With the appointment of Duncan Ferguson at the Oval expected to be confirmed on Monday, the club's five-week search for a new manager illustrates again that there is the easy way, the hard way, and the Glentoran way.
When the east Belfast outfit parted company with Declan Devine on 14 September, the simple solution to the early-season vacancy appeared to be a reunion with former assistant Tiernan Lynch.
A two-time winner of the Irish Premiership with Larne, Lynch was freshly back on the market after leaving Derry City in August and immediately installed as favourite for the post.
Instead, the Glens made the trickier prospect of prying Jim Magilton out of his contract at Cliftonville their priority.
When the former Northern Ireland and Ipswich Town midfielder made it clear he intended to stay at Solitude, nobody would have predicted what came next.
A pivot towards Everton legend Ferguson, who also had spells with Rangers and Newcastle United, was not, as they say, on anyone's bingo card.
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The appeal of bringing Ferguson's star power to the Irish Premiership is obvious, akin to the boost provided to the League of Ireland by former Chelsea winger Damian Duff's successful, if short, stint with Shelbourne in recent years.
A cult figure across two playing spells at Goodison Park thanks to both his goalscoring exploits and aggressive style - no player has ever received more than his eight Premier League red cards - the 54-year-old Scot instantly becomes the most recognisable face in the league.
Fans quickly had their own fun with the imminent appointment on Saturday, with erroneous reports of the seven-times capped Scottish striker being spotted everywhere from his prospective new side's 1-0 win over Limavady to a local chip shop on the Newtownards Road.
Glentoran are no strangers to big names in the playing ranks having had the likes of Keith Gillespie, Nacho Novo and Niall McGinn plying their trade at the Oval in recent times, but it is different when such a presence is in the dugout.
Ferguson, after all, will have been the only applicant with spells as an assistant to the likes of Carlo Ancelotti, Rafa Benitez and Ronald Koeman on his CV.
In all, the Scot worked under seven different permanent bosses at Everton, as well as two separate stints in interim charge.
After leaving Merseyside following the departure of Frank Lampard in 2022, managerial roles at Forest Green Rovers and Inverness Caledonian Thistle were hardly considered a success, admittedly both in testing circumstances.
Coupled with his unfamiliarity with the Irish League and, for all the headlines already generated, there is no doubt that the left-field appointment is a gamble.
The Glentoran hierarchy clearly believe it is a risk worth taking. Some Oval regulars may well suggest that the club have tried just about everything else in their quest for a first league title since 2009.
Owner Ali Shams Pour arrived a decade after the late Alan McDonald delivered the most recent of the side's 23 Gibson Cups. Since then, the turbulent reign of Mick McDermott brought Irish Cup success in 2020 yet he still was the victim of supporter protests.
The calming presence of Rodney McAree delivered immediate results, but the now Dungannon boss lasted just under five months before departing for personal reasons to be replaced by Warren Feeney.
Unpopular from the off owing to his previous association with bitter rivals Linfield, the 46-times capped Northern Ireland international was unable to win over the fanbase during another short reign.
That brought about Devine's appointment with the County Antrim Shield triumph of January 2025 a high the club could not build upon. Consecutive losses in BetMcLean Cup finals created a sense of stalled momentum.
It already feels likely to be forgotten just how close Devine came to delivering that long-sought title. A win in the penultimate league game of last season against Larne and the Glens would have gone into the final day top of the table.
Instead, the disappointment of a 0-0 draw from a game in which they were the better side lingered into the subsequent performance against Coleraine and they were beaten 6-2 at the Showgrounds to ultimately finish third.
It will not have escaped Ferguson's attention that one half of the league's so-called 'Big Two' have still not finished in the league's top two for 17 years.
In replacing Devine, Ferguson will inherit a squad built by and for the former Derry City and Bohemians boss.
And just as Devine's appointment brought about a sweeping clear-out in the summer of 2024, it is again a playing group that for all the expenditure over the past five transfer windows again feels imbalanced.
An over-reliance on Jordan Stewart for a creative spark led to the September return of Conor McMenamin just two months after he had signed for Coleraine - that transfer now somehow the second most surprising story of Glentoran's season.
That in turn, however, saw Joe Thomson move the other way, robbing the side of midfield drive only months after one of last season's star performers, Cammy Palmer, returned home to Scotland.
Similarly, the absence of 2025-26 top scorer Pat Hoban during the early months of this season highlighted the lack of like-for-like cover given the talented Jordan Jenkins plays in an entirely different way.
Four wins and a draw from their past five league games under interim boss Paddy McCourt, however, offers the reminder that most in the Irish Premiership would still happily swap their squads for the one Ferguson will now hope to rebuild into title challengers once again.
Those managers will not, however, be dealing with the same expectations. Nor the same attention.