By Scott Burns

Copyright dailyrecord

Maybe it was in the name. Whenever there was criticism or things were going wrong at Aberdeen then the bullets seemed to be aimed in Steven Gunn’s direction. As a director of football, there is no hiding place. There were also times when Gunn was also an easy target. When things were going wrong then he would find himself in the firing line. The one thing about ‘Gunner’ that nobody can deny is that he has Aberdeen Football Club at heart. A genuinely nicer guy you will struggle to meet and who preferred to work under the radar and away from the media spotlight. He came into the club as an assistant football administrator and gradually worked his way up to head of football operations. Gunn was then promoted to director of football in 2021 in a bold appointment by chairman Dave Cormack . He was appointed from within. Gunn maybe didn’t have the outside football contacts but how could he knock back an opportunity like that, with a club so close to his heart? He couldn’t. He gradually steadily built and grew into the position. You also have to remember that when Derek McInnes left he took Russ Richardson with him and the entire Aberdeen scouting system had to be rebuilt from scratch. The club also decided to move in a different direction, moving away from the home markets to a more global approach. Gunn has also played his part in putting in place the highly successful player trading model that has brought in club record sales from Calvin Ramsay to Liverpool and then Bojan Miovski to Girona . There have also been several other decent sales as well from Ross McCrorie and Lewis Ferguson to Ylber Ramadani and even this year they got decent fees for Pape Habib Gueye, Fletcher Boyd and Shayden Morris. Gunn has also worked with managers from Stephen Glass, Jim Goodwin, Barry Robson, Neil Warnock and Jimmy Thelin. He has also appointed numerous heads of recruitments. Darren Mowbray, quite rightly, gets a lot of credit for his time at the club bringing in the likes of Miovski, Ylber Ramadani, Morris and Gueye. It was Gunn who oversaw that interview process and decided to go with Mowbray. Yes, there have been others who have come and gone and not been successful but with recruitment you are never going to get everything right. For every Miovski you might have a Richard Jensen. The key is getting more right than wrong. In Gunn’s time at Aberdeen that has been the case. Aberdeen have also invested heavily in their squad in recent seasons but a lot of that has been generated from player sales. Also, if you look at it, in his four years as director of football, Aberdeen have won the Scottish Cup, finished third and have qualified for the Conference League group stages twice in three seasons. Yes, everybody at Aberdeen would have been looking for a bit more consistency on the park, but that is down to managers getting results. Current boss Jimmy Thelin isn’t finding things any easier, despite winning the Scottish Cup. He has also brought in his own head of recruitment in Nuno De Almeida. The Scottish Cup-winning boss’ summer recruitment has now come under scrutiny as his team has struggled to get out of the blocks in the league. Gunn had said in his departure statement that he agreed with the chairman and Alan Burrows (chief executive) that he had agreed to see out this last transfer window before he departed. He was a big driver in getting Kevin Nisbet back and landing Stuart Armstrong. The one thing is that Gunn will leave Pittodrie with his head held high and a CV that puts him in a strong position. He gave everything to the club for the past 25 years and the chances are that he will be back in football sooner rather than later – if that is the route he decides to take.