Is Mark McGhee more Aberdeen than Celtic minded? This week could be interesting as clubs close in on their managerial targets

Say hello, wave goodbye
Aberdeen have held 'encouraging' talks with Motherwell manager Mark McGhee about returning to Pittodrie and taking over where Jimmy Calderwood left off. McGhee was made favourite to be the next Aberdeen manager as soon as Calderwood left the building at the end of the season but was thought to be keeping his powder dry as the chance to manage Celtic was also available. With Tony Mowbray now looking odds on favourite with Celtic to replace Gordon Strachan this week, McGhee may have had his mind made up for him that Aberdeen is the place to be. However, with West Brom said to be looking for up to £2m if Mowbray moves to Celtic, it may not be a done deal. Depending on the four clubs involved agreeing levels of compensation, McGhee could return to the club he played for between 1978-84. He said: "There is compensation to agree but the talks were encouraging. For me, there is an element of sentimentality attached to the Aberdeen job. This is an opportunity to manage a club where I had fantastic success and memories as a player. The same would have applied at Celtic. So there is an element of going home about the Aberdeen job for me and I quite like that."

Motherwell held on to McGhee a year ago when he turned down the chance to move to Hearts. He went on: "If I had left when offered the Hearts job a year ago, my contract would have been extraordinarily better than the one I was on at Motherwell. That does not apply with the Aberdeen job so it is not about money. It's amazing the number of people who say to me that the mistake I made was not going to Hearts and that if I had gone there and finished third I would have walked into the Celtic job. But last year it would have been wrong to leave Motherwell to go to Hearts. Aberdeen represents a different challenge. There is sentimentality involved for me, a bit of romance to that job."

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