Chairman Dave Cormack believes Aberdeen have been rewarded for being patient with manager Barry Robson leading them towards European football.
With four Premiership fixtures left the Dons are sitting third in the table, five points clear of Hearts.
Robson initially took charge on an interim basis in January following a poor run, which included thrashings by the Jambos and Hibs and an ignominious Scottish Cup exit against Darvel, which resulted in Jim Goodwin being sacked.
Having then been appointed until the end of the season, Robson was given the job permanently last week following a run of seven straight victories.
Speaking to Redtv, Pittodrie supremo Cormack said: “Barry’s done fantastically well since coming in.
“It’s doesn’t matter whether it’s the management team of a football club or a business, you have to have experience.
“When I called Barry after the Hibs game (Goodwin’s last) the very first thing Barry said to me was ‘I want to bring some experience because I don’t know what I don’t know and I want to bring in Steve Agnew (as assistant manager).’
“When we finished that conversation Barry called Steve and booked his flight the next day.
“What is critical for the success of any young manager is having experience around him, I think there’s a lesson to be learned there for any young manager.
“Barry has brought Steve in who has tremendous experience in the English Premier League and Championship.
“The results have been great, we need to remember that Barry’s been with us for 10 years.
“He’s been in our thoughts for a long time, maybe last year we could have given him a wee bit more time instead of the one game he had against St Johnstone after we parted company with Stephen Glass.
“This time round we wanted to be patient about making any changes and I think we’ve been rewarded for that.”
Reds not planning to sell
One of the factors in Robson and Agnew being appointed permanently was so that Aberdeen could start making summer recruitment plans.
While the Dons are on the hunt for new additions Cormack also made it clear there is no pressure to sell key stars like Duk and Bojan Miovski.
He added: “It’s going to be a busy summer and one of the reasons we wanted to appoint Barry and Steve when we did – and we’ll sort out Liam Fox’s contract in due course as well – was to get ahead of the curve on recruitment.
“That’s well underway and there are conversations we can’t talk about, but we’re working behind the scenes on getting the squad in place for next season.
“There’s no pressure on us to sell any player – it has to be right for the club and for the player as well.
“A lot of people talk about Miovski and Duk, there’s no pressure to sell. Why would we want these guys to move if we’re playing in Europe next season where the prize money in Europe could be as significant as selling players.
“Which is why Alan Burrows (chief executive) said we’d be really hard to deal with, there’s no way we’re letting players move on unless we have players lined up or coming through to replace them.
“At the end of the day we want to win trophies, our aspiration is to go as far in the cups each year and similarly in the league.”
