Dundee United want to make life as difficult as possible for Celtic despite fully expecting the Hoops to win the Premiership.
That was the statement of intent from Tannadice assistant manager Simon Donnelly as he pondered whether or not the league-leading Tangerines could challenge his old club this season.
A reluctance to declare the Hoops’ hegemony at an end is perhaps predictable in a team that was turned over 6-1 at Parkhead just last month.
Above all, though, there is an acceptance at United that Celtic’s superior squad and resources will win out come May despite their currently trailing Jackie McNamara’s men by five points.
That doesn’t mean that the Tangerines won’t be doing everything they can to give them a decent run for their money.
“I would like to think we can be as close as possible,” said Donnelly. “Aberdeen went on record saying they wanted to reduce the gap between themselves and Celtic and we are the same at United.
“We wanted to do it last season as well but we had that blip over Christmas where we went on a bad run of results and left ourselves with too much to do in that respect.
“However, we have had a great start this season and we need to keep doing what we’re doing that is, defending well and hopefully the attacking side comes the further we go into the season.
“People talk about Celtic being in transition but look at the players they brought in during the last transfer window. We don’t have that depth.
“We have brought quality players off the bench at the weekend in Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Armstrong but Celtic brought three or four strikers during the transfer window.
“They can go into the transfer market in January and buy big again. We’ve got to work with what we’ve got which we think is decent.”
Donnelly added: “I think there’s a lot more to come from our team in terms of play. We know the difficulty of trying to compete with Celtic on all levels so we are not getting carried away.
“We want to reduce that gap but we know Celtic will go and win it (the championship) again and I don’t think anyone believes otherwise.
“We want them at least to be looking over their shoulder and to give them something to think about.”
Donnelly confirmed that Mackay-Steven and Armstrong are in contention to start against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park on Friday night after both came on as substitutes against St Johnstone last Saturday.
He said: “Going into the St Johnstone match, Stuart had played 90 minutes in the League Cup game against Dundee and Gary was had a groin strain so we wanted to freshen it up a bit.
“It’s great to have those two on the bench if the game isn’t going your way but they’ll be back in contention big time for a start on Friday.”
Kevin Clancy will take charge of the Killie v United game, which kicks off at 7.45pm and is being shown live by BT Sport.