They are not nicknamed the Blades for nothing.
In this cut-throat business, David Weir felt the sharp end of life at Sheffield United. Just 13 games into his first managerial role, the former Scotland captain was given the chop. It would be fair to say that the first cut is the deepest. "If I'm being honest I'm still a bit raw," admitted the softly spoken Weir. "I'm disappointed with the way it worked out. In any club now, if you're not immediately successful then you're under pressure and that was the case there.
"The goalposts moved: the owners changed and it became a different job. You were asked to do things and I did them but it was irrelevant really when it came to the crunch. It is frustrating but it's happened and you move on. I learned a lot and I'll be better for it."
A highly-respected coach, Weir left Everton and made the plunge into the treacherous waters of management, signing a three-year deal at the Yorkshire club and becoming the Sky Bet League 1 side's eighth manager in a fairly tumultuous seven-and-a-half year spell. Within four months, the hot seat had been vacated before it was even lukewarm. A 2-1 victory over Notts County on the opening day of the season got Weir's way off to a good start but it was all downhill after that. The only other victory in his brief reign was a penalty shoot-out triumph over Scunthorpe in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.
With United languishing near the foot of English football's third-tier, and Weir's head on the block, the blade came crashing down at the start of last month. Since then, the 43-year-old has had time to mull over his turbulent, bitter experience. After all, there's not been much else to do apart from "taking the kids to school". Weir is a football man and, since joining hometown club Falkirk 20 years ago, he has not had many prolonged periods away from the game. Given how things panned out in Sheffield, you could forgive Weir if he did not fancy jumping back on to the managerial merry go round.
"Initially, you're hurt and it did [put me off] a bit," said the former Hearts, Rangers and Everton centre-half. "It was the right time to leave Everton. I don't have any regrets, you can't afford to have regrets. You can't change the past you can only affect the future. It's a hard job and any manager will tell you that. It's time consuming, it's difficult and a lot of the time things are out with your control but it's not put me off now. Once you get time to reflect you come back and think 'I'll go again'.
"I think it's more important that it's the right opportunity. I'm not in a rush to jump into something that's not right and have a similar sort of experience. I'd rather get the right thing and something where I've got a chance of making a success of it; a coaching role or whatever. I've not got any set path. I want to be a coach and manager but I'm open to anything."
There could be an opening coming up in the Highlands. How about a hike up the A9 to Inverness? "I'd travel; I'd do anything," added Weir, who was speaking at the Toryglen Regional Football Centre yesterday where organisers of the Tesco Bank Football Challenge revealed that they had reached their four-year target of getting 72,000 children into the game some six months ahead of schedule. "I've been travelling since I was 17, I was in America when I was 17. It's a big world out there and if you limit yourself to 10 minutes from your door then you're going to be very limited in what you can do."
Weir spent his formative years on a scholarship at the University of Evansville in Indiana and the Scot has certainly not ruled out going full circle and heading back across the Atlantic. Weir is a lover of all things American and, with Scotland facing the USA in a friendly this week, he believes the nation's emerging youngsters could do a lot worse than chase the American dream.
"I'd definitely go back to America," he declared. "If the right opportunity came up, I'd go tomorrow. I'd recommend it to any young player. Scottish people can sometimes be reticent to go away too far from home. But there are opportunities out there and it was the best thing I ever did."
After being cut by the Blades, Weir's wounds are slowly healing. Now he is ready for a fresh start.
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