Barry Robson and the Aberdeen joke that started Dons reign as Alan Burrows left asking if Klopp was in the cupboard

Alan Burrows had only just checked in at Pittodrie to begin his hunt for a new manager when he bumped into Barry Robson.

The interim boss didn’t take long to tell Burrows to call off the search party. After all, the man who would be king had already taken his place on the throne. Aberdeen chief exec Burrows said: “When I met him he said, ‘Oh, here he goes, the guy who is going to appoint the manager. Don’t worry, Jurgen Klopp is in the building.’ I said, ‘Have you locked him in the f***ing cupboard like?’”

It wasn’t a tough decision for Burrows but the due diligence still had to be carried out and the managerial shortlist finalised, which saw discussions held with Chris Wilder and Ricardo Rodriguez in a search that went from the North East to the Far East. A run of seven wins on the spin, transforming Aberdeen from the bottom six to third place helped Robson convince the Pittodrie hierarchy he’s the man to take the club forward. Now over the next two years the only thing Robson will be looking to put in the cupboard is silverware.

Burrows added: “It was only afterwards I realised it was my first interaction with him and I said to director of football Steven Gunn, ‘I hope he took that on board as a bit of banter’ and Steven said, ‘No, don’t worry, he’ll be fine, he’ll take that as a joke.’

“Barry has made no secret of the fact that in the last four of five years he fancied being a manager and he was working towards that.He had other opportunities to be a manager somewhere but didn’t feel it was quite right or at a level he wanted to start at.

“This hasn’t landed in his lap. He’s been planning for this for some period of time and hopefully that is reflected in some of the work he has done early doors.

“Without actually