Aberdeen’s decision makers are increasingly on the horns of a dilemma.
Their hearts will be telling them that Barry Robson has earned the chance to take charge on a longer-term basis.
Their heads may well ultimately reach the same conclusion, but they are probably not there just yet.
If that is the direction of their thinking, they will have received a healthy nudge by the knowledge that the support is cautiously beginning to rally in the ex-Don’s corner.
The players, too, are clearly responding positively to Robson’s presence and instructions.
It leaves the directors weighing the courage of their convictions against the insulation of making a popular choice.
Recruitment process for Aberdeen manager
Any recruitment process starts with a person specification, and it is unlikely that – after the disruptive experience of Stephen Glass’ tenure – this brief would have given much shrift to candidates who have never run a first team before.
But with so much goodwill frittered by their handling of the team manager role over the last two years, there will absolutely be a temptation for the board to make a selection which won’t instantly invite detraction – or which could, at the very worst, be justified in retrospect as being in step with public opinion.
The longer Robson keeps the Dons’ league standing heading the right way, the quieter grows the panic alarm which had started to ring around the turn of the year, and so the urgency to place the team in hands other than his reduces further.
Three winnable fixtures in the first half of April carry the potential to insert the Dons firmly into the chase for Europe.
Success in them may or may not also install Robson as permanent manager, but it would definitely afford welcome scope for the recruitment panel to recede further into the shadows to consider its verdict.
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