New Aberdeen Head Coach Stephen Robinson met with the media on Thursday afternoon at Pittodrie to reflect on a whirlwind 24 hours that saw him arrive in the North-east.
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Pride and excitement
“I am really proud, really excited about the challenge ahead. And it is something I’m really, really looking forward to.
“It happened very, very quickly. The football club made contact with my agent on I think it was late Tuesday night, Wednesday morning and it moved very quickly from there. So yeah, that’s football. That’s how football works. You don’t see things coming sometimes. And it was something that I felt I just could not turn down.”
Size of the club
“It’s a huge football club, a huge football club with a great tradition, a great history. It’s a club that now needs stability. It needs not to be going up then down, up then down in terms of top six and struggling after that. There has to be now a joined up approach to how we win games, how we play, a real structure and a real identity at the football club. And I believe I can give that to the football club.
“Football’s never ideal (timing to leave St Mirren). You can’t pick and choose your time. In an ideal world everything happens at the end of the season, you have loads of time to prepare for it. I’ve had fantastic times, memories that will last a lifetime. I had a real great relationship with the fans, with the board, with the playing staff, the coaching staff. And it was a fantastic journey. And I just felt that was a journey that I’d gone on and when this opportunity arose to come to a club with Aberdeen’s stature, with the resources that Aberdeen have, the training facilities that they have, and the plans that they have going forward, it was so hard not to say no to it. It was something I wanted to embrace and grab with open arms.
Two-fold plan
“It’s two-fold. In the short term firstly we need to get points on the board. We need to make sure we’re not involved in a relegation battle. And we do that by winning football matches and we’ll do it in a way that doesn’t complicate the players, makes it very simplistic for the players. And suddenly you start getting confidence back and enjoying your football again and getting everybody behind it.
“Longer term there’s a lot of work to do over the summer. We’ve got a good basis of a squad. We’ve got some very, very good individuals. And it’s my job to give that team an identity now. It is my job to progress the individuals into playing for the badge on the front and not the name on the back, and that is something I’ve done at every football club I’ve been at. First and foremost the team comes first and the individual will shine within that team.
“It’s going to be a busy summer. And as you say we’ll do it in two stages. We get stability now. We give the club a direction. We give the playing staff, the coaching staff, everybody a direction with one voice and we’ll do that over the coming weeks and then look to the summer to really improve and start challenging again at the other end of the table.
“It is two stages. We pick the points up. We need to make sure we’re safe at this level and make sure that we start getting our confidence back. Also that I’ll give them an identity. I demand total respect for everybody at the football club. And the least you do is you work as hard as you possibly can in every single game and we’ll put structure into it. I believe the players want that. They want the structure. They want one voice which we’ll give them.
Realties of management
“Time’s not something that’s overly given in football. So we all want time. Of course that’s exactly what you need. You need to be patient. I think the club now has to go from being a club when you win a game you’re the best in the world, you lose the game everything’s awful. We have to start getting a little bit of perspective into losing and winning and that will then, it won’t be a case of everything’s wrong or everything’s right. We constantly need to make this football club go forward.
“I know the parameters of management. I’m well, well aware of that. You win football matches, you stay on the job. You lose football matches, you don’t. So I intend to stay on the job and intend to win football matches. I intend to meet Aberdeen’s ambitions and my ambitions because I’m as ambitious as every Aberdeen fan.
“Win football matches. It’s quite simple (when asked how to change the doubters minds). Make your own opinion when you see the team play. Sometimes there’s a lot of false narrative in football. At a club the size of Aberdeen, a lot of fans, big fan base, you’re never going to keep everybody happy and you can’t fight every single critic.
“My body of work that I’ve done in the last eight to ten years with three top six finishes, third place with Motherwell, cup finals with Motherwell, cup wins, European adventures with both clubs, selling on young players, developing young players, I think that should speak for itself. Listen, if Jurgen Klopp was appointed there’d be somebody not happy. So I can deal with that. I am very, very confident in my own ability and the staff that I brought along with me.”
