Good managers don’t become bad ones overnight — but if you were being cruel, you’d say, statistically at least, Jackie McNamara has come close to achieving it.
For the second time in little over a year, a horrendous run of results sees the former Dundee United boss’s future in the spotlight.
He’s leaving York City following a disastrous 11 months in charge, during which the Minstermen have lost their English league status then fallen to the lower reaches of the Vanarama National League.
The end looked likely to come on Saturday after a draw at Braintree, a game he’d said would be his last if he was unable to get a positive result.
Having just lost 6-1 at bottom club Guiseley, it seemed clear that wouldn’t be enough to save him. Still, talks over his position have dragged on until yesterday.
Even so, it was hard to see him having a long-term future in Yorkshire and his position was not unlike when he took a struggling United to St Johnstone at the end of September last year.
At McDiarmid Park, he went in with just one league win from the opening eight fixtures and, coupled with a poor end to the previous campaign, it meant defeat would make a parting of the ways a certainty.
Despite a League Cup Final appearance the previous March, his Tangerines had effectively been in a slump since the end of the previous January, so no one could claim to have been surprised by his sacking.
Likewise, at York he’s been able to muster just eight wins in 48 games, meaning there were raised eyebrows over why the axe hadn’t already fallen.
What’s most shocking is how the managerial career of a man, who less than two years ago was one of the brightest young talents in the Scottish game, appears to have disintegrated.
When United prised him away from Partick Thistle at the end of January 2013, they’d also been considering Steven Pressley as a replacement for Peter Houston. For most, however, McNamara was the obvious choice.
At Firhill, in his first managerial role, he’d rejuvenated a club that had looked in serious danger of slipping out of the Championship and possibly going part-time.
The way he started at United meant almost immediately the decision to opt for him seemed vindicated.
His first game saw Rangers swept aside in the Scottish Cup and, through giving youth its chance, within a couple of months he was desperately unlucky to see his side edged out by Celtic in a seven-goal thriller of a Hampden semi-final.
He also lifted United in the league, securing a top-six finish that had looked in doubt when he took over.
The good times continued in his first full season and for a time in the run up to Christmas it seemed no team could live with the brand of passing football he had his Tangerines playing.
Even though results dropped off in the second half of that season, United still reached the 2014 Scottish Cup Final.
A disappointing performance at Parkhead saw the hot favourites comfortably beaten by St Johnstone in what was the first real setback of his time in charge.
Few would argue, though, that the beginning of the end came with the departure of Stuart Armstrong and Gary Mackay-Steven just after United reached the League Cup Final via victory over Aberdeen at the end of January last year.
In his final 29 games after that success, McNamara could claim just six competitive victories.
Eight from 48 down at York hardly counted as an improvement and the big question now is: what’s next for a man who has become one of the big managerial enigmas of recent times?
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