It is not often that a club raids a rival sitting below them in the same league for their manager.
However, Stephen Robinson goes from trying to narrow the gap between 10th-placed St Mirren and Aberdeen to attempting to increase it. From one side with one win in 13 league games to another with an identical dismal record.
The Dons sit just one place, albeit five points, above the Paisley side, but it is the latter's relative success compared to their respective resources that has attracted chairman Dave Cormack and his board.
Prior to this season, St Mirren had finished in the top six in all three of Robinson's years in charge.
Aberdeen finished fifth, one place above last season - and won the Scottish Cup - but St Mirren have this season belied their league position by lifting the League Cup and, on Sunday, reached the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup.
The Dons, under caretaker manager Peter Leven, had fallen to an ignaminious 3-0 defeat away to Dunfermline Athletic by the time St Mirren surmounted a tricky tie at home to another second-tier side, Partick Thistle.
Robinson will miss out on the chance of a rare cup double - and a rematch with Celtic - at Hampden but now has the chance he has relished for some time to manage at one of the country's biggest clubs in terms of resources.
His first task comes against another side punching above their weight as Falkirk, who have all but secured a top-six finish, arrive at Pittodrie under John McGlynn - the man many pundits thought ought to be in the running to be heading there as manager instead.
Given St Mirren's league struggles this term, some thought Robinson's star had faded and suggest the Dons board, who had looked likely to wait until the summer to make an appointment, have panicked about the possibility of being dragged into relegation trouble.
However, they will argue that they could not afford another six-month wait for a manager, as they had with predecessor Jimmy Thelin, and that they have had nearly three months of close scrutiny during which to choose the right man.
Nevertheless, Robinson faces a tough first test against a side that have beaten Aberdeen 1-0 home and away already this season.
