This piece is an extract from yesterday's The Dandies newsletter, which is emailed out at 6pm every Tuesday.

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On Saturday, Aberdeen recorded only their second successive Scottish Premiership victory of the season after beating Ross County 2-1. It was not pretty, in fact, it was downright ugly but that did not matter, what mattered was winning the three points and putting clear daylight between us, County, St Johnstone, and Livingston. Objective achieved!

Interim manager Peter Leven who has now won 2 out of 3 games has helped build a foundation for the boys to grow but there is still plenty of work to be done. After taking the lead thanks to Bojan Miovski’s 23rd goal of the season, Aberdeen completely lost their way for the remainder of the half. The frustration of the fans started to spill over onto the pitch; nobody was willing to take the game by the scruff and make things happen. It came as no surprise when Ross County equalised thanks to a cheap free header from Simon Murray. At that point, I feared the worst. Thank god for half-time.

As the second half faded and with no signs of a second goal the game was crying out for somebody to be brave. That bravery came from the interim manager. Two decisive substitutions helped swing the game in the Dons' favour. Firstly, he recognised the game was passing Connor Barron by so hooked him for Dante Polvara and then replaced the hard-working but ineffective Junior Hoilett with Duk. Immediately the pattern of the game shifted in Aberdeen’s favour. There was now a directness about our play which started to cause County problems. That same directness eventually led to Aberdeen’s winning goal. Duk, who showed glimpses of his old self, showed great strength to hold his man off and deliver an inviting ball across the 18-yard box. The ever-industrial Jamie McGrath was on hand to slam the ball into the back of the net having reacted first to Duk’s cross. The relief felt around the ground was palpable.

It was a huge win, an important win, and gives us a foundation to finish the season strongly. The top 6 is still within our grasp but the mathematics and permutations to achieve this are enough to give me a headache. I will gladly settle for survival at this stage. Next up we face the bottom side Livingston at the Tony Macaroni Stadium before welcoming Dundee to Pittodrie pre-League split. Both games come with their difficulties but if we can continue to progress, I see no reason why we can’t win both games and continue on our path to Premiership survival.

Ahead of the game, I hoped the talk of the new manager would not prove to be a distraction. The players needed to be fully focused on the task ahead. Thankfully this was achieved. It’s a new week and we, as Dons fans, continue to wait in earnest for an announcement from the club. If we are to believe the rumours our new manager will be in place before the Livingston game, but we’ve been here before so I will not hold my breath. I pray the board are thinking out of the box when it comes to our new manager and does not fall into the Scottish Premiership manager merry-go-round trap. They have to think out of the box and be ambitious, unlike a certain Michael Stewart whose comments post-game astonished me as much as they disappointed me. I expected better from a pundit who is normally versed and articulated.

To finish off I will stick my head above the parapet and offer you a name for serious consideration – Uwe Rosler. I will leave it there for you to ponder.