Stewart Fisher: Never mind what’s next for Rangers, what’s next for Derek McInnes?

He never did manage the club, and – as it seems impossible by the standards of this saga that Rangers followers will ever forget this snub – neither will McInnes either.

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But while things worked out well enough for Ferguson, the question last night was whether McInnes was also waving goodbye to a once-in-a-lifetime hard-earned opportunity to work with international level players, on tens of thousand of pounds a week.

Perhaps no-one should really have been so surprised. While his affection for the Ibrox side from childhood is well-known, it has been one of the themes of an interminable five-week period, rammed home frequently by those who know the Aberdeen manager best, that the former 
St Johnstone and Bristol City manager would not be rushed into any rash decisions.

It is, quite simply, not his style. As his former Rangers and Dundee United team-mate, Billy Dodds told the Herald yesterday, he would “ask Rangers the questions that have to be asked and wouldn’t go to Rangers unless the answers he needed to hear were given.” 

While the statement issued by the Pittodrie side on behalf of chairman Stewart Milne yesterday swore blind that McInnes had merely spent the last 48 hours mulling things over with the family, rather than talking to anyone in Govan, in broad terms the outline of the story seemed simple enough.

Somewhere along the line, this job was not as appealing to McInnes as Rangers thought it was. Was this a suspicion that the board or certain members of it weren’t sold on him as manager – a fair assumption to make considering the weeks it took to make an approach – or a suspicion his chances could be compromised down the line by further boardroom turbulence. 

Read more: Rangers 'endorse' Derek McInnes' decision to remain as Aberdeen boss​

It didn’t seem outlandish to hear echoes here of McInnes’ summer dilemma, when he travelled down to discuss the vacant Sunderland job with chief executive Martin Bain and owner Ellis Short only to be rather concerned about his potential shelf-life in the wake of boardroom intrigue with a German consortium who might have had rather different views about the direction they wanted to take the football department.

While that consortium’s interest cooled and Short retained ownership of the club, Simon Grayson’s brief, unhappy tenure at the club proved that to be the correct decision.

Or perhaps it had something to do with Aberdeen’s determination to fight for their man to the last, regardless of the back-to-back defeats to Rangers over which he had just presided.

The prospect of being sued for breach of contract by a club where he has a warm relationship with the board and the fans would not have been an easy one to countenance. Had Rangers done things promptly, would there have been a different outcome?

Instead, McInnes opted for the good old Scottish wisdom of ‘what is for ye, will not go by ye’. It remains to be seen exactly what that will be.

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But for now the 46-year-old has a lucrative contract at Aberdeen, a good job and a board who support him, and will be at peace with his decision so long as his ambitions can be satisfied elsewhere.

Presumably the Aberdeen fans group said his position in the North East was ‘untenable’ will have revised their opinion.

“I have ambitions in the game and while there was interest from elsewhere, and I did talk to Sunderland, I feel there is so much still to be done here at Aberdeen,” he said, following the interest from Wearside in the summer.

Insert the name of Rangers and something similar will be said no doubt in the next few days. McInnes seemed perfect for the Ibrox club. He simply decided they weren’t perfect for him.