This article was first published yesterday in our bespoke Sports newsletter The Fixture. You can sign up in seconds to receive it straight to your inbox every weekday here.

It's December 2019. Deep in the bowels of the St Regis Hotel in Abu Dhabi, Andy Robertson, is being pushed by the Scottish journalists assembled to name the player who had had the biggest influence on him during his time playing in Scotland.

The Liverpool defender, who would lift the Club World Cup later that week, smiled and thought for a minute and – because he knew that the Scottish press like nothing better than a local name to shape a line around – plucked an unheralded one from his past.

“At Dundee United the likes of John Rankin were massive for me because he effectively talked me through games in my first three months,” he said to silent cheers and imaginary fist pumps from those gathered around the coffee table that morning. “Maybe he didn’t get the credit he deserved but I certainly appreciated his advice when I was young and I am the player I am now because of people like John. Some young lads nowadays can think the old boys are on their case and shy away from it but I wanted John Rankin and Paul Paton to tell me my negatives because that got the best out of me.”

Robertson's quotes have had particular resonance for The Fixture in the eight months since he took over as Hamilton Academical manager. The Championship bottom-dwellers had looked condemned to certain relegation at one point before Christmas but after a run of six games without defeat there is now considerable cause for optimism. It's a vein of form that has drawn the South Lanarkshire outfit to within three points of Arbroath with a game in hand and a real sense that an escape is feasible.

Notably, during that run, was a Scottish Cup victory over Premiership side Ross County which was cast in the image of Rankin as a player: Accies were industrious, energetic and refused to yield, the only thing missing from their performance was the famous Rankin squiggler – the self-styled scuffing shot from distance that caused many a Scottish top-flight goalkeeper discomfort over the years but they nevertheless showed plenty of dead-eyed composure to win the tie on penalties.

The Herald:

They will look to chuck another curveball at Hearts in this evening's fifth round tie at the ZLX Stadium. The Tynecastle club is where Rankin started out on his coaching journey, of course. Speaking to him a few months after that Robertson interview in the cafeteria at Broadwood as he wound down his playing career at Clyde while combining his duties at Hearts, he outlined his philosophy on man management, citing Robertson as the benchmark for aspirational youngsters.

“Every player has to be treated with that bit of freedom,” he said. “You can't tell them not to do something, it's a sensitive thing. Every individual is different. Some need to feel brilliant, to get comments off others – some people need that. Whereas the ones that get furthest in their careers, they need to feel the burn, they need to feel the adrenaline, they need to feel the energy and they are not interested in what anyone else is saying to them – it's tunnel vision, they have a sole focus of that's my goal at the end of it. Whatever I get on the way there, great, but that's my sole focus. If you had asked me 10 years ago if Andy Robertson would have played in the Champions League final I would have laughed but I knew he would be playing in the Premier League. Players always know. They always know.”

Rankin went on to underline the important details. Even then he said he was able to look a player in the eyes, observe his habits and his attitude and decide whether that individual was going to have the mettle to take his game to the next level.

It's an incredibly useful skill to have as a football manager and one that might just reap huge dividends for Hamilton Academical.