Barry Robson gripped in Aberdeen death spin and decline is traced to a man with whopping great ego – Keith Jackson

Be careful what you wish for. OK, it’s a phrase that’s horribly overused and most probably betrays a lack of original thought.

But just because it’s a cliche doesn’t mean it’s not valid. And, let’s be blunt, never has that old warning felt quite as apt as it did on Wednesday night, when Derek McInnes returned to Pittodrie and left his former club teetering on the brink of a full blown crisis.

Kilmarnock’s late 1-0 win in Aberdeen should not have come as a shock to anyone who’s been paying attention even if the apoplectic reaction to this latest calamity makes it seem like it hit the north east like some unexpected bolt out of the blue. What we are looking at here is a club nosediving down the league. And the truth of the matter is that this collapse can be traced directly back to the day Dave Cormack became chairman and immediately allowed his whopping great ego to get the better of his good senses.

When Cormack decided to pander to the crowd and pull the plug on McInnes he was not only guilty of neediness and trying to people please but also loudly declaring he knew better than his vastly experienced, consistently over achieving manager about how best to run a football club.

Not only that, he was effectively slapping his long serving predecessor Stewart Milne in the face for being weak-willed enough to ignore the mumblings of the mob by letting McInnes rule the roost for just as long as he did.

So Stephen Glass was plucked from the obscurity of his role as a B team coach in the States on a whim and largely on the basis that, like the chairman, at least he was a proper Dandy. And now here we are, only two and half years later, with Aberdeen back in the very position which McInnes found them in when Milne was smart enough