BILLY REID would have "no worries" about Alex Neil being a success in England should his former protégé be confirmed as Norwich City's new manager in the coming days.
The Hamilton Academical manager travelled south yesterday to meet with the Carrow Road board and has been installed as the bookmakers' favourite to succeed Neil Adams at the Championship club who sit just three points outside of the promotion play-offs. Neil is expected to meet with the Hamilton board later today, paving the way for his move down south.
The 33 year-old succeeded Reid as manager in April 2013 and has enjoyed two fruitful years at New Douglas Park. In his first season in charge he helped guide Hamilton into the SPFL Premiership, memorably defeating Hibernian over a two-legged play-off, and has gone on to exceed expectations this term. On his watch, Hamilton have topped the division at points, beaten Celtic at Parkhead for the first time for almost 80 years, and remain in contention for a European football place next season.
The lure of managing in English football - where Neil played for five years with Barnsley and Mansfield Town before joining Hamilton- may prove too strong, however. Should he choose to move on after almost a decade at New Douglas Park, Reid believes his former captain will make a success of the challenge.
"He was my captain for eight years and I can't speak highly enough of Alex," Reid told Herald Sport. "He was a fantastic player when he worked under me and then we started him on the coaching side of things as well. I knew when I left Hamilton that the club was in good hands with Alex. He's made his mark really well and I'm sure players who have been playing under him will respect him. It will be a great opportunity for him if he decides to go for it and it's pleasing to see someone who has worked under you getting that chance. "
Ronnie MacDonald, the Hamilton vice-chairman, had confirmed Norwich's interest in their manager in a statement. "Further to an official approach by Norwich City, permission was granted for our Manager Alex Neil to meet the Norwich Board," it read.
"Alex travelled to Norwich [yesterday] to view the Stadium and Training ground. Alex will return [today] for a meeting with myself after which a further statement will be made. We are delighted that Alex's achievements have been recognised by this approach and that our policy of progressing players, staff and managers continues."
If he takes the job, Neil would be the second-youngest manager in the English Football League behind Adam Murray at Mansfield Town who, while also 33 years old, is three months younger.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article