As Kris Doolan will be reminded when he takes charge of his first Kilmarnock game tomorrow, being a caretaker manager is a curious business.
It is, on the one hand, a selfless gesture, intended only to stabilise a club rendered rudderless by the departure of its previous boss.
On the other, it is a valuable chance to gain experience, raise your profile and, who knows, maybe even become the next permanent manager.
As ever, there is a long list of potential successors to Stuart Kettlewell, who was sacked by the Ayrshire club on Monday after six months in the job.
Former Kilmarnock striker Steven Naismith is in there, together with Aberdeen first-team coach Peter Leven and David Martindale, whose appointment would serve to diminish relegation rivals Livingston.
That Doolan also ranks highly in the betting will come as no surprise to anyone, least of all Doolan. After all, the 39-year-old has been in this movie before.
Caretaker Kilmarnock manager Kris Doolan prepares his players for the game against Falkirk
Scotland