Change needed at Premiership, Dave at it again

I know people are sensitive about their place in the football food chain, you and I certainly are, but when two clubs are promoted to the Scottish Premiership, only to find their managers leave before May is out, we should contemplate why?

Jack Ross finished top of the pile with St Mirren and left for a dysfunctional, but comparatively wealthy, Sunderland.  We played St Mirren in the Scottish Cup on our way to the Invincibles Treble and Brendan Rodgers suggested they were the best Scottish team we faced that season.  Ross might become a top manager, or he might be a cheap throw of the dice by Shredder Martin Bain the new chief exec, who is now working his magic as Sunderland chief exec.

Livingston lost David Hopkin this morning amid rumours he is set to take over at another English League One team, Shrewsbury Town.  On paper, Hopkin ticks boxes, albeit based on two seasons of successive promotions.

I cannot blame either manager as both will be offered deals that St Mirren and Livingston, but there is disappointment that the Premiership will be left with two significantly weakened promoted clubs.  As well as Hamilton Accies.

I hope St Mirren prosper as they have solid fundamentals and if they punch their weight will comfortably survive, but the league does not benefit from having teams smaller than St Mirren, Kilmarnock and Motherwell.

Two divisions of 10 teams sharing the bulk of SPFL commercial income, while recognising the already-semi-professional rest of the clubs as community enterprises, with play-off-only access to the second tier, would allow clubs like Falkirk and Dunfermline to share a bit more of the cake and take a longer term development view, instead of binning their youth strategies, as Falkirk just have.  Middle order clubs like these two would benefit enormously from budget predictability.  Community enterprises can be a great focus for an area, but not if a director is trying to play Fifa (reference for the youth demographic).

Another day, another Dave King statement.  ‘But, but, but……’, I paraphrase.  How to burn bridges and lose influence in one easy lesson.  He is trying very hard to put pressure on the Scottish football authorities.  It will be interesting to see if they are inhibited when it comes to dealing with Oldco’s 2011 Uefa registration.