There was a time when Steven Pressley was cementing himself as one of the rising stars of new, young Scottish managers on the scene.

And he may, in time, return to that career-path. Meantime, Pressley has just crash-landed having been binned yesterday by Coventry City.

It was only the latest piece of debris to arrive in a time of carnage for Scottish managers in England. From Davie Moyes to Paul Lambert, to Peterborough's Darren Ferguson being sacked at the weekend, there has been a boardroom genocide against figures from north of the border. It hasn't looked pretty.

Just three years ago the English Premier League boasted six managers from Scotland, and never mind that, all born within 20-odd miles of Glasgow. But all of them - Sir Alex Ferguson, Kenny Dalglish, Davie Moyes, Alex McLeish, Owen Coyle and Steve Kean - dispersed amid their varying fates.

Scotland, I don't doubt, will continue to produce managers of substance in football. The game is so authentic and deep-rooted in this country that it is hard to see that conveyor-belt suddenly ceasing. We sometimes measure ourselves by the feats of our players and managers in English football, and long may that continue. But these recent weeks have been grim, no question.

Pressley's two years at a troubled Coventry City have been a peculiar experience. In the main he was admired and lauded by supporters as his Coventry side played some exciting football and, in 2013-14, he effortlessly cast aside the 10-point deduction thrust upon the club by the League for entering administration. Manager-of-the-month awards were forthcoming as Pressley, his demeanour as strong as an anvil, brashly led his team on.

Never mind what he achieved last season in keeping Coventy buoyant, just six months ago things were looking so rosy for Pressley that his club insisted on putting him on a new, four-year contract, due to run until September 2018.

This season, however, Pressley suffered a post-Christmas dip in results, and the Coventry crowd had started to turn on him. Seven games without a win, and a descent right back into the League One relegation zone, has done for him.

This abrupt change in fortune only gives greater depth and foresight to Pressley's words to me when I interviewed him for this newspaper just 17 months ago.

"My goal is to be in England for the long haul," Pressley told me. "I'm really enjoying the challenge and the environment in England. But you never know in football, do you? I'm getting a decent press right now [November 2013] but ask me in two months' time and this conversation might be totally different. You can't look too far ahead."

Pressley's initial success at Coventry back in the autumn of 2013 was only a timely reminder of what Scottish managers in England were all about. Alex McLeish, I think, explained it best of all to me, having endured the throes of Birmingham City.

"There is definitely a 'chip on the shoulder' thing about Scots in general coming down to England to work, and especially for Scottish football managers working in the Premier League," said McLeish. "It's a bit like following Scotland to Wembley in the old days as a fan. You feel defiant, you dare not lose. The attitude you have is, 'I can't be seen to fail here.'

"But I also think there is probably a bit of the old Govan shipyards, the old Ayrshire mines, in all of us. I mean by that, a driven-ness, a hard-work, a respect, and I think some humility."

McLeish told me that, when he was working as a manager in England, it was the memory - and tragedy - of his late father that also spurred him on, just as it had done during his playing career.

"I keep thinking back to my dad," said McLeish. "He was a plater in the Glasgow shipyards, a really hard-working, proud man, who died of a heart-attack at 43 because he was so driven by his work. When he had his first heart-attack I remember him saying to me, 'it was like a herd of elephants tramping across my chest.' Well, he went back to the yard too early after that illness and he just dropped dead, aged 43.

"My dad was prophetic in a way. He would often say, 'young kids today are apathetic - they don't care about their work.' Well, he cared too much, and maybe so do I.

"I'd have sleepless nights if Birmingham lost a game. I'd feel the stress, I'd lie there thinking, 'what should I have done, how could I have changed that?' It's the stress level which comes with really, really caring about your work. I think that is one aspect which probably drives on a lot of Scottish managers who come down to work in England."

McLeish has relocated to Belgium. Moyes has ventured to Spain. Owen Coyle is now in America. It hasn't been so much a fleeing as a diaspora of Scottish talent, resolutely continuing in the game, despite the many pitfalls.

I don't doubt for a moment that Steven Pressley will come good again. Scotland, I still say, produces strong, insightful football managers. Indeed, all the managers I have cited have suffered some form of setback. Football in Scotland appears to have been built on a type of knowledge and a certain strength of character.