For Premiership sides, little more can be asked of the League Cup group stage than that they emerge from it without disaster.
A bar cleared by all involved, despite hiccups at places like Falkirk, Alloa and Kelty.
To do so with barely an alarm, and a goal difference well into double figures, is above and beyond. Introducing a raft of his players to the Pittodrie scoresheet too will be a major bonus for Jimmy Thelin.
Particularly given so few of them were his own recruits. He was never likely to have to wait too long for the first of many for Peter Ambrose, but to also get maiden Dons goals out of second-season pair Slobodan Rubezic and James McGarry – plus a first senior strike at Pittodrie for Jack MacKenzie, despite him calling it his workplace since 2016 – is the definition of the new manager bounce.
By the time the transfer window closes there may be plenty more players looking to open scoring accounts here but Thelin will be delighted with what he has extracted from the resources already at hand.
The convincing nature of the team’s progression has afforded him a laudatory start, from the post-goal high-fives to all and sundry on the bench, to the after-match rally session with the Merkland End. Rightly so.
Thelin will have had a red palm by the end of Saturday’s prolific second half, but whatever grumps might say he needn’t have a red face about the intensity of the celebrations at its end.
Anathema to the Aberdonian personality perhaps, but if Thelin is going to succeed in creating a tight-knit entity driven forward by togetherness and excitement, such demonstrations must be unashamedly embraced.
In most corners of the world, that is the football norm. It’s time for Aberdeen to let its hair down.