Jim Goodwin said many interesting things during a lengthy introductory interview with Pittodrie media maestro Malcolm Panton.
Among the more striking was his acknowledgement that exiting the League Cup at the group stage may not have been deemed unacceptable at St Mirren, but would be at Aberdeen.
One wondered how that would sound to fans who, in the main, had wished Goodwin well, or to a club which had handled with dignity the loss of its manager to a rival currently below them in the league.
But from an Aberdeen perspective, one could hardly help but note that this had been a moot point for all office-bearers since Jimmy Bonthrone.
Sadly Goodwin seems increasingly likely to have the chance to test his theory, the bye granted to the last six Dons squads on account of their participation in Europe growing further out of this side’s reach with each winless week.
With four of the seven teams chasing the two Conference League spots soon to be guillotined by the split, if Aberdeen are among those to drop into the basket then Goodwin’s potentially season-shaping July fixtures will indeed be taking place in much less exotic locations than those of his predecessors.
It is also ever more clear that they will be contested by a Dons side which bears little resemblance to this one.
Though he has only picked four teams to date, the absences have been as instructive as the inclusions, and presage a summer in which Goodwin will be exerting all of a new manager’s leverage to revamp the squad in a much-changed image.
Large was the budget which – against a backdrop of pleading pandemic poverty – was thrown at this season. But the gamble of spending more to address its failure comes at far better odds than that of exposing Goodwin to another season of this.