Change at the top is no certain route off bottom

Football Writer

Saturday 17 March 2012

DUNFERMLINE are not the first club in a desperate position to hope a change of manager can bring about an upturn in fortunes.

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Graeme Macpherson

Nor will they be the last. The problem, of course, is there are no guarantees things will get any better for the East End Park side under new stewardship following the departure of Jim McIntyre last night.

The new manager bounce is a curious phenomenon. A team on a pitiful winless streak, seemingly devoid of all hope, can appoint a new face and suddenly start winning. Morale improves as results do, crowds go up and all is well in the world again. Of course, it is not always that simple. Hibernian failed to register any sort of bounce following Colin Calderwood's after and there has been no dramatic upsurge under Pat Fenlon either. Dunfermline, four points adrift at the bottom of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League with just eight games in which to extricate themselves from the relegation berth, do not have the luxury of allowing any new manager time to settle in. They need improved results right away.In which case, it is a fire-fighter, not a manager, they require. They may turn to Jimmy Calderwood, their former manager, who kept Kilmarnock in the top flight two years ago. Jim Jefferies is another out-of-work manager who could motivate under-performing players to raise their game quickly.They are the types of character likely to drag the best out of players over what remains of the season. Long-term planning can begin again in the summer. The timing of the announcement of McIntyre's exit was curious, coming as it did on a Friday night ahead of a weekend when Dunfermline had no game.With the Rangers takeover saga bubbling on, Celtic and Kilmarnock preparing for a cup final, and an Edinburgh derby looming, it was almost as if someone thought it was a good day to bury bad news. Dunfermline took a chance on McIntyre when they appointed him as a rookie manager in 2007, stuck by him when promotion was not achieved in the first few seasons, then got their reward when he finally took them up last summer. It seemed John Yorkston, the chairman, was determined to back his young, eager manager for the long haul.The team started well on their return to the Premier League and played some nice football along the way, prompting Yorkston to tell this newspaper in September that he almost wouldn't mind relegation back to the first division if McIntyre continued to get his team to play in such a fashion.The bright start was to prove something of a false dawn. Results soon turned and Dunfermline, hampered by a string of serious injuries and without the budget to make the necessary squad improvements, started to slide down the table. They have yet to win at home.A quick straw poll among Dunfermline fans suggested the support were divided over the decision to remove McIntyre. Some believe he will be no loss. They feel the football played in recent months has not been enjoyable to watch, especially the almost haphazard manner in which the team let in goals in every match, most notably from set-pieces.McIntyre may curse his luck that his first-choice goalkeeper succumbed to serious injury and his back-up went on to concede the sort of embarrassingly soft goals normally seen on a public park. It was interesting to note that the first move of the Dunfermline regime sans McIntyre was to send Iain Turner, one of the outgoing manager's January signings, and another injury prone goalkeeper, on his way.Backers of McIntyre regard his sacking as a rash move of little logic. They feel he was not given the necessary funds to improve his squad and, once Hibs finally started to show some semblance of improvement, relegation always looked likely.If Dunfermline go down, they will only be the third side, after St Mirren and troubled Gretna, to survive only one season in the top flight after winning promotion. They still have time to turn around but it may require one almighty bounce to do so.

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Change at the top is no certain route off bottom

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