A managerial shortlist offers no guarantee of finding a diamond in the rough. There might be no standout, nailed-on candidate supporters can buy into. For some, a year in Israel might be as damaging to their CV as a reference from former West Ham chairman David Sullivan.
From time to time, the man who should be the No.1 pick is a no-brainer.
That is the case with Hearts manager Derek McInnes and Rangers now. Timing and circumstance have converged to make him the right candidate at just the right time. A choice so clear and obvious even VAR couldn’t make a mess of the decision.
Mike Tyson said that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And in the last four weeks, Hearts have been walloped so often they should be comatose on the canvas, seeing stars in their eyes.
It’s barely any time at all since the Tynecastle side stood on the cusp of immortality. Hearts investor Tony Bloom’s data revolution was working like a dream. Rangers languished in third place. A single precious point against Celtic at Parkhead would have harnessed their first league title since 1960.
Suddenly the league title has gone. The captain and top scorer Lawrence Shankland has upped sticks and joined Rangers on a free transfer. The Ibrox side look set to nip in to pinch their manager for a knockdown fee of £500,000. It’s surely only a matter of time before they offer a three-year deal to pre-match Hearts chanter Colin Chisholm.
Red Bull gives you wings. And Rangers boss Danny Rohl’s flight to Salzburg is a timely, face-saving blessing for all sides.
When an Ibrox manager blows the league to a Celtic team winning a double in spite of itself, he usually walks out of the door clutching a P45 with a black bin bag under his arm.
Decent and likeable, the German was always a head coach rather than a manager. While Celtic boss Martin O’Neill had been there, done it and stitched the t-shirt, Rohl lacked the gravitas or the experience for a club the size of Rangers. He never had the personality or temperament for the suffocating goldfish bowl of Glasgow.
His team selections, like his in-game management, consistently let him down. When his side were shipping goals to the likes of Motherwell or Hibs in those final weeks of the season, he never looked like a man with the answers. His handling of captain James Tavernier’s big farewell was unseemly.
Sacking him would have cost Andrew Cavenagh a pile of money and the way things are panning out now, the Rangers owner will pocket a wad of cash for a coach fans would happily have driven to the airport.
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Supporters don’t always get to see the human aspect at play. Speaking to journalists in the final weeks of the season, Rohl relayed the difficulties he had seeing his young family as often as he would like. Austria is closer and more convenient for his wife and children than Glasgow will ever be. It’s closer to the German Bundesliga as well and if he really wants to manage there one day then this move is a win-win for both sides.
Strip it down and McInnes is a streetwise manager better suited to the needs of Rangers than Rohl.
Aberdeen fired him in a fit of boredom and they have never come close to sustaining the same level since.
Four years into his Pittodrie reign, he was given the chance to move to Ibrox and he had already picked the team for his first game when he flipped and performed a late u-turn.
Sitting down to interview him in Kilmarnock two years ago, he owned up to having “a story to tell about that whole episode”.
At Aberdeen and Kilmarnock – everywhere he had been – he always leaned heavily on the advice of two of his former managers. Morton legend Allan McGraw was “the boss”, while Rangers icon Walter Smith was “the gaffer”.
“I felt that Walter wanted me to be the Rangers manager,” he said back then, “but he also had his concerns for me with it. It was his advice and, while he left me in no doubt that it was my decision, he was involved in every step of the way there. The gaffer had an influence on most of my big decisions.”
If Smith was still alive now, you would pay good money to garner his thoughts on the current situation.
Leaving Hearts is a bold step in the current climate. The club are on an upward trajectory and one year in to Bloom’s data revolution, the loss of Shankland offers a fresh chance to put their stamp on the team.
They have already snapped up Amadou Ba-Sy, Calvin Miller, MJ Kamson-Kamara and Josh McPake at a time when Dermot Desmond’s dysfunctional Celtic have yet to appoint a new head of recruitment, let alone spend some money on players.
There was always the concern that the Jamestown model might start to grate with a manager who likes to surround himself with a solid spine of Stuart Findlay and Craig Halkett types. Rangers are targeting Scottish players this summer and, for that reason alone, it makes perfect sense to lure a manager from another Scottish club for the first time since Alex McLeish left Hibernian in 2001.
Autumn in Scotland is now synonymous with the leaves falling from the trees and Rangers sacking another boss. McInnes will be the sixth permanent manager since Steven Gerrard left for Aston Villa in November 2021 and the reigns of Michael Beale, Philippe Clement, Russell Martin and Rohl were so truncated they should have stuck a revolving door at the top of the marble staircase.
McInnes offers no guarantees of winning a league monopolised by Celtic for 14 of the last 15 seasons. Short of bringing in Pep Guardiola, no one can.
With Aberdeen and Hearts, there were opportunities to win it and he was unable to take them. At Rangers, greater resources and backing will enhance his chances of going the distance.
He knows the league, he knows the market, he knows the club and, most important of all, he knows how to handle the expectations and the demands which come with managing Rangers. On and off the field.
Most managers are never given one chance to take charge of their boyhood team, let alone two. Turn it down this time and he could have kissed goodbye to a third.
