Deepest of bonds that just refuses to be broken
NEVER a boastful sort, Aberdeen chairman Stewart Milne veered closer than he normally would to bragging last night, giddily describing himself as ‘the happiest man in the world’.
Anyone who has paid attention to events of the past six months would feel comfortable awarding him a far more worthy title.
Most persuasive negotiator on the planet? He’d take some beating. As Derek McInnes — and Dave King — can now testify.
In conversations that took place at his home and over the course of several phone calls, Milne did something that very few believed possible. He kept hold of a coach who had been tempted by the siren call of the team he had supported all his life.
The Aberdeen manager has knocked back two opportunities to leave Pittodrie since June, although that might also say plenty about the respective allure of both Sunderland and now Rangers.
Merely being put into the same category as the crisis-ridden English Championship strugglers, a club apparently forever on the brink of being taken over or sold up, should be a wake-up call for all at Ibrox.
McInnes’ decision to stay with the Dons also tells us a great deal not only about Aberdeen’s ambitions, but the strength of his bond with a chairman who shuns the limelight, rarely talks in headlines — and backs his head coach to the hilt.
That professional and personal relationship between McInnes and Milne appears to matter to both men. If few would describe it as a bromance, it’s definitely a good working partnership.
And it’s important to McInnes, this guarantee of an open and straight channel with one man capable of answering all of his queries and granting or declining all of his requests.
Milne has that power at Pittodrie. Which means that his manager doesn’t have to filter reports, information or demands through underlings.
And that is why, despite repeatedly refusing to publicly rule himself out of a move back to Rangers, the former Ibrox midfielder couldn’t jump to Govan without a lengthy discussion with his current employer.
McInnes visited Milne at the chairman’s house for discussions. The pair then spoke again over the phone. More than once.
This wasn’t some courtesy call. It was a meeting between equals, men who respect each other. McInnes values the judgement of Milne and vice-versa.
In many ways, his links with the chairman are reminiscent of what he found in his first managerial job at St Johnstone, when then Saints supremo Geoff Brown became very close to the rookie.
HAVING been confronted by a slightly different dynamic at Bristol City, McInnes has freely admitted that the relationship he has formed with Milne has been one of the best aspects of his time in the north east.
So, yes, part of his decision would have been based on the fact that Aberdeen are a club with big plans. Planning permission allowing.
Snubbing Rangers is also, rightly, seen as a reflection of the aimless state of affairs to be found in the blue room at Ibrox.
Perhaps everyone should have believed Milne when he insisted that he’d received assurances from McInnes, declaring: ‘Derek made his position very clear to me last night — that he has no intentions of going anywhere.
‘He believes he has unfinished business here. He’s always said to me that he didn’t want to leave this club with just one trophy in the boardroom.
‘It’s great news for everyone that he is committed. He spent a lot of time, effort and money over the summer to rebuild the team.
‘no one wants to see him leave. I know he will one day but we all dearly hope he will be here for quite some time.’
There’s a reason why Milne’s words didn’t end the speculation. For starters, Rangers just flatout refused to buy it — hence their decision to make an official approach for McInnes.
Even within Pittodrie, there was an understanding that the manager wasn’t going to deliver the complete and final, unqualified, no-doubt-about-it killer refusal to even contemplate the Rangers job. He was keeping his options open. nobody, least of all Milne, thought any less of him for using good business sense.
So the chairman was, if not happy, then at least willing to let McInnes miss training — a real rarity for a hands-on gaffer — in order to contemplate his future.
Provided that Milne was given a chance to work his magic. It was an offer not lightly refused, an invitation that McInnes would never dream of rejecting.
In hindsight, perhaps none of us should be surprised that this modest multi-millionaire builder should have found an argument convincing enough to retain his most important employee. The foundation stone of everything he’s trying to construct in the Granite City.