“Teams will move. The two Edinburgh teams are at the bottom – I would expect them to improve, so that will change as we move forward.”
“As you get to the additional business end of next season, you can start to look at those things in general terms. We’re completely focused on successful games and that’s what we’ve been doing.”
Manager Jimmy Thelin has maintained a no-nonsense attitude and play-a-game mantra since his arrival in the summer.
But does the more experienced Shinnie have a role to play in ensuring some of the younger members of the team don’t get carried away in a sea of emotion amid a run of 15 wins and one draw?
“This is a complicated thing, it allows them to have a little bit of pleasure because it’s great and we’re on a great playing field, so it’s about participating in that, but it’s also about keeping our base on the pedal like because it hasn’t been accomplished nothing,” Shinnie explained.
“It’s about trying to continue what we’re doing, trying to continue to recover, we’re still a little early in the supervisor’s time so we’re still learning as we go.
“It’s about enjoying it while we’re doing it because winning games is fun, but more than that it’s staying on top of things and keeping our foot firmly on the accelerator.”
Shinnie won the Scottish Cup with Inverness Caledonian Thistle nine years ago and winning silverware with Aberdeen remains “a big ambition”.
“We know the challenge we have on our hands,” he said of his deal with Celtic. “We know that Celtic will also have confidence going into it, so we are trying to concentrate on ourselves and do the things that have gone well for us this season.
“The rest can happen in a cup game, we know that, I know that with the time I have played in the cup we can concentrate and we will be able to progress.”
