittodrie – but he does have revenge in mind after the Dons pinched a point at Parkhead.

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Celtic’s only dropped points in the Premiership came when Aberdeen came back from two goals down to salvage a draw in Glasgow through goals from Ester Sokler and Graeme Shinnie.

They almost went as far as securing a first victory in Glasgow's East End since 2018 when Duk bundled the ball beyond Kasper Schmeichel, but VAR ruled the Cape Verde international's goal out.

Bernardo won’t take the Dons lightly though and is looking to go full throttle in the north-east. He said: "Yes, it will be tough, for sure. Aberdeen are doing very well this season and they won’t want to make things easy for us.

"Is there an added motivation after what happened here in the last game against Aberdeen? Yes, we drew here, we won in the cup and we want to win again. This is Celtic so we need to win."