Reflections on the season so far and games to come
“Everybody has performances like that (Saturday at Dunfermline). It happens. The cup is so, so difficult. Everybody expects you to turn up. Of course Aberdeen should be going and winning that game. That goes without question. But there’s lots of players here that will be in Stephen Robinson’s team and lots of good attributes. What I have to do is give them a common goal, a common identity and not play as individuals. They have to play within the team as I’ve said previously.
“Obviously both clubs (Aberdeen and St Mirren) being in the division would be exactly what you want and I’m sure that will be the case.
“Of course I want to win the game for Aberdeen Football Club (St Mirren game). I’m Aberdeen’s manager. That goes without saying. I have a lot of love for St Mirren. I have a lot of respect for St Mirren, for everybody and everybody that helped me along the journey. It was an incredible journey. But on that occasion there can only be one thought in my mind to win and get three points for Aberdeen football club.
The Squad
“There’s a lot of injuries, a lot of injuries at the back which will dictate certain things in the system we have to play. But everyone’s got a chance. Everyone’s coming in. When you look at people from afar you don’t get a full picture, you don’t know the circumstances. Today we’ve had a meeting where everybody will start from scratch. I demand total respect and I demand that everybody respects each other and works as hard as they possibly can and shows their talent, and we’ll pick the team accordingly. Everyday you walk into Aberdeen Football Club you will get an opportunity to be the best version of themselves.
“As I said universal approval doesn’t happen nowadays. Everyone’s got an opinion. Everyone’s entitled to that opinion. Some are more educated than others of course. But look, we want to hit the ground running. We want to win the game on Saturday.
“Players don’t respond to criticism. Nobody in life goes to work and responds when you’re told you’re not very good or you get booed. So we ask the fans to get behind the players. We can all have an opinion after the game. Anytime that I’ve been to Aberdeen and anytime Aberdeen have come to any team I’ve been involved with, it’s been an incredible support. The Red Army, I’ve seen them down at St Mirren. I saw them at Motherwell and they get tremendous backing.
Resources at the club and expectations
“There are brilliant resources at this football club. You only have to look at the training facility and the plans for that, the plans for the new stadium. It’s a club that has been heavily backed. The chairman has put so much money into it. The board have put so much money into it. And we want to get rewards for them.
“I’ve worked on budgets that are very, very difficult to work on and managed to be extremely successful on them. And you speak about expectation. The expectation of both clubs that I was at rose incredibly because of the success.
“This club, the expectation is right. There is a journey to go on. There is a process that goes through before you get that and meet those expectations. But I’m well aware of them and the finances and the resources and the facilities give you an incredible chance to achieve that.
“I’ve not been part of that process. I’ve not been involved. Aberdeen have always been a huge football club. From afar you don’t know the situation, you don’t know the parameters that people are working in. I would never criticise any manager. Everyone’s doing their best and anybody that stands up and puts their head above the parapet and is brave enough to do that deserves an enormous amount of credit.
“The board have put a huge amount of money in, and Dave Cormack has personally put loads of money into this football club and built a training ground to be proud of, and are looking to build a new stadium. It’s gone from being a really good season to a struggle and we have to stop that. We have to get stability into the football club.
Enjoying Aberdeen
“It’s been a whirlwind. think I’ve sat in my office for 30 seconds. I spoke to my wife very briefly on the way here when I was getting shouted at for being late to the press conference! So it’s been good. There’s been a lot of positive talks. I spoke to some of the older players, spoke to some of the younger boys as well and there’s a real good feel, a good atmosphere around the training ground today.
“That’ll only get better the more they know me, the more that we want them to come and enjoy coming to the training ground. We want them to come in and enjoy being part of Aberdeen football club and take the fear away from playing and go and play with a little bit of freedom.”
