“It’s not my kind of team really.”
Many of the candid words spoken by Neil Warnock after Saturday’s mismatch at Kilmarnock have been pored over in the days since, but for all the headline potential of his assessment of his players’ physical prowess, this is the one thing that day which should have had the supporters waving red flags.
For Warnock’s own part, he may very well be right. His career has been founded largely on scrapping, and he has carried with him squads built in his image. Generally speaking it has served him well, so if he is finding this posting outside his comfort zone he is entitled to say so.
It posits an obvious question, however.
Given that the board had allowed Barry Robson’s doomed tenure to consume so much of January that Warnock did not arrive until the transfer window had closed, this, with apologies to Junior Hoilett, was the team that Aberdeen had. If they are not the kind of players for Warnock, then on what basis was it calculated that he was the kind of manager for them?
Aberdeen’s directors knew the resources which they would be entrusting to the new boss, and there is barely one alive on whom there is more evidence than the enormously experienced Warnock.
If they have selected an interim manager who is not versed in the very specific and very narrow task which the circumstances required, then that is entirely, unequivocally on them.
Perhaps, bluntly, this is nobody’s kind of team. It certainly isn’t the fans’, who continue to receive dire value for money.
But if, by the selection of a blacksmith to work with a surgeon’s tools, what is now undeniably a survival operation should hit fatal complications, the blood will be on the hands of the board.
