Craig Brown is too much of an old pro to be fazed by managerial mind games.
Thus, when invited to comment on the "special relationship" Kenny Shiels has developed with referees and some of his Clydesdale Bank Premier League counterparts, his smile widened.
Brown's Aberdeen side tomorrow play Kilmarnock at Rugby Park and, perhaps pre-empting some gamesmanship, insisted that the home team's manager has been good for his club and for Scottish football despite his difficulties with match officials.
"Kenny won't get under my skin," Brown said. "I like him. He is a friend. We are socially friendly with the Killie staff and nothing would please us more than for them and us to do well. Kilmarnock did well to win the League Cup. Kenny is a great ambassador for Kilmarnock in terms of getting them publicity. That's his forte. He's a salesman and fantastic credit to him. I don't think there is anyone in football who would complain about him."
The Aberdeen manager has, however, mentioned Shiels to John Fleming, the SFA head of referee development. He said: "I asked him if Kenny was getting away with a lot more than Aberdeen and he said 'absolutely not'. I respect referees. I think they deserve better support than they sometimes get from managers. Referees are strong enough not to be influenced by what managers say, though human nature says that if you're a weaker referee and Kenny's constantly going on you might think, 'I'll better watch or Kenny will complain'.
On the sacking of Barry Smith as manager of Dundee, Brown tipped Willie Donachie, the former Scotland full-back, now reserve team coach at Newcastle United, as someone who might be in the frame.
"I've seen the list of candidates and there are a lot of good names," Brown said. "My wild card would be Willie Donachie. It's a bit like Steve Lomas when he went to St Johnstone. Willie has been working well behind the scenes but looks ready for a step up."
Shiels, meanwhile, could be left with only one senior defender fit enough to play against Aberdeen. The Kilmarnock manager will not be able to call upon Manuel Pascali again this season as the Italian requires surgery on a hamstring problem, while Rory McKeown has yet to resume full training following injury. Mohamadou Sissoko is also a doubt to feature at Rugby Park due to a virus and Jeroen Tesselaar has sustained a thumb injury.
The Dutchman has been fitted with a cast but referee Euan Norris, who will take charge at Rugby Park, denied permission for the defender to play while wearing it when contacted by the club yesterday. That has left just Ryan O'Leary – who has only played intermittently since the turn of the year – to marshal a back line comprising inexperienced youth players for the visit of Aberdeen.
"Jeroen has hurt his hand in training. We are in a bit of trouble for Saturday," said Shiels. "His thumb is out of shape and we are trying to get a splint for him. If we can't get him cleared to play with that then we are really, really struggling. Of the senior players that would play at the back, only O'Leary is still in. He will be on his own – it's a bit of a crisis."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article