Barry Robson breaks Aberdeen sacking silence 7 months on as he pinpoints why it went pear shaped

Barry Robson has opened up on his dismissal from Aberdeen and insists the struggle to balance the team's domestic form with their European commitments was the main reason for his downfall in the Granite City.

After a successful spell in interim charge at the back end of the 2023/24 season where he spearheaded the Dons to a third place finish in the Premiership, Robson was handed the reins on full-time basis in the following summer, and revamped his squad with 12 new additions. While Aberdeen gave a good account of themselves in the group stages of the Conference League and reached the Premier Sports Cup final, their league form was woefully inconsistent, and in the wake of a goalless draw at home to Dundee on January 31, the former Scotland international was sacked with the Reds sitting in eighth after winning just six of their first 21 games.

Aberdeen have started the campaign in fine fettle under new manager Jimmy Thelin, winning all eight of their fixtures in all competitions so far. Speaking on Sportsound after his old team defeated Kilmarnock 2-0 on Sunday, Robson says he has no bad feelings about the way things ended at Pittodrie but has offered his view on why Aberdeen were not able to kick on under his management. He said: "It was a brilliant time and I still love everybody at the club.

"We took the fans into Europe and into the group stages and back to a cup final. It was a really good time and I am proud of the work we done there. But what you are seeing here with Kilmarnock today, St Mirren and Hearts, they are all in Europe and are finding it really difficult.

"We had to go through a lot of that in the whole time we were at Aberdeen. It was where we wanted to be, but it is hard. We obviously had to build a