The Sevco managerial farce goes on.
Graeme Murty told the media today that there have been no new developments.
Furthermore, he’s said he believes he’s shown enough that he doesn’t even need to apply for the job.
Some of the hacks must have been suppressing a laugh, knowing some of the names who have applied.
Think Brendan had to apply for the Celtic job?
Think we sifted through a bunch of dross, and considered them, before he was identified as the man we wanted?
Sevco has spent the last four weeks allegedly putting together a shortlist. On it are a bunch of unemployed bosses desperate to get back into the game. There will also be a handful of “talents” who the club could secure on the cheap.
No-one realistically believes there is a big name on either list. No-one realistically believes the club could entice one with its current financial state and a board who would be better suited to running Donald Trump rallies and redneck cook-outs in the Deep South. These people ought to be nowhere near the running of a football club.
All the while, the man every news desk in the land thinks is the perfect choice and the number one target is growing sick of being asked about it whilst the phone continues to mock him, mute, in its cradle. He might not want the job but it would be nice to be asked.
Derek McInnes, as everyone knows, has a pretty well developed sense of self. He thinks he’s a top boss, he thinks he’s capable of going far in the game. A guy like that, he thinks the phone should have been ringing on the first day. The longer it goes on, the less likely he is to finally answer in the affirmative if it does ring.
The delay is making some people nervous. Sevco fan forums, who know all talk of a Koeman or a Van Bronckhorst is fantasy, have placed McInnes at the top of their Least Worst Options list. He would be seen as a safe pair of hands, especially in comparison to some of the other jokers they suspect will wind up under consideration.
They are so desperate for someone who “understands the club” that there was talk on their forums just the other day of a “dream team” option which involved having Neil McCann in some capacity or another, as if he was doing a sterling job at Dundee instead of making them early candidates for the drop. The mad fever is burning through the supporters at the moment, and it is no less acute in the ranks of their many followers in the media.
Barry Ferguson is especially concerned. Not only about the length of time this is taking but about what the delay ultimately means; he’s twigged that the hunt for a new boss is being impaired by the simple fact that the club is skint. He wonders if they have enough in the piggy bank to get Aberdeen on the phone, far less convince their boss that the job is worthwhile. He is probably worried that if it’s some left-field appointment that he won’t be able to land himself a job with the new regime … but still.
His concerns are valid.
He knows this should have been tied up weeks ago; if they finally do approach Aberdeen the question everyone will ask is why it took so long to do in the first place. McInnes will be especially concerned, and he’ll wonder if they approached other people first, only to be rebuffed.
In the meantime, he stays at Pittodrie, where his team might even widen the gap.
People in Sevconia are starting to sweat this one.
The clamour for news, for an appointment, for the end of the uncertainty, is reaching fever pitch. Some of them can see clearly the writing on the wall; a managerial team led by Graeme Murty, going head to head with Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic; a cheap option just waiting for the wheels to fall off.
It scares them. And it should.