Barry Robson insists the learning curve has been a steep one as he celebrates 12 months in charge at Aberdeen.
Today marks the one-year anniversary of Robson taking charge at Pittodrie following Jim Goodwin’s departure as Dons boss.
It is fair to say it has been a rollercoaster of a year for the Dons boss but Robson insists he has relished every moment of his learning curve.
Robson said: “I’ve learned a lot every single day. The only way you learn is by making mistakes and I’ve made mistakes.
“I’ve made right ones and wrong ones, but you come back fighting every day trying to be better.
“The more mistakes you make the more you learn and you have to try to minimise the mistakes which is what I’ve tried to do.
“I’ve made some good decisions too.
“I’m a miles better manager now than I was a year ago and I’ll be miles better in a year’s time.”
‘There’s a lot we can improve on’
With a League Cup final appearance and group stage football in the Europa Conference League Robson has packed a lot into his first 12 months in charge.
Robson raced out the blocks as interim boss before earning the position thanks to the results he achieved but the success of last season has increased the workload dramatically at the club this season.
His team has been up and down, to put it mildly, with Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Hearts leaving the Dons a whopping 19 points adrift of the third-placed Jambos.
They have three games in hand on Steven Naismith’s side but winning all three will only take them back to same 10-point gap they faced a year ago.
If Robson has learned anything, it’s the need to take the rough with the smooth.
He said: “It’s been good. We’ve finished third, reached a cup final and played in Europe but there are things we need to do better as well.
“We can all talk about the negative parts but there have been a lot of positive parts too.
“If you look at the year we’ve been in we’ve hit certain goals but we also have other goals we need to improve on.
“We need to learn how to come off the back of European games and that’s why we want a good run to get back into the group stages.”
How a short-term role became permanent for Robson
A 6-0 rout by Hibernian at Easter Road on January 28 last year spelled the end of Goodwin’s 11 month reign with Robson taking charge on an interim basis the following day.
His success in hauling the club up the table into European contention resulted in Robson being confirmed as permanent manager on May 1 before the Dons secured a third place finish 22 days later with a 3-0 win against St Mirren.
Robson has always harboured dreams of becoming a manager but is adamant the Dons job was not in his thoughts when he agreed to take over from Goodwin initially.
He said: “I genuinely never thought of becoming manager when I took over.
“I have always wanted to be a manager and knew I would be whether it was at Aberdeen or somewhere else.
“Thankfully we did well and were offered the chance to stay on and we clinched third place. It’s something I’ve enjoyed.”
Dons boss feels lucky to have Agnew by his side
The Dons boss’ first duty as interim boss was to appoint an assistant and he quickly made a call to his former Middlesbrough coach Steve Agnew.
Agnew, an experienced campaigner at the highest level in English football, gladly accepted the chance to work in Scotland for the first time before agreeing to stay on when Robson landed the job.
The Dons boss cannot speak highly enough of his assistant.
The Aberdeen manager said: “It’s always important you have good people with experience.
“You don’t work in the Premier League for 10 to 12 years without being good and I’m sick of praising him.
“He gets all the praise and I get slaughtered.
“Seriously, he is top of the tree, a great guy and a brilliant coach. I’m lucky to have him.”
Culture matters for the Aberdeen manager
Agnew was the first piece in the Pittodrie backroom puzzle but Robson believes the other coaches behind the scene are just as important.
It is clear the Aberdeen manager places a huge importance on the need for everyone to buy into the ethos he is trying to build at the club.
He said: “Peter Leven as well in the background does a lot of individual work and set-piece work on the training pitch every day.
“He’s really good with the staff and hard working.
“Craig Samson works so hard with the goalkeepers too. We’ve got good staff in there and I’ve always wanted staff here who are willing to learn.
“You need a lot of good people in the recruitment department, the physio department and the sport science department too.
“A lot of it has to be right.
“The culture has to be right too and I’ve always been big on that.
“If you don’t fit into the culture you won’t be here long as we all need to be working hard and going the same way.”
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