Aberdeen chief executive Alan Burrows believes Barry Robson has been planning for his chance to become Aberdeen manager.
The Dons confirmed the former under-18s coach as their new permanent boss on Monday after Robson guided the club to eight wins from his first 10 matches in charge.
Burrows insists Robson has earned his shot at being manager at Pittodrie due to the hard work he has put in on and off the pitch.
The Reds chief executive said: “This hasn’t landed in his lap. He has been planning for this for some period of time and hopefully that is reflected in some of the work he has done early doors.
Alan Burrows: Barry Robson ‘has done tremendously well’
“Without actually saying: ‘I want the job, hire me’, he didn’t give off the impression he didn’t want it, let’s put it that way.
“Barry has made no secret of the fact in the last four of five years he fancied being a manager and he was working towards that.
“Obviously when you are at a club of this size, which I am for the first time, making this decision puts that wee bit of added pressure.
“The flip side to that is Barry has done tremendously well on the pitch, but I also think it is important to say he has done tremendously well off the pitch.
“He is a guy who has been so interwoven with this football club for the last decade.
“He understands every inch of the place, the staff, and has been working for the last three or four years on what is the identity of an Aberdeen player.
“Appointing him at this stage feels like the right thing to do, not only because he’s doing well on the pitch, but also all the work he has done off it.”
‘Don’t worry, Jurgen Klopp is in the building’
Burrows knew Robson was well respected within Pittodrie when he arrived at the club from Motherwell on February 27.
Robson was interim boss at the time and without saying the words aloud Burrows had no doubt Robson was interested in replacing Jim Goodwin permanently.
He said: “I’d never met Barry before I came to Aberdeen, but heard a lot from the people at the club about how highly they rated him. He was in effect a manager in waiting.
“When I joined the club that was new to me. He was forming part of the process, so I was intrigued to meet him for the first time.
“Genuinely after the first meeting at Cormack Park on the Monday after the Livingston game, I remember spending an hour and a half with him, (assistant manager) Steve Agnew and (Dons director of football) Steven Gunn. I remember saying to Steven after he left: ‘I can see why everyone likes him.’
“Barry took the opportunity from his first meeting with me to put across his philosophy and mentality about how he sees the game and Aberdeen.
“But from right from the get-go, I thought: ‘I like this guy.’
“When I met him he said: ‘Oh, here he goes, the guy who is going to appoint the manager. Don’t worry, Jurgen Klopp is in the building.’
“I said: ‘have you locked him in the cupboard like?’
“It was only afterwards I realised it was my first interaction with him, and I said to Steven Gunn: ‘I hope he took that on board as a bit of banter.’
“Steven said ‘no, don’t worry, he’ll be fine. He’ll take that as a joke.”
Robson has shown strength and foresight
Prior to his arrival at Pittodrie Burrows, who was immediately given the remit of helping lead the process of appointing Goodwin’s replacement, believed experience was vital for any potential candidate.
He labelled managing the Dons as a “heavy jacket” for any manager, but he believes Robson has compensated his own lack of first-team managerial experience with the coaching team he has put in place.
Burrows said: “He showed a real bit of foresight by surrounding himself with guys who have been involved in the game for a long period of time.
“That in itself showed strength. Understanding what you are good at and understanding what you need to work on is a large part of being successful as a manager.
“In my eyes, bringing Steve Agnew in was a large part of Barry understanding that. Steve has worked at the highest level of the game with successful managers at big clubs.
“The appointment of Liam Fox in itself was a masterstroke in a sense as Liam is well respected in Scotland.
“He has managed at this level and lower levels and has an excellent reputation as a coach.
“If you yourself can’t have the experience of being a manager, then I think you absolutely have to surround yourself with people who have, and Barry showed a lot of foresight.
“It was a show of strength straight away.”
Robson won Aberdeen board over one by one
For Robson, convincing the club he was the man for the job has been a gradual process.
The results have helped, certainly, but Burrows insists it was more than putting points on the board which won over the directors.
He said: “I don’t think there was a ‘Eureka!’ moment. There’s a danger you can become overly emotional by results.
“It was a gradual process of how Barry was conducting himself, how he built his staff around him and how he was implementing the plans he had been working on in the past four years in a holistic way.
“It wasn’t just the way the players responded to him, the people around the club as well was important. He acts and feels like a manager.
“He has that presence, that unknown quality. When people ask you ‘what makes a manager?’ it’s hard to pinpoint what it is, but Barry has that aura about him which I think all good managers have.
“I’ve seen it work in my previous job with managers and I’ve seen it not work.
“But over a period of time Barry was chalking off people on the board.
“They were really buying into him to the point anybody who was left to be convinced – and there weren’t many – were on board after the Rangers game.”
Conversation