Stephen Robinson has looked like a beaten man for weeks. The Aberdeen manager insists he is still up for the fight but the body language suggests otherwise: tired, haunted and so out of explanations for his team’s wretched form that he doesn’t even try to come up with any more.

It is inconceivable that he will continue in the post after another traumatic defeat at Pittodrie yesterday. Not only did Aberdeen lose to Hibs, they gave up the ghost when a second goal went in with 11 minutes left and eventually succumbed to a 4-0 drubbing by the team who had started the day bottom of the league.

Whatever he might say to the contrary, Robinson would probably be just as minded to chuck it, were it not for the compensation that will come his way when he is sacked in the days ahead. And sacked he surely will be, especially now that the international window gives the club some breathing space.

Watching the usually chirpy Robinson have the stuffing knocked out of him by this bruising experience has not been fun. With every passing week, he has looked increasingly worn down by the weight of the club, the wrath of supporters (who never wanted him there in the first place) and the half-hearted efforts of his own players.

Quite apart from their three league wins from 12 and the home defeats by St Johnstone and Falkirk, there has been no sign of a playing style that showed potential. Nobody expected sophisticated football from the Northern Irishman, but even the aggression, physicality and direct approach for which he was renowned elsewhere has been conspicuous by its absence.

Robinson’s Aberdeen seem to be better out of possession, as they showed against Rangers in the Premier Sports Cup semi-final, than they are in it. After conceding an early goal to St Johnstone last month, they were given the ball for the next 76 minutes but had no idea what to do with it.

You might get away with that at St Mirren and Motherwell, where he had so much success in previous years, but it’s no use at a club of Aberdeen’s stature. By appointing a manager who was the polar opposite of his predecessor, Jimmy Thelin, the board at Pittodrie had hoped to go back to basics, but now even the fundamentals have gone.

Owner Dave Cormack has tried everything since becoming Aberdeen’s chairman in 2019. Stephen Glass and Barry Robson were young project managers. Thelin was the foreigner with a philosophy. Jim Goodwin and Robinson were the guys with a track record in the Premiership.

All failed, even Thelin, whose historic Scottish Cup triumph had promised so much. At times like these, Alex Ferguson’s miraculous achievements of the 1980s are blamed for casting a long shadow over Pittodrie, but a successful past is no excuse for a failed future.

After all, Derek McInnes was not so weighed down by history that he couldn’t guide Aberdeen to four second-place finishes. Before that, Jimmy Calderwood led them into the last 32 of the UEFA Cup. Goodwin is now faring rather well with Dundee United. And whatever is said about Robinson, he deserved a shot at one of the big jobs.

At what point is it acknowledged that the problem is not so much the managers as the mistakes made by those who appoint them? Aberdeen are lucky to have a benefactor like Cormack who has invested millions in the team and its infrastructure, but the money hasn’t bought them a vision that could be turned into reality.

In 2024, Aberdeen appointed a German consultancy firm to conduct a holistic, top-to-bottom review of their football operations. They appointed Thelin and drew up a three-year plan that would modernise the club and lead it to a sustainable long-term future. One of those who assisted in that process, Lutz Pfannenstiel, later became the club’s sporting director.

Whatever happened to all that? When Thelin ran out of road, Aberdeen’s chief executive, Alan Burrows, turned to Robinson, with whom he had worked at Motherwell. It never felt like he would fit into a framework that had been built around his predecessor, a Swede whose management style could hardly have been more different.

Among the many complaints from disgruntled Aberdeen fans are questions about recruitment. More particularly, who is signing which players? Let’s just say they have their doubts that Pfannenstiel scoured the whole of Europe last summer and came up with Brad Lyons and Toyosi Olusanya.

This is a club that has lost its way, an institution that appears to have given up on joining the dots between its various departments. The crumb of comfort for disillusioned fans is that a new chief executive is just in the door and will surely see this as an opportunity to address the malaise. The role vacated by Burrows in September is now filled by former FA communications executive Adrian Bevington.

Assuming Robinson is asked to clear his desk this week, the challenge for Bevington will not just be to replace him. It won’t just be a matter of getting together with his decision-making colleagues and weighing up a data-based appointment from the Netherlands. Or using his negotiating skills to lure John McGlynn from Falkirk.

It will be about the club as a whole. About ensuring that everyone at Aberdeen is singing from the same hymn sheet, with shared goals, a common vision and a manager who fits into the grand plan. It won’t guarantee them success, but it will bring about progress. And right now, that is as much as Aberdeen can ask.