ALTHOUGH Craig Bellamy's absence from the Celtic team this afternoon is an obvious boost for Aberdeen, manager Jimmy Calderwood is also relishing the fact that Didier Agathe is injured and not expected to play.

Aberdeen scored two early goals when the teams met at Parkhead last month, but Calderwood reckons the home side were strengthened when Agathe came on for Joos Valgaeren after 31 minutes.

"He is very important in their system, " the manager said. "We caught Celtic out with our pace, but Agathe stopped that when he came on. Although he plays wide right he has also done very well at right back - if their defence is caught out by pace, he's invariably coming across to cut things out.

"He had a great game against Rangers at Ibrox. He's one of their unsung heroes, but very important to the balance of their side."

Aberdeen lost the April game 3-2 - exactly the same scoreline as when the Dons won in Glasgow in October - and Calderwood said: "The last two games at Parkhead have been magnificent. As badly as we played against Rangers last Sunday, we can still go down there with confidence because we've played really well the last two times against Celtic."

After playing impressively in the marathon of games which took the Premierleague to the split, Aberdeen have stumbled in the five-game sprint which will determine the finishing positions. An uninspired 1-0 win over injury-ravaged Motherwell was followed by the listless 3-1 defeat to Rangers at Pittodrie seven days ago and Calderwood's side now look destined for fourth place.

Aberdeen went two ahead early in both Parkhead games this season, and it didn't go unnoticed by Calderwood that Hibs also scored an early goal against the champions eight days ago.

"If we did get a goal quickly then Celtic and their supporters would be very nervous and it would make for another exciting game, " he predicted.

"We still have everything to play for, so I'm looking forward to it."

Calderwood was due to divulge on Friday the names of the players he will be releasing at the end of this season, but that announcement has now been postponed until this week.

Markus Heikkinen, Phil McGuire, Thorarinn Kristjansson and Mikko Paatelainen are definitely on the way out, and there is strong speculation they will be joined by Noel Whelan, Steven Craig and Lubomir Blaha. The futures of Derek Adams and Scott Morrison at the club are also believed to be in the balance.

Whelan is the only one of those players likely to feature from the start today, but despite a recent smattering of goals his contribution at Pittodrie has been disappointing. The striker has found the net just five times since arriving from Derby County in the summer and is rumoured to be considering a move to Australia.

Although Darren Mackie has been scoring on a regular basis, the base of Aberdeen's recovery this season has been their defence. It says much that Scott Severin has had the most shots on goal for the Dons this season, even though he has been deployed regularly as sweeper. The lack of punch up front and creativity in midfield, despite the recent fine form of Chris Clark, will have to be addressed by Calderwood in the summer.

The manager won't get the 10 new players he initially said he wanted, but skipper Russell Anderson reckons that number would be needed just to keep pace with the amount of players expected to leave the club.

"We definitely need to strengthen, " he said. "If you finish fourth in the league, then there's obviously room for improvement. We need to get better and the manager will have his own thoughts about where he feels the team needs improved. Even if we were able to bring in 10 new players I would say we'd only be replacing the ones who are going out."

Anderson said the players were desperate to atone for last Sunday's performance, and result, against Rangers.

"It was disappointing. To be honest, apart from when we equalised, they had the better of the game, " he said.

"They handled the conditions a lot better than us, and their passing and touch was better.

"Looking at it on paper, you'd have thought we'd have had more chance at home to Rangers than Celtic away.

But we've done well at Parkhead recently, so we're looking to go there and take something from the match."