In recent seasons, it is undeniable that an air of doom and gloom has cast a long shadow across Scottish football, with many suggesting that the current malaise, if not exactly incurable, will require lengthy treatment before a full and lasting recovery can be made.
The national side hasn’t qualified for a major championship for 14 years – even the most optimistic of Tartan Army supporters surely won’t be booking their flights to Brazil just yet - and Scottish clubs are no longer regarded with any degree of apprehension by even mediocre opponents on the European stage.
The current transfer window has done little thus far to enhance the mood, with cut-price loan deals from the lower reaches of the beautiful game being tentatively mooted to little fanfare.
Against that backdrop, it’s perhaps surprising that we turn to the English Premiership for a degree of reassurance, even if very few of the protagonists on the field of play in the self-styled best league in the world are the catalyst for this smidgen of self-congratulation.
I refer, of course, to the current number of managers plying their trade there whose birthplace rests north of the border. Astonishingly, of the twenty clubs currently operating in the Premiership, seven are managed by Scots. To put this into perspective, England can boast only three. (An interesting paradox, however, can be found in the fact that fewer than half of the managers currently plying their trade in the SPL are Scottish!).
In recognising this apparently disproportionate number of Scottish managers operating at the highest echelons of the game in England, it should of course be noted that Scots feature prominently in any list of greatest managers ever produced within the British Isles. Luminaries such as Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Jock Stein are up there with the best of them, and Sir Alex Ferguson, of course, continues to plough the furrow with Manchester United after quarter of a century at Old Trafford, and with his 70th birthday behind him.
Of the seven Scottish managers in the Premiership, Ferguson has probably set the bar higher than any other will ever be able to reach, but the other six are doing their level best to add a touch of tartan to the proceedings.
Kenny Dalglish, in his second spell at Anfield, is enjoying the unbridled adulation of the fans as he bids to restore Liverpool to their former greatness. Although the suspicion remains that they won’t be troubling the Premiership trophy engraver any time soon.
When PG Wodehouse uttered his infamous narrative about it not being difficult to distinguish between a Scot with a grievance and a ray of sunshine, he may have had Dalglish in mind. The beaming smile which welcomes every Liverpool goal quickly evaporates at the merest whiff of criticism during post-match deliberations from this irascible interviewee extraordinaire.
Elsewhere, Alex McLeish and David Moyes have quietly manoeuvred Aston Villa and Everton respectively into relative safety in the middle of the table. Meaning each are as seemingly unlikely to challenge for the European places as they are to be sucked into the relegation dogfight. Given the cut-throat nature of football management, each may well be privately content with that state of affairs for now.
However, two other Scots will be resting less easily in their beds, given that their sides are flirting dangerously around the sweaty confines of the bottom three places.
It wasn’t so long ago that Owen Coyle was being lauded as one of the brightest young managers in the game – he turned his nose up at the very notion of the Celtic job when Tony Mowbray left Parkhead almost two years ago – but Bolton’s current woes mean he runs the risk of tarnishing a CV that had hitherto suggested a promising future lay ahead. The transfer of Gary Cahill to Chelsea can hardly have enhanced Coyle’s prospects for the remainder of the season.
Across at fellow strugglers Blackburn Rovers, Steve Kean continues to cling on to his job by his fingertips, despite a barrage of criticism which would surely have done for many other managers. However, it seems that, as the level of abuse becomes ever more vociferous, so too does the apparent determination of Kean to defiantly remain as manager.
The Glaswegian grit – itself no stranger to the aforementioned Sir Alex, of course -increasingly manifests itself in his demeanour, although you have to wonder just how long this can sustain him.
Talking of Glaswegians, the success of Paul Lambert at Norwich City so far this season has delighted and surprised many north of the border in equal measure. Whilst undeniably a wonderful player in his pomp, the consensus of opinion in Scotland seemed to be that Lambert, a modest and unassuming man, lacked the credentials to carve out a successful career in management.
However, now that the Canaries currently occupy ninth place in the Premiership this would tend to suggest the doubters were somewhat premature in their haste to cast doubt over Lambert. Although whether he can maintain that momentum remains to be seen.
As John Hartson quipped recently when talking about his former Celtic team-mate, Lambert’s Martin O’Neill-style glasses appear to be working a treat!