Aberdeen 'far ahead' of Rangers as Joe Lewis pinpoints why Dons are no flash in the pan this season

Former Aberdeen stopper Joe Lewis reckons his old side are 'far ahead' of Rangers and is not willing to rule out the Dons pushing Celtic all the way for the title.

A flying start to the Premiership campaign has seen Jimmy Thelin's side win 10 of their opening 11 matches, fighting back from 2-0 down to earn a draw against Celtic at Parkhead in the only game where they did not pick up maximum points. One of those victories came in a 2-1 triumph against the Gers at Pittodrie, with Philippe Clement's men now finding themselves nine points behind joint-league leaders Celtic and Aberdeen.

Lewis - who made 271 appearances for the Dons between 2016 and 2013 - admits that the value of the Rangers squad trumps that of the one at Swede Thelin's disposal but is in no doubt about who has the stronger claim to finish second this season. Speaking to gambling.com - who rank and review the best betting and casino sites -he said: "They [Aberdeen] are far ahead [of Rangers] in terms of the performances of the teams right now.

"The thing that’s probably working in Aberdeen’s favour, is they haven’t got one stand out player. It was probably [Bojan] Miovski the last two seasons, he was the stand out player and was sold for about £6 million. There is a collection of three or four really top-class players for Aberdeen this season, and the rest have been fantastic as well.

"Man for man in terms of the value of the squad, if you were a business, you'd probably take the Rangers squad. They've paid a lot more for them, so you’d probably sell them for more. Purely because they've been playing for Rangers, and they've got that weight of that behind them. But the Aberdeen players are playing like a better team."

The Englishman has also refused to