Yesterday I read a bunch of editorials on the upcoming “dilemma” facing Aberdeen; what to do when Sevco comes calling to talk to Derek McInnes. There is a general assumption in the media that the club will have no say in what happens.
The choice, if you believe the media, is in how exactly they say the word “yes” and what they can get the Ibrox club to pay.
That won’t be what they want for him; the general consensus is that both sides will have to do some horse trading, that Aberdeen will have to settle for less than what they think he’s worth because the Ibrox club won’t pay “over the odds”.
On the other hand, Sevco will have to pay more than they’d like because Aberdeen won’t meekly accept this.
Let me put it this way; that narrative is garbage.
Aberdeen don’t have to say the word yes, not for all the money in the world.
They will, as all clubs do, have a set figure in mind before they will offer the manager a chance to speak to other interested parties – in this case that figure is deemed to be around £1.5 million – but there is no cast iron law which says they need to accept even that.
All Aberdeen has to do is stand its ground though. Quote the Ibrox club that figure, ask for it upfront, and tell them they will not accept a penny less. That will send Sevco looking elsewhere and deny them the guy the press says is their first choice, on the cheap.
Anything else from the Pittodrie club is a gross abrogation of their responsibilities to their own supporters. If they let their manager go to their closest contender – and one the majority of their fans absolutely despise – then Hell mend them.
Of course, McInnes may want to go. He may threaten to tear up his contract and resign just so he can live the dream (no laughing guys, alright?). In those circumstances the club might well get nothing except a pittance from the manager’s own pocket.
If that happens, well, I think Dons fans can point their fingers at Stewart Milne and blame him for it. Because McInnes won’t simply walk to Ibrox on a whim; he will want guarantees of money to spend, of some kind of transfer pot of gold. He won’t do it on the cheap.
If he gets those kinds of assurances then Milne will be forced, finally, to confront the glaring contradictions at the heart of his “move on” calls of last month. He says Scottish football has “learned lessons” from previous events; as this site and others have ably demonstrated, over and over again, this is patently untrue.
Sevco is still doping up on Other People’s Money. The sources of funding at Ibrox are sketchy at best and if that club suddenly finds money in the mattress to secure McInnes then serious questions need to be asked about how it was done. It will be tantamount to cheating, and Milne will have allowed his club to become the high profile victims of it.
Forget the Ibrox operation catching Celtic; if Aberdeen does the right thing over the next two or three years they will have front row seats to the complete implosion over there and then the real question becomes whether or not Sevco will ever catch them.
There’s a real chance here for the Pittodrie side, new stadium and all, to cement their position as Scottish football’s second biggest club indefinitely. Then they can really start to dream, then the chase for the top spot and Celtic’s crown can become something more a distant goal.
Their fans know that’s what’s at stake here. They know that if they hold firm to the current course they only need to be patient. If Sevco doesn’t get their obvious choice it forces them to scramble around in the dirt for another risky option … McInnes would, at least, steady the ship and make second place a realisable prospect.
If the club goes for some left-field appointment there’s no saying how bad it could get over there. Could they afford a third sacking in the space of two seasons? From everything we know about how precarious things are over there you’d have to say no.