Football loves a shiny new idea, but it also loves rewriting its own history when it suits. The latest fixation is age, as if a manager suddenly forgets how to set up a team the minute they hit a certain birthday. For me, that’s always been a strange hill to die on.
The point isn’t whether a boss looks modern on a touchline. It’s whether he can organise, motivate, manage big moments, and keep a club steady when the pressure ramps up. That’s where experience can be worth its weight in gold, especially in Scotland where every away ground is a different problem and every bad half-hour becomes a week-long headline.
Experience isn’t a flaw
We’ve all seen top-level managers go deep into their careers and still win major honours. Sir Alex Ferguson is the obvious example people lean on, but the principle is wider than that. The best operators don’t just rely on tactics, they rely on judgement. When to change shape, when to leave it alone. When to protect a lead, and when to go for the throat.
That’s the bit age can actually help with. You’ve lived through enough fixtures, enough bad spells, enough dressing rooms, that you stop panicking at every wobble. You can see why some supporters prefer that sort of calm, particularly if they feel the club has been too easily swayed by short-term thinking.
The “elite” label is easy to throw around
Fans love the word “elite” until results make it uncomfortable. Then it becomes about budgets, backing, timing, anything but the job being done well enough. The argument here is that a proven manager, within realistic constraints, might be the closest thing to a safe pair of hands you can actually get.
And truth is, Scottish football isn’t just about elaborate patterns of play. It’s about consistency, standards, and handling the relentless nature of domestic games. If you’re strong on those basics, you give yourself a chance of grinding through the tough weeks when performances aren’t pretty.
Regret is part of the supporter's life
The other theme in this view is the “what if?” factor. What if the change in the dugout hadn’t happened? What if the club had stuck rather than twisted? Supporters always do this because we’re wired to look for the moment things turned.
Whether you agree or not, the underlying point lands: judging a manager by their age is lazy. Judge them on competence, on leadership, on whether they can improve the group and manage the pressure that comes with our game. Anything else is just noise.
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