ALLAN McGraw has urged Aberdeen supporters to show Derek McInnes the same loyalty which he showed to them. McInnes has been on the receiving end from criticism from supporters in the wake of the 5-0 Ibrox defeat to Rangers and the club’s BetFred Cup exit to Hearts – there is talk of protests at their meeting with Hibs today - but McGraw feels that his former player deserves more credit on the strength of a League Cup win and four back-to-back second placed finishes in the Scottish top flight.
The Morton legend, still going strong at 80, feels that McInnes deserves more slack considering recent injuries to the likes of Scott McKenna, Andrew Considine, Craig Bryson, James Wilson, Stephen Gleeson, Ash Taylor, Scott Wright and Funso Ujo, the continuing chore of having to replace star performers such as Gary Mackay-Steven and Graeme Shinnie, not to mention the fact he chose to stay on at the club despite strong interest from Rangers a few seasons back.
“They should take these things to account – but they won’t,” McGraw told Herald and Times Sport. “Because that is supporters. They think you should be able to bring in someone just as good as the one who went out. It would be a very easy job if you could do that. You aren’t always going to get the same results.
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“Derek has shown a lot of loyalty to Aberdeen,” added McGraw, who set McInnes on course for an illustrious career in the Scottish game, with a debut at Morton. “It could be a hard season for them in some ways but I would think the fans should show some of it back to him. Directors sack managers but nine times out of ten it is supporters who get the managers sacked.
“Very few managers have 22 good players that they can just swap players in and out, especially smaller clubs like ourselves back in the day and maybe even Aberdeen now. One year [1993-94] I had a bad year and we got relegated and that never came into consideration, I lost the likes of McInnes and [Alan] Mahood that season. People thought I was a bit stupid when I said if we didn’t get promoted again, I would resign, but I knew if we got those players back we would be fine.
“You really needed to have a pool of 16 players to make sure you had a good season, if you lost three, maybe two of them, you were in trouble. You have got to bring in young players and it is a great thing if it works, but if you bring in three or four youngsters that doesn’t work too well, because they need guidance around them.”
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