I still have not come up with one yet.
Can think of 50 plus managers, realistic and unrealistic and not many appeal to me for numerous reasons.
Sherwood, McClaren, Nielson, Freedman, McLeish, Wright, Ross, Monk, Rowett, Pardew, Bilic, Coleman, O’Neill, McDermott, Curbishley, Ferguson, Grayson, Neil, Warnock, Redknapp, Bowyer, Hughes, Pulis, Ranieri, Laudrup, Di Matteo, Poyet, Advocaat, De Boer, Sousa, Stam, GvB, Veh, Preud’homme, Rangnick, Jol, Magath, Rosler, Schreiber, Karanka, Jonker... it’s endless.
We can’t afford or attract a Tuchel, Ancelotti, Blanc, Wagner, Koeman, Dyche, Howe, Benitez, Enrique... or the likes.
A Viera or Arteta lack experience. Erik Ten Hag, Barak Bakhar, Silva at Hull, Ralph Hasenhuttl, Slaviša Jokanović... would be interesting appointments, but would they be interested?
As I said, no number one or preferred man and for that reason I’m warming more to Derek McInnes.
Plenty pros to back him up;
Knows the Scottish game.
Knows what Rangers are all about.
Took over an Aberdeen side that was going nowhere and made them 2nd best.
Respected, handles the media and press well.
Put a squad together, saw it taken apart, rebuilt it and still hit the ground running.
Many current/ex players rate and talk highly of him.
Good man manager.
He’s improved the likes of a Christie, Jack, Shinnie, Rooney, Logan, McLean, McGinn... so the ability to get the best out of players is there.
Not scared to turn to youths.
His Aberdeen side goes on winning runs, gets the job done.
He’s made mistakes and turned it around the next week. Ability to learn from mistakes.
He wins football matches on a shoe string budget compared to the likes of us and the bheggars.
You can talk about how he failed to win the league when Ronny Delia was in charge of the bheggars but they still had a Lustig, Griffiths, Armstrong, van Djik, Roberts, Brown, the two foreign CB’s who, Izaguirre... Aberdeen didn’t have the same quality of players possessing the same winning mentality.
He’s obviously got cons, but so does an Ancelotti, Guardiola, Mourinho and Klopp.
Any appointment is a gamble. We’ll see what the board come up with.
It’s some challenge!