DEREK McInnes has made a fair few good decisions since taking over as Aberdeen manager exactly five years ago today, but turning down the chance to move on to Sunderland last June and then rejecting the advances of Rangers in December were among the very best.
However, if, as appears a distinct possibility, West Brom approach him about moving to The Hawthorns in the coming weeks then he would be wise to accept their offer on this occasion and depart.
McInnes was widely expected to join Sunderland, a far bigger club with a much larger budget where he would by paid a higher salary, last summer, but he looked at the off-field turmoil that continued to blight his suitors, and remained where he was.
The troubled Stadium of Light outfit, who hired Simon Grayson instead and then sacked him just four months later, are now second bottom of the Championship and are set to suffer a second consecutive relegation imminently.
At Pittodrie, meanwhile, McInnes has guided his team to second place in the Ladbrokes Premiership and is preparing for a William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final against Motherwell at Hampden a week today.
Spurning the advances of Rangers, the club he spent five years at as a player in the late 1990s and early 2000s, after a protracted courtship at the end of last year was an even greater surprise than his rebuffal of Sunderland.
But that, too, is starting to look more and more like a smart move.
The confirmation last Friday evening that Dave King, the chairman and major stakeholder, was to comply with a Takeover Panel ruling and offer £10.8 million for 70 per cent of the shares in the Ibrox club has many positive ramifications.
For one, King will avoid being “cold shouldered”, a severe sanction which would have prevented any individual or institution regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority from acting on his behalf and done considerable damage to his credibility.
It also, though, gives Rangers the chance to sever further ties with the regime they succeeded three years ago and that is no bad thing.
Jack Irvine, PR advisor to Sandy Easdale, the bus tycoon and fourth largest shareholder, suggested last week that 20p was considerably more than what a share was currently worth and that his client was “highly likely” to accept the offer. Few supporters, however, will mourn the departure of a divisive figure if he does. For them, it will be money very well spent.
But the review of “licensing agreements, funding requirements and the management and board composition” that King has promised to embark does sound rather ominous.
The current business model - wealthy benefactors like King, George Letham, Douglas Park and George Taylor offsetting annual losses with soft loans which will be turned into equity at some – was long ago branded “unsustainable”.
Huge strides forward have been made at Rangers in recent years and the renegotiation of the Sports Direct retail deal and the passing of Resolution 11 at the AGM last year were significant. But an air of uncertainty still hangs over them.
McInnes certainly had reservations about rejoining a club that still lags far behind Celtic, the team that his side would be judged against, both on the field of play and in terms of their financial health, and decided to stay put at the end of last year.
But if West Brom make their former midfielder their preferred target – and they would, given the consistent success he has enjoyed in the north-east since 2013, be sensible doing so – he would surely be tempted this time.
The 46-year-old endured a difficult 15 month spell with Bristol City before joining Aberdeen and has unfinished business down south.
West Brom are in a far healthier state than Sunderland and even if there is a mass exodus of players when they are relegated from the Premier League he will be better placed to deliver success.
Even with the go-ahead being given to the construction of a new £50 million stadium and training ground complex at Kingsford, McInnes must know that he has taken Aberdeen as far as he possibly can.
The criticism of his record against the two main Glasgow clubs is justified. It is, even with the inferior funds he has had to work with, woeful. But his detractors really need to look at themselves. He is the most successful incumbent of the Pittodrie dugout since the halcyon days of Sir Alex Ferguson in the 1980s.
The next logical step for Derek McInnes if he is not going to take over at Celtic, Rangers or Scotland, is to go back to England where he can operate at a far higher level and with a better quality of player and enhance his reputation further.
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