Underwhelming managerial hires – who stands the best chance?

The Herald Scotland

11 hours ago

Starting with Hearts hiring Derek McInnes on May 19 and ending whenever Motherwell get around to appointing a successor to Michael Wimmer, there will be five clubs alone in the top flight who will have brought someone new into the dugout – while there's a notable example from the Championship we'll also get to.
There hasn't been universal acclaim for any of them. In fact, McInnes, unwanted by a not-to-significant portion of the Tynecastle support prior to his arrival, is now the most popular of the lot after he managed to charm a good few doubters in his introductory press conference.
Since then, Kilmarnock underwhelmed the Rugby Park faithful by filling the McInnes-shaped hole with ex-Motherwell manager Stuart Kettlewell. Dundee skanted their own fanbase by giving former Dundee United defender Steven Pressley his first head coaching gig in six years. And Rangers have disappointed many of their fans (and angered the culture-war weirdos) by appointing noted vegan and Buddhist Russell Martin.
Then there's Partick Thistle a tier down who spent a couple of months identifying potential candidates, then a couple of weeks interviewing them, only to be left with one-half of the management team already in place as Mark Wilson gets his first permanent job in the hotseat since leaving fourth-tier Brechin City in 2020.
As much as it seems some of the aforementioned clubs are setting themselves up for disaster, history would dictate that not every one of these guys is going to be a failure next season and some will even triumphantly prove the doubters wrong.
Let's start with Martin, whose arrival at Ibrox is very much the big talking point in Scottish football at the moment. His eating habits and religious curiosities are, of course, irrelevant to how he will perform as manager of the Rangers first-team, but there is legitimate concern around a leader who had a modest win-ratio while in charge of MK Dons and Swansea City before getting sacked by Southampton. In fairness, he did take the St Mary's club into the English Premier League, though that achievement doesn't count for as much as it should, seeing as it was immediately followed by a dreadful half-season in which his team won one game, got horsed regularly and sat bottom of the table when his p45 came in December's mail.
Martin's track-record may not suggest he's the man to lead Rangers back to former glories, but he is the type of manager who the Light Blues should be hiring.
Across recent seasons the Ibrox club have continued to overachieve on the continent and underachieved in domestic football. Scottish football has collectively scratched their heads and marvelled at how Rangers, a team who struggle so often to beat the likes of Hibs and St Mirren, can often go toe-to-toe with outfits who should be wiping the floor with them – including each of this year's Europa League finalists.
There are a number of factors at play, but the main reason is relatively simple: they're set up that way. Rangers have been at their best when counter-attacking and direct, which is an approach that allows them to punch above their weight in Europe while also failing to maximise the technical advantages they have over every other Scottish team bar one. It also made them surprisingly competitive in games against Celtic despite finishing 17 points off the pace.
Martin's philosophy is to keep the ball in the attacking third and try to pick the lock, which is often how opponents dictate the game is to be played when facing Rangers. They do need to turn over a fair few members of the squad, as many won't be suitable for various reasons, but while it would be a reach to predict Martin's Rangers overhauling Celtic, this could at least see them returning to a level where the rest of the Scottish Premiership fear them. And that's certainly an improvement on last term.
At Dens Park, Pressley will have a tough job convincing 6,000 people every second week that his hire wasn't a major own goal by the Dundee hierarchy.
His record in management isn't as bad as you may think and he's often been parachuted in at in-opportune times. However, there's a lot to be fearful about this decision.
Firstly, it rarely goes well when an appointment is as vociferously criticised by the fans as this one. Secondly, this is part of a new strategy for Dundee where they're focusing intently on player development. As part of this, David Longwell has been hired as technical manager and will also be part of the coaching staff.
While clubs deserve respect for plotting strategies aimed at giving them an advantage over competitors, it can sometimes feel like they've taken their eyes off the most important thing in running a successful football club – winning games.
The good news is that Pressley can make improvements simply by making Dundee a harder team to score against, which is something which alluded Tony Docherty throughout his tenure. If Simon Murray can continue his talismanic heroics down the other end then there's a clear recipe for moving up a couple of places (though top-six talk seems fanciful at this stage).
Kettlewell at Killie is an archetypal 'safe pair of hands'. The former midfielder has his detractors – and he apparently hears them all too well – but his record in the Scottish Premiership is decent enough. He seems to be good at getting the best out of forward players and the talented midfielders, so expect Bruce Anderson and Matty Kennedy to have impressive seasons as Killie begin the transition away from McInnes' team, which was beginning to get a little old in places.
As for Wilson, he reassuringly admitted to having made mistakes in his past managerial stints and insists he's learned from them – a trait often missing from Scottish football coaches – but the divorce from his coaching partnership with Brian Graham (still a player at Thistle) and the club looking to cut spending doesn't bode well in what's sure to be another highly competitive second-tier season.