Matty Kennedy insists it would be crazy for the Aberdeen board not to consider Barry Robson as a candidate to become the club’s new manager.
Dave Cormack & Co. are currently on the lookout for a new permanent boss of first team matters at Pittodrie three weeks on from Jim Goodwin’s sacking.
Ex-midfielder Robson has been placed in interim charge of the club since, overseeing two games to date – a loss against St Mirren and a victory over Motherwell.
Their next match is without doubt the most daunting task in Scottish football currently. Celtic away.
While nobody is expecting Aberdeen to get a result from the game, Kennedy is adamant that doesn’t mean the game is a write off before a ball is even kicked.
Addressing Robson’s chances of becoming the new No.1, the 28-year-old said: “I think it would be crazy not to consider Baz. I know people don’t see him on the training pitch, but I know personally he’s a great coach.
“I enjoy his training. He’s big on fitness, the training is hard but it’s good. I feel it would be crazy not to consider him because he is a great coach, and I think everybody in the building sees that around the place.
“He has been here for years, and all the staff love him. At this moment in time, no-one else knows the club as well as Baz does.
“We have a lot of new boys, and a lot of foreigners here. It’s just good to see them enjoying training and speaking highly of Baz, as they have never worked under him before.
“They realise he’s a great coach and someone we can all enjoy being around and working with, along with Aggers.
“Someone told me that they are two years unbeaten home which speaks volumes about how good a team Celtic are. But we are a good team and you want to test yourself against the best team in the league.
“It is a difficult task and we know that but we need to be positive and we have been around the training ground. Working under Barry, everyone is enjoying the training. He is not just a random face, he is someone who has been around the training ground for years so everything has been positive.
“Hopefully we can show everyone what we are made of and go down there and put in a good performance, stay in the game and get something.
“The last time we played against Celtic we stuck to a game plan and it worked for 95 minutes. In the last-minute Callum McGregor pulled out a good strike and we didn’t get anything from the game but we have to take confidence from the last few games and the way we played against Rangers too at home which finished 3-2.
“I feel like we have closed the gap a little bit but we still have a long way to go. Like I say, we have worked hard and hopefully we can show that we are good players and a good team and out on a performance because this is a massive club and we have to be competing better and getting results against the Old Firm.”
It wasn’t exactly yesterday that Robson retired as a player for the game, so he’s been waiting, learning and working hard for his opportunity to become a manager.
The 44-year-old revealed that on the day he hung up his boots, he had the chance to jump into management straight away. But it was not the right time, as Robson admitted he felt it would be better to become a student of the game in terms of coaching.
Working with the likes of Derek McInnes for many years will have helped his case, as well as being the No.1 coach for the Aberdeen development team.
“It has been a few years now I have been retired,” Robson said. “I worked under Derek for years, as a first-team coach and learned bundles from him. I took my own team with the development squad and tried to implement my own ideas and build up the model at this football club.
“That has kept me busy and I have done my pro-licence which has kept me busy. People seem to think I have been sitting here doing nothing but it has been far from that.
“I have been educating myself and doing other things in the background, visiting other clubs. I had the chance to go into management the day I retired but I decided to sit back and take the route to sit back and learn first.
“If you ask any head coach or manager you improve every day and there is always something new you learn. I remember Gordon Strachan said to me, you can coach and do this all for 40 years but nothing prepares you for the first three or four weeks in management nothing will prepare you for that.
“I had a laugh at that. We all believe we are ready and we all believe we can affect a team and try to get results and that is why we are in it.”
