Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack admits the club were on the verge of appointing another manager before Stephen Glass.
But an abrupt U-turn from the mystery candidate DURING his final interview led the club to intensify their pursuit of the Atlanta B boss.
Glass was sacked by Aberdeen less than a year after replaced Derek McInnes.
He was unable to drive the Dons up the Premiership table and a Scottish Cup defeat to Motherwell was the final straw.
Cormack had previously defended Glass to the hilt and was adamant he wanted him from the start - comparing his "exciting" pedigree to the likes of Pep Guardiola, Zinedine Zidane and then- Rangers boss Steven Gerrard.
However, in a new interview on the club's official YouTube channel, Cormack revealed that there was another candidate on the brink of getting the job.
The Dons chairman said: "The rationale behind appointing Stephen, it was't just Stephen.
"It was Allan Russell with his significant experience who had been at the World Cup with England. It was Scott Brown with his significant experience of Scottish football.
"Plus it was Neil Simpson moving up from the youth academy into the first-team coaching setup.
"As far as other candidates were concerned, the reason we sped up the process was because we were in a final interview with a top candidate for the job.
"Literally, while we were on the Zoom call for the interview, he stopped and said 'listen, I've just accepted a role at another club in England.'
"One other group also pulled out for differing reasons."
Defending the appointment of Glass back in March, Cormack told RedTV: “In Scotland and England we seem to have an aversion to emerging talent and go with the merry-go-round of experienced managers.
“For us as a board with our strategy and philosophy, we felt emerging talent was important. The most recent example is Steven Gerrard at Liverpool’s under-23s and look at their [Rangers’] season, how they’re playing.
“Another example is Pep Guardiola, who was managing under-age teams at Barcelona before."
Aberdeen swiftly replaced Glass with Jim Goodwin who is undergoing a rebuild ahead of next season.
