Boyd: Gers & Scotland should both be tracking boss for future jobs already

STEVE CLARKE was appointed Scotland boss in 2019 after transforming Kilmarnock.

Don’t be surprised if Derek McInnes follows him into the Hampden hotseat after his own Rugby Park revolution.

The Killie boss takes his team to Ibrox tomorrow, and could be crowned PFA Scotland’s Manager of the Year hours later.

McInnes would be a deserved winner after again showing he’s one of the country’s top gaffers.

Now 52, he has made no secret of his ambition to one day manage his country.

Clarke has done an unbelievable job, giving the national team its pride back, and guiding us to successive Euros finals.

Under contract until 2026, my old Killie gaffer has plenty still to achieve in that role and if it was up to me, I’d tie him down for even longer.

But the SFA wouldn’t be doing their job properly if they weren’t keeping a careful eye on possible successors.

McInnes is surely top of that list after guiding Killie to the brink of European football.

The worry for the Rugby Park board is that other offers come in for their manager before then.

Listening to McInnes’ interviews and looking at his plans, he doesn’t strike me as someone who is in a rush to leave.

It would have to be a really attractive opportunity for him to jump  at the first offer from a bigger Scottish club or the English Championship.

When Aberdeen were recently conducting their shambolic managerial search, I am sure there were influential people at Pittodrie keen on him coming back. But that wasn’t something McInnes was likely to entertain. He’s been there and done it.

After everything he has achieved in his career, he is in control of his own destiny now.

McInnes is in a terrific position and trust me, he will be on the shortlists of clubs across Britain.

And I’ll throw this out there, could Rangers have another look at McInnes should Philippe Clement move on for any reason in the coming year or so?

A former Gers star, he knocked the job back in 2017 when the club didn’t have the stability it does now.

His stance on an offer will probably have changed, and the Ibrox board will surely have been impressed by his work down at Rugby Park.

Killie showed ambition in bringing McInnes to the club in early 2022, and he has shown why they were so right to pursue him.

But I don’t buy into this view that he has now rebuilt his managerial reputation in Ayrshire.

How can a guy with his CV and experience as a coach have had anything to prove?

All he has done is enhance his reputation — but his success is no surprise to me. When he was appointed, I knew it would work.

Along the way, and especially last season,  some of my mates who are Killie supporters weren’t at all happy.

But I told them to come back to me once he had assembled his own squad.

Now, they have admitted they called it wrong.

Who would have thought I would be proved right — again!

I was part of Clarke’s Rugby Park squad, and it was a pleasure to work with him.

During my career, I rated Walter Smith as the best manager, but Clarke was the best out on the grass.

In McInnes, I see a boss with similar values and traits as both of them.

Old-school principles, but still more than able to cope with the modern-day game.

You could argue his work at Killie is even more impressive than the job Clarke carried out.

We were a top-flight team with a lot of  experience in the squad when he took over in 2017.

With brilliant coaching, some tactical tweaks and then good signings, he made Killie one of the best teams in Scotland.

McInnes inherited a squad that at the time wasn’t exactly cruising to the Championship title when he walked in the door.

The Kilmarnock board will always back their managers.

Not only have they allowed McInnes to bring in players, they have enabled him to assemble a strucure with coaches and a scouting team — similar to Clarke.

He had to get Killie back to the Premiership and then transform the club.

Now, 26 months later, the squad is unrecognisable as they fly high.

McInnes has done an incredible job, he has recruited well and also blooded youngsters again, like the talented David Watson.

They have beaten the Old Firm this season, and have gone out to play with attacking intent.

Which brings me to this theory that McInnes’ style of play isn’t always easy on the eye.

What a load of nonsense!

How many other teams out there play with two wingers and two strikers?

Yes, McInnes normally starts with four bigger defenders across his backline.

But that is a tactic often deployed by Manchester City and Arsenal, too. And would anyone ever claim they are negative?

McInnes has a solid defence, but that allows him to get his four attacking players on the pitch.

He has found the perfect balance — the same as Clarke did at Killie all those years ago.

Like the current Scotland boss, there’s no doubt in my mind that McInnes will leave the club in a better place and he will move on to bigger things.

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