Sometimes the answer is staring you right in the face – Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack and his football monitoring board have likely come to that conclusion after deciding to make Barry Robson’s tenure in the Dons dugout a permanent one.
From rank outsider to the only choice, Robson’s rise from youth team coach to first-team manager at Pittodrie has been remarkable.
With the Dons casting the net as far afield as Japan in their search for Jim Goodwin’s successor, few expected the under-18s coach to be the chosen one.
There’s a fair chance the man himself did not think the chance to replace Goodwin at the club was in his immediate future either – he was even told as much when he agreed to man the fort temporarily!
But fate has lent a helping hand for Robson with a series of events – or results rather – resulting in him slowly moving up the ladder from interim boss to manager for the rest of the season and, now, the 24th official manager of Aberdeen Football Club.
It is a position as richly deserved as it has been hard earned.
Maybe football structure at the Dons was right after all
Forget all the talk of monitoring boards, of which many have had a chuckle, including the chairman himself, and a simple fact remains: football is a results-driven business.
This had me in stitches. Brilliant stuff. By the way, Willie Garner never plays 9 holes, only 18 or 36, and no one at the Club has time to play with him! https://t.co/eVInxbZB2O
— Dave Cormack (@CormackDavie) March 30, 2023
Win games and you are a fans’ favourite.
Lose and you are public enemy number one and your job is at risk.
But what the last two years have shown is that for all its critics, of which this writer has been one, Aberdeen’s football structure might just be the right one for the club after all – what wasn’t working was the man in the dugout.
The recruitment system at Pittodrie is working. Duk, Bojan Miovski, Ylber Ramadani and Kelle Roos prove that.
But where Goodwin, and Glass before him, failed was in knitting it all together into a consistent winning team.
A poor defence and two horrendous poor runs cost Glass dear.
An even worse one, including the worst 10 days in Aberdeen’s history, made Goodwin’s position untenable.
But with a short-term signing in Angus MacDonald, a loan signing in Mattie Pollock, and a back-to-basics approach, Robson has shown the quality is there at the club.
Player transformation has been remarkable
MacDonald and Pollock have received praise, deservedly so, for the impact they have made since arriving at the end of the January transfer window.
But don’t forget the improvement in others.
The Liam Scales, who was outstanding against Rangers, is unrecognisable from the player who trudged off after being dismissed in the 6-0 walloping by Hibernian three months earlier.
Leighton Clarkson has evolved from a tidy player who scored some spectacular goals into a goal-creating machine under Robson.
Simplicity has led to success at Aberdeen
Wins breed confidence, confidence breeds wins. It’s the inner circle which makes successful football clubs.
For Robson, that success has been built on simplicity. Don’t concede goals and let the matchwinners do their job at the other end of the pitch.
There’s a little more to it of course, but at a basic level that’s the Robson mantra.
His team is a formidable opponent for any team in the league now. Rangers found that to their cost at Pittodrie a week ago where, despite dominating possession, they were well beaten 2-0.
Glass and Goodwin were possession-based managers.
Robson is less interested in how long his players have the ball and more concerned with what they do when they have it.
Aberdeen are a team in transition, but they are also a team of transition. They can soak up pressure, break at speed and have become ruthless in the final third.
Feelgood factor back at Pittodrie
The mixture of organisation, aggression, pace and clinical finishing has been the perfect cocktail.
Seven wins in a row and five clean sheets have made the concoction a delightful one for Aberdeen fans in the process.
It seems the football monitoring board of Cormack, Stewart Milne, Alan Burrows, Steven Gunn and Willie Garner are rather enjoying the taste, too.
They’ve come to the conclusion Robson is the clear and obvious choice to lead Aberdeen.
Robson has earned that trust. And what he lacks in experience he has compensated with by having an old head alongside him in the dugout in Steve Agnew.
He also has players who want to be part of the plan moving forward, too.
MacDonald is loving life at Pittodrie so much he has committed his future to the club for a further two years.
He won’t be the last.
Aberdeen have had a few bumps in the road in the post-Derek McInnes era, but – whisper it – the Dons might just have found their way under Robson.
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