Jim Goodwin claims that his Aberdeen squad are exempt from the 'defeatist and negative' attitudes that other Scottish Premiership teams apply when travelling to face the Old Firm.
The Dons currently sit third in the Scottish Premiership table having won three of their last five in the top-flight, and can close the gap between them and Rangers to just four points if they can walk away from Ibrox with all three points. It is a tough task despite the Light Blues' poor form, but an attainable result nonetheless given the discontent in Govan at present.
But despite failing to beat Rangers and Celtic away in the league since 2018, Goodwin insists that his players are not fazed by the challenge that awaits them - unlike other clubs in the division, who he claims go into clashes against the top two in the division with a 'defeatist' mentality that more often than not sees them unable to claim a scalp at the runaway league leaders.
"My boys are feeling very, very confident - there's a lot of self belief within the group and hopefully we can use that to our advantage on Saturday," Goodwin said on Thursday.
"I think mindset is a big thing when you're going into these types of fixtures, especially away from home against Celtic and Rangers. I think a lot of teams can be very defeatist and very negative before a ball is kicked, but I don't see that in our group. There are a lot of new faces in Scotland who haven't been involved in this type of fixture before.
"This is one of the reasons why a number of the players we signed before came to the Scottish Premiership in the first place, because they want to test themselves against the likes of Rangers who have good international players throughout their squad.
"We want to go and see how far away we are as a group as well. We've siting third in the table at the moment and there is an incentive to close a gap on Rangers in second, but we want to see what exactly is required to get to the next level and I think Saturday will give us a good understanding of that."
