Keith Jackson
SPORTS NEWS WRITER OF THE YEAR
second-placed finishes in all three of the major competitions.
This afternoon he will discover his potential opponents for the second round of qualifiers for the Europa League and when the draw is made in Nyon suddenly it will feel as if the next campaign is upon us.
That McInnes has chosen to hang around for it merely helps to heighten the feeling of anticipation. Scottish football seldom fails to surprise.
At Ibrox, Pedro Caixinha has his focus fixed on the Aberdeen boss. When Caixinha predicted the end of Aberdeen’s cycle he may well have considered that McInnes would rather hop off the saddle this summer than await the inevitable puncture.
But now the pair have been placed on a collision course and that too whets the appetite given the naked hostility which erupted between them towards the end of the last campaign.
Caixinha even suggested McInnes secretly covets his job at Rangers and if that is indeed the case then it’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination to wonder if this may also have played a part in his decision to resist the lure from Wearside. For his part McInnes was understandably angered by this insinuation.
But let’s just say for argument’s sake that Caixinha was correct. If so then by his own logic it could be McInnes has made a calculated gamble where all of this is concerned.
That he believes there is a greater chance of the Portuguese manager failing to cut it in Scotland than he would personally
have stood of making a success of Sunderland’s promotion campaign. Or in other words, that by opting to stay put at Pittodrie he is actually taking a huge step towards Ibrox. It’s certainly an interesting theory albeit with one very obvious flaw. Right now it would seem almost impossible for McInnes or anyone else for that matter to predict with any sense of certainty just how next season might pan out for Caixinha. He may have made a largely unconvincing start to his time in charge at the tail end of last season but to his credit and that of Dave King’s board the overhaul he has been conducting during the close season has been fascinatingly aggressive. In parts it has also been highly imaginative and surprisingly expensive. If the crown-jewel capture of Bruno Alves was a statement of Caixinha’s intent then the deals for other, less well known talents – in particular Carlos Pena and young Colombian Alfredo Morelos – are absolutely intriguing. Some of them are yet to arrive and Caixinha hopes