Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. And as hard as it may be to believe now, the appointment of Neil Warnock as Aberdeen manager did have a certain logic to it at the time.

Here was a hugely experienced campaigner with a track record of getting the most from whichever squad of players he was working with. Despite his 75 years, he also had very recently dropped into a club at Huddersfield, galvanised it, and saved it from a dire situation in the English Championship.

So, while you can argue about the wisdom of appointing a short-term manager with a defined maximum shelf life of four months at any club, the presumption Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack made in thinking Warnock would be able to go in and administer a timely boot up the jacksies of a talented but hugely underperforming Aberdeen squad was sound enough.

So, I don’t wish to appear wise after the fact. But boy, what a mess.

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Such is the shambles at Pittodrie at the minute it is far from a certainty that Warnock will even see out his contract. There is a case already after just one win in his seven matches – and that was against Bonnyrigg Rose in the Scottish Cup – that he shouldn’t, because it is far from certain, incredibly, that Aberdeen will remain a top-flight club.

The desperate Dandy Dons are down to 10th in the Scottish Premiership, have not won a league match in 10 – just two short of the club record - and are slap bang in the middle of a relegation dogfight that they don’t appear to have the heart for. Their late collapse against St Mirren at the weekend had all the hallmarks of a team with no backbone.

To concede a 95th minute equaliser to a contentious penalty call can happen to anyone. But to lose another goal moments later to lose a game they had led from the first minute to then spoke of a mental fragility that would be alarming at the best of times, but that is a fatal characteristic for a team to have when it is scrapping for its life at the wrong end of the table.

Far from following the trajectory of Warnock’s Huddersfield team of last season, Aberdeen are currently on the timeline of Terry Butcher’s Hibernian side of 2013/14. A team we were consistently told were too good to go down. A team that downed tools after being publicly criticised by their new manager. A team that sleepwalked its way into The Championship. Sound familiar?

It is only the last of those developments that has seemingly yet to transpire at Pittodrie, though Warnock and the Aberdeen players may contest the point about downing tools on grounds of professional pride. But where is the evidence of it?

If they are to avoid the same fate as Butcher’s Hibs Hall of Infamy outfit, they have to show something in their next few games to at least suggest they can pull themselves out of their current predicament.

They have a home Scottish Cup quarter final against a Kilmarnock side who beat them comfortably a couple of weeks back. Whatever Aberdeen fans may think of former manager Derek McInnes, he will bring a Killie side north which bear all the hallmarks their own team currently does not. They will be fighting for their manager, for each other, and will be supremely well organised.

Then, they travel to Dens Park to face a Dundee side who have been impressive overall in their first season in the top-flight despite their recent defensive troubles and their capacity for losing costly late goals.

They then travel to face an improving Motherwell, who will have had a couple of weeks to bask in their impressive win at Ibrox by the time Aberdeen come to town.

Warnock is fond of asking 'Are you with me?' By the end of that run, he'll know if his players are. To borrow another of his phrases, would anyone give them a chance of winning any of those matches? And what if they don’t?

It hardly bears thinking about for those of Pittodrie persuasion. The atmosphere around the old ground can quickly become toxic, and I shudder to think what the mood would be like when they come home to face Ross County after that run if they arrive there without at least a victory or two.

It would be a dereliction of duty if the Aberdeen board were not already considering a contingency plan should the worst come to pass over the next fortnight.

I saw comments this week from former Celtic and Hibs manager Neil Lennon – ironically,  the man they should turn to if they do decide to pull the trigger - that he felt there was something of a witch hunt against Warnock at the minute. And I think there is an element of truth in that.

Nothing quite unites Scottish football as someone who doesn’t afford it the proper respect, as Derek Adams recently found to his cost.

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I am not for a moment suggesting that Warnock has said anything amounting to Adams’ assassination of the standard up here, but his general breeziness, frequent references to ‘they’ instead of ‘we’ when referencing his own club, and the assertion that he didn’t feel any pressure because he knew he was off at the end of the season regardless have given the impression that he thought this was all going to be a skoosh.

It has been anything but, and you couldn’t blame Aberdeen fans for taking his comments and general joviality as signs that he isn’t really taking any of this very seriously, whether that is true or not.

So, it feels like Cormack and the rest of the Aberdeen board could soon have another monumental decision to make. One thing is for sure, when the time comes to appoint their next manager, the club chairman would do well to delegate the decision.

No one doubts his intentions, or his commitment to bringing success to Aberdeen. But patience with his own leadership of the club is wearing thin, and so too, it seems, is Warnock’s schtick with the Dons faithful.