STUART McCall, the Scotland coach who has been out of management since leaving Rangers last summer, has revealed he is looking to return to full-time football at a well-supported club which is capable of winning silverware.

McCall, who was this week linked with the vacant Hibs job after Alan Stubbs moved on to English Championship club Rotherham, admitted he grew frustrated at losing his best players during his four year spell in charge of Motherwell.

Despite having to rebuild his entire squad twice, the Fir Park club finished second in the Ladbrokes Premiership on two occasions and third once and secured a place in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League for the first time in their history.

The former Premiership Manager of the Season, though, has no desire to join an outfit where his outstanding performers will be lured away by rivals offering "a few hundred quid" more at the end of every season despite his eagerness to return to the dugout.

“I’m looking to get back into club management at some stage,” said McCall as the national squad prepared for last night’s friendly international with France in Metz in Malta last week. “I’ve missed it and that is the case even more when you come away with Scotland.

“When you’re doing a bit of coaching you think ‘I want to get hold of a team’. If you wait for the perfect job nowadays then you’ll be waiting forever. But if you look down south at how certain clubs are run or the chairman - some teams having three or four managers a season - you get warned off certain jobs.

“I missed out on one not so long ago that I thought would have been a good one for me. But I don’t want to take a job just for the sake of it. I want to go to a club that has the same ambitions as myself.

“As time goes on then you start to think you just need to get back in. But if I had the choice, it would be to a club with a fan base. If you go to a club with a fan base then you can build. Look at Hearts and Aberdeen recently. Inverness, St Johnstone and Motherwell to an extent have had a little bit of success, but they’re only ever going to go so far.

“If it was going to be back into Scotland then it would be at a club where your best players aren’t getting nicked. I lost players to Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen, Rangers and Dundee United when I was at Motherwell for the sake of a few hundred quid.

“When you’ve been fighting at the top end of the table - which we were lucky to do at Motherwell for three seasons - then just to go in and take a job for the sake of it and earn a wage doesn’t attract me.

“The longer you’re out you miss the day-to-day football and it becomes more powerful than trying to look for the perfect job. But you always look at the structure of the club and hope you can go in, improve it and by improving it there is a fan base that will help you with your budget.

“As well as we did at Motherwell, and as loyal as the hardcore were, we were only ever going to get 5,000. Inverness and St Johnstone are the same to an extent.”

McCall was offered the manager’s position at English League One club Sheffield United, where he had brought an end to his distinguished 22 year playing career, back in 2013 only to turn it down.

“Everyone thought I was away then, but there was a bit of loyalty there,” he said. “I could have gone for a lot more money. We lost our seven best players, people said I was mad to stay, but we ended up with 70 points in second place again.

“But we couldn’t take it any further with the emergence of Hearts and Aberdeen. And now Rangers are back in. I’m ambitious and hungry for a job where staying up isn’t success.”

McCall had hoped to be appointed Rangers manager after taking over on a temporary basis last year, but was unable to lead them into the Premiership via the end-of-season play-offs. A heavy 6-1 aggregate defeat to his former club Motherwell in the two-legged final brought an end to his chances.

However, he inherited an ageing, demoralised and overplayed squad at Ibrox and didn’t have the luxury of bringing in any of his own players. He changed the team, improved performances and actually did well to beat Queen of the South and Hibs and get to the final. He was, to an extent, a victim of his own success.

The 51-year-old is keen to get back into a game he has been involved with in some capacity since he was 16, but, possibly as a result of his experiences at the club he helped to win Nine-In-A-Row in the 1990s, will be selective about where.

“If you look at John Sheridan in England he left Oldham and dropped a division,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what level you go to - just as long as there’s a good structure and fan base.

“Derek Adams is at Plymouth, where there is a huge fan base, and if you get that club going you can go up two levels. I’ve had enough time out now. I’m not desperate yet but I want to get back into coaching players.

“There’s a stage where you can be forgotten. Even when I was at Motherwell I wasn’t getting linked with jobs. But I didn’t need my agent to be putting my name here, there and everywhere if you’re happy and content.

“I’ve had opportunities to get back into the game under the radar without anyone shouting and bawling he’s in line for this job or that job. I was close to two jobs I would have liked in England.

“You can be forgotten so it then gets to the stage where you maybe try to go in somewhere and try to do well for a year and move on, but that’s not really my sort of thing. I’d rather be somewhere for three and a four years and really be a success.”