WOULD you become poorer at your work if the boss said he or she was leaving in a few months?

 

Would your performance levels drift and drop if the line manager said they were off in the summer? No, thought not.

Plenty would love the chance to find out. But footballers? Well, they are a different breed. Generally they seem incapable of properly coping when their manager announces during a season that he will be leaving at the end of it.

Walter Smith was an unstoppable force first time around at Rangers but when he said he would step down at the end of the 1997-98 season - a decision he revealed in October - the wheels came off and they won nothing for the first time in a decade. Alex McLeish said in February, 2006, that he would leave Rangers at the end of that campaign: they didn't win anything that season either. Even the Manchester United machine choked and stalled when Alex Ferguson said he was leaving at the end of the 2001-02 campaign. He changed his mind in the February but the damage had been done. United had been rattled by the thought of his departure and they finished third.

A manager hanging on, after saying he is leaving, is a dynamic which doesn't work in football. Ferguson spoke of how his players had been adversely affected by knowing he was on the way out. He said he had found it harder to impose discipline on them once that mutual commitment had been broken. What all of this means that is if Rangers was a normal functioning football club the meeting between Ally McCoist and directors on Wednesday would result in his certain, immediate departure. It still might, but no-one is sure how the pieces are moving on this chess board because Rangers do not think or act like a club with football as its priority.

The Gordian Knot of Rangers' internal workings was tightened by McCoist tendering his resignation. Most of the analysis since then has centred on the politics of it and the financial implications, but what about the football consequences? If successful teams can go into tailspins when the manager says he's leaving in a few months, just how bad could it get for the current second-raters in light blue? Within hours on Friday they had delivered yet another dreadful display, ridiculing the notion that they would "do it for Ally" or give everything to ensure that if he is to see out the season he will end it by winning the league.

If Rangers was a normal, functioning club McCoist's phased resignation would allow them some leeway to do some succession planning. Rangers aren't right off the pitch or on it, though, and the prospect of a lingering McCoist having a detrimental effect on an already unimpressive team has real implications for Rangers getting out of the Championship. Until now it has always seemed likely that even after a few wobbles Rangers would go up, if not as champions then via a play-off against Ross County, St Mirren or whoever else finishes 11th in the Premiership.

That cannot be said with any certainly now. In purely football terms the exchange between McCoist and his employers on Friday was bad for Rangers and bad for their prospects of applying pressure on Hearts. For himself, and for his team, McCoist now needs to get out as soon as he can.

And Another Thing...

Ian Baraclough has had his introduction to the peculiarities of Scottish football. Motherwell finished second in the league last season and for saying they could win the league in the future he made back page headlines and got some condescending mockery on social media. Motherwell's public relations are normally far more sure-footed than most other clubs and a quiet word in Baraclough's ear about the realities of the SPFL environment would have helped him.

Motherwell - like everyone else - have no prospect of overcoming Celtic's enormous advantages any time soon. That is a fantasy which could be realised only by uncovering a philanthropic multi-millionaire prepared to transform their resources. They have, to an extent, but Les Hutchison made it clear in deeply impressive interviews over the weekend that his involvement will extend to providing financial stability and allowing the Well Society to become owners within five years. Motherwell won't have the league title by then and the longevity of most managerial reigns suggests they probably won't still have Baraclough either, but in Hutchison they seem to have a man who knows the score.

And Finally...

In a four-week spell from February 19 the Europa League will separate the wheat from the chaff and reduce in size from 32 clubs to the last eight. Going on all the evidence available so far, most notably the inability of their defenders to cope with the stronger sides they have faced in the Champions League and Europa League, Celtic will be among those who are eliminated. Today's draw for the last 32 and the last 16 will be enjoyable, all the same. The competition is beginning to get serious. Legia Warsaw, Everton, Napoli or Athletic Bilbao would all create excitement for one reason or another. And if it's Inter Milan the auld Lisbon Lions can expect a couple of months in which won't get a minute's peace.