csconstantine.com

{ Although he was only officially named manager-in-waiting yesterday, Ally McCoist has perhaps already made one astute decision when, early last year, he helped persuade Walter Smith to stay on at Ibrox for one further season.
A tired, depleted Rangers squad could be relieved of their title in a few months' time by Celtic. That is one transfer of power no new Rangers manager would wish to have to endure on his watch, although the Ibrox hierarchy will hope that yesterday's announcement will lead to a re-strengthening of collective will. Some interpreted the news bulletin as a cynical attempt to rouse the masses.

The timing is, of course, suspect, coming as it does just two days after a one-sided derby defeat to Celtic and fewer than 24 hours before the team left for a decisive clash with Sporting Lisbon. But then it was Rangers' announcement to make. It would be foolish if the club had chosen to deliver the message at a time when it would not be able to have the maximum positive impact. If confirmation of McCoist's promotion re-energises both the players and fans, then so much the better. As McCoist re-emphasised yesterday, the team is still involved in four competitions. Unlikely though it is, he might step into the shoes of a manager who has just completed the quadruple. Then the pressure truly will be on the genial 48-year-old with the winning smile and attractive personality.

McCoist has always enjoyed a reputation for being lucky. He was the original Goldenballs. But he hasn't just walked blithely into this new job. The truth is he has worked just as hard as those managers who are praised for having earned an apprenticeship in the lower leagues. He has been at Smith's side since January 2005, when he was recruited to assist Smith with Scotland. It wasn't a plum job and let's face it, McCoist could have had an easier, probably more lucrative time of it carrying out the many television roles which he had to drop when he moved to become Smith's full-time assistant at Ibrox, four years ago.

He had decided to play a long game, having taken his coaching badges towards the end of his career. He was happy to exist in Smith's shadow, emerging only to front irregular press briefing sessions. These would normally be before and after Scottish Cup matches. The most recent one which he handled before yesterday's announcement, made in the Ibrox Blue Room, was following the 2-2 Scottish Cup draw with Celtic earlier this month. He again impressed with his honest assessment of what had unfolded that afternoon.

To his eyes, he said, it was possible to agree with the referee's assertion that Steven Naismith had dived in the incident which brought about the striker's second booking of the afternoon. Like Smith at Parkhead on Sunday, he could also probably see the worrying signs of a decline and he was again confronted with an uncomfortable truth just a few days ago.

It isn't, then, the inheritance he might have wished for. But who gets to choose when to become manager of a club such as Rangers? McCoist has already known the hard times at Ibrox. He not only survived, but prospered. He was jeered by his own fans during a home Scottish Cup defeat to Dundee in 1985. A glaring miss against Internazionale in San Siro in a Uefa Cup tie also made fans fear that the young striker bought from Sunderland was not going to make the grade, although his goal-scoring form was hard to deny. He was top goalscorer in each season between 1983-84 and 1988-89, but Graeme Souness's appointment as manager led to another spell when someone less hardy than McCoist might easily have fallen prey to self-doubt. Souness often left him on the substitutes' bench and became just the latest manager to despair at his time-keeping. But he truly does define irrepressible, the word so often used to describe McCoist.

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Labels: Blueeyed, McCoist, ready, Scotsman