CONFUSION reigns today as it appears that Aberdeen have not been knocked back by Motherwell boss Craig Brown - because they did not offer him the job.
The club is keen to insist that it has not yet offered anyone the manager's job at Pittodrie, which renders Motherwell's statement yesterday regarding Brown and assistant Knox virtually meaningless.
An AFC spokesman said: "The situation at present is that we are undertaking due diligence on a limited number of potential candidates but we are not yet at the stage of making an offer to anyone.
"As has been widely reported, as part of this process, we enquired whether Craig Brown and Archie Knox would be interested in the possibility of coming to Aberdeen and that is as far as it went.
"The Board is well aware that while we need to get someone in place as soon as possible, it is even more important that the person we appoint is the correct one for Aberdeen Football Club.
"In the meantime, Neil Cooper and Neil Simpson are doing an excellent job in interim control of first team matters with the focus very much on the weekend trip to Tynecastle."
Meanwhile, Brown said: “Aberdeen chairman Stewart Milne phoned me back on Wednesday and asked if we would be prepared to reconsider our refusal to be a candidate for the job.
“Quite frankly, although we originally said no, after the very pleasant appeal from the Aberdeen chairman to reconsider our position, we will have another agonising sit-down and talk out of respect for a man who we both respect.
“As well as the chairman, Duncan Fraser and Willie Miller, we also know people such as directors Hugh Little and Gordon Buchan and like them very much so it was hard to say no to them.
“With the chairman coming back to us everything is now up in the air, everyone is entitled to change their mind, so there could be a change of heart.”
Aberdeen and Motherwell have already been involved in a war of words regarding previous Dons boss Mark McGhee, and this already looks like developing into something similar.
