Jim Goodwin is delighted to have his SFA ban reduced but the Aberdeen boss admits he still wishes he could be involved from the dugout kicking every ball as his side host Hibs on Friday night.
The Pittodrie boss was handed an eight match touchline suspension for comments branding defender Ryan Porteous a "cheat" when the sides met in September but had it reduced to just three games after an appeal. And Goodwin admits he has got to thank personnel behind the scenes for the outcome falling in his favour which now means he will only be absent from the clash with Lee Johnson's men as well as a trip to face Livingston in midweek.
Goodwin said: "Really pleased with the outcome to be honest. Obviously I want to be involved on a matchday and I want to be there to support the team and my staff. I was pleased with the work the legal team done behind the scenes here to help get the ban reduced.
"I think nowadays we are very fortunate with the IT equipment we have got available to us and obviously the communication that we have available as well. We've got walkie-talkies and telephones and all kinds of things now where the level of communication between myself and the dugout will be pretty seamless to be honest with you.
"We have got video links into the dressing room which again is all above board but maybe 15 or 20 years ago those facilities wouldn't have been available to managers. Whereas now we've got that access so prior to the game there isn't a great deal of talking done between the manager and the players.
"We have a meeting every game three hours before kick-off and we just have a bit of an overview of the week that we have had and just go over the game plan. I just remind the guys little bullet points of what's expected of them in and out of possession. And there after the players are left at their will to prepare for the game.
"The warm up is done by the sports science team and the assistant manager. It's half-time that's probably the biggest impact I would say, I think every other manager would agree, it's those 15 minutes at half-time where if you want to drum home a message that's probably the biggest difficulty of the situation but it's not something we are going to make excuses about."
Goodwin doesn't believe his squad will struggle without his presence as he demands his players to forget about their defeat at Ibrox last time out or what happened when they faced Hibs previously and instead focusing on leapfrogging the Easter Road side back into third place, with just a point separating the pair.
"It certainly won't have an impact on the emotional state of my players," added Goodwin. "It's going to be a difficult game as Hibs are a very good side.
"They leapfrogged us into third position after the results last weekend and we would like to try and take that place back on Friday evening and we would like to try and take that place back.
"What happened in the last game at Easter Road is irrelevant now because we can't change that, however disappointed we were with the outcome of one or two events. There'll be no thinking about that game on Friday night."
READ NEXT:
