Jackie McNamara has insisted that the English Premier League is over-hyped and that little will change the perception of Scottish football as a backwater.

The former Scotland internationalist and Celtic versatility player is currently the chief executive at York City and he has experienced the ignorance in which the Scottish game is held, something he believes has not changed since his own playing days.

“I remember when I left Celtic and went to Wolves,” said McNamara. “That was the Championship and they treat Scottish football as if it doesn’t exist. People with intelligence and people who know football understand it. There were an awful lot of boys at the PFA Awards last weekend that could go down and play in the Premier League no problem.

“It’s very overrated. Has been at times for a number of years, but it’s just perception down there, the infrastructure and the money from television. It’s very difficult for teams to compete financially.

“Brendan Rodgers has been quoted a number of times about the standard of player because he’s been on both sides. He nearly won a Premier League at Liverpool and he’s not just saying it because he is here. It’s because he knows it’s hyped and overrated.

“It goes back to when I played. No change. We went down with Celtic and beat Blackburn and Liverpool and it was exactly the same. They were going to wipe the floor with us, apparently. They were spending three or four times more than us, but it didn’t matter.

“Same this season when Celtic played Manchester City in the Champions League. Celtic were the first team to stop them winning in the season and they went on a downward spiral from there.

“Celtic attacked City, played on the front foot. Brendan showed folk how to do it, but media and hype builds it up. Because players go there from all over the world, they don’t see Scotland as a top-place to get talent, despite the fact guys have gone down there and excelled. Andy Robertson went down there and never looked back.”

Not that it will cause McNamara too many sleepless nights. York’s relegation from the National League this season has put them in English football’s sixth tier, a dire state of affairs that McNamara needs to arrest. However, while his headaches at the minute are in the boardroom, he has not given up on getting his boots on and getting back into the dug-out.

“I’m not done with management. I’m taking time out,” he said.

“I’d been out for a month after Dundee United and I went into a difficult situation at York where you are trying to coach and teach. I felt I did it, but you have to want to be coached and taught.

“It’s like when someone else goes in and has an impact, like when Brendan replaced Ronny Deila. But every player he’s worked with has developed and I still see myself as a coach.

“Just now I’ll be there to help the York owner, although whether that’ll change when we get to a new stadium, I don’t know. He’s my boss, but he’s my friend. I’ll see what happens from there.”

And the former Dundee United and Partick Thistle manager has maintained that his time in management was all about trying to better players and get the best out of them. York were relegated under McNamara before he moved into an executive role but much, he believes, lies in the attitudes of players and what they want for themselves.

“I looked at Partick Thistle last weekend against Rangers and saw players I brought in from nowhere on a small budget,” he said. “The same at Dundee United with the problems they had, yet that is all forgotten.

“All they debt, they could have been another Hearts, or a Dundee, or a Rangers. But we did it the right way.

“I have no problems with the fact I paid for it, but it’s about people understanding the game and understanding there were certain things there outwith my control. I’ve not lost any faith in my ability as a coach or as a manager, or in my staff. I’ve just been very frustrated with the whole set-up.

“I always felt the ones who wanted to work were the ones who improved.

“Robertson, Blair Spittal, Stuart Armstrong, Gary Mackay-Steven. Then you had experienced ones like John Rankin and Paul Paton who did the same because they wanted to maximise their careers.

“Good attitudes and good professionals. It was a good formula. We had top-six finishes, we had Cup Finals. We weren’t relegation when I left. Players were sold, but if you are going into a place which you know has problems when you go there, I understood that.”

Robertson and Armstrong will be expected to line up at Hampden against England next month, with McNamara drawing some satisfaction from the role he played in their development.

“I’ll feel a great sense of pride when Scotland play England,” he said. “Andy Robertson’s mum and dad were at the PFA Awards. Same with Blair Spittal’s mum and dad. I always remember when I signed Andy from Queen’s Park for a nominal fee, e-mails came into the club from United fans asking why we’re signing players from Queen’s Park. A few months later, there were e-mails asking why we were selling him. You can never win.”