Today, Aberdeen were utterly humiliated in the Scottish Cup, suffering a massive, and crushing, defeat to Dundee Utd at home.
Stephen Glass is barely in the door, but already he’s had to endure a disastrous reverse which will have people questioning the wisdom of hiring him.
I have to admit, I found his success in getting the job baffling.
Scott Brown has committed his future to Stephen Glass’s revolution at Pittodrie, and although Glass gets a pass of sorts because this isn’t his team and the shambles there isn’t really of his making, he has been in the post long enough already to know that a result like that one today is more than just a minor setback. He is already fighting for his credibility.
Brown has signed already. He can’t get out of it now even if he wants to.
Life around Pittodrie next season might be even worse than it was in this campaign at Celtic Park … the thing is, Brown might be in pole position to take advantage of any upheaval.
I cannot imagine that considerations like this were not part of Scott’s thinking when he agreed to take on the role there. He will be on the coaching team.
If Glass falls he will be a candidate to do the job on an interim basis.
I am not saying that he took the job on a predatory basis, calculating that he might get the other man’s job … but it has to have been there in his mind.
He doesn’t want to be part of a failed coaching team … but there are definitely possibilities for him if he is.
Celtic will miss Brown’s dressing room presence, there is no doubt about that, and our loss in that regard is Aberdeen’s gain. I am glad that Brown has left though because the next manager needs to be able to start fresh and having Scott Brown at the club provides its own pressures to play him, so I am glad that pressure has been removed.
Aberdeen may have misjudged the pressure Brown will put on their own dressing room, and on their own manager.
Brown’s presence at their club narrows Glass’s options if he needs to shake things up. Brown will provide his own gravitational pull there … I cannot believe this is not obvious to those in the Pittodrie boardroom.
Brown might come to regret leaving Celtic in time, but for now he is in a good position even if the manager at the club is not.
Aberdeen had pursued him as someone central to Glass’s vision for the next campaign.
The result today only increases the need for him there, and he should allow himself a quiet smile of satisfaction even if’s tinged with some sorrow and even regret.