ST MIRREN will step up the search for their new manager today, with Billy Davies among a number of candidates expected to be interviewed by the club.
The former Nottingham Forest boss remains in the running to succeed Alex Rae who was sacked nine days ago.
Allan McManus, St Mirren’s head of youth development, took the team for Saturday’s 4-3 defeat to Dunfermline Athletic – a result that leaves St Mirren bottom of the Ladbrokes Championship – but is not thought to be in contention to assume the role on a permanent basis.
Davies, though, is being viewed as a serious candidate as St Mirren look to appoint their fifth manager since May 2014. Out of work since leaving Forest two years ago, the 52 year-old ticks several boxes.
He lives locally and is thought to prefer another job in Scotland rather than returning back down south where he previously also managed Derby County and Preston North End.
Tony Fitzpatrick, now chief executive at the Paisley 2021 Stadium, is a former team-mate and latterly managed Davies during his three years as a St Mirren player in the late 1980s. Davies also knows the structure of the club well having being involved with a consortium that launched an unsuccessful attempt to take over St Mirren several years ago.
It is understood Gordon Scott, the St Mirren chairman, and the rest of the board – formed in the summer following a successful fans-led buy-out – also hope to interview Jamie Fullarton, another former St Mirren midfielder who had a brief and unsuccessful stint in charge of Notts County earlier this year.
Previously Fullarton had run a football academy in Spain, and worked as a youth coach with both Bristol Rovers and Bolton Wanderers. Others thought to be in the running include John Hughes, the former Falkirk, Hibernian and Inverness Caledonian Thistle manager, as well as another high-calibre, vastly-experienced candidate yet to have been quoted for the post.
Scott revealed that whoever ends up getting the job would have to agree to show an interest in all aspects of the club. “I don't think it is any coincidence that the most successful managers are given time to get things right,” he wrote in a column on the St Mirren website.
“Our long-term goal is to have a man at the helm who will have an input into all playing aspects of the club with the aim of producing a successful supply chain from the youth system to the first team. It is vital that our new manager buys into that philosophy as well as producing a product on the pitch that we can all enjoy watching.”
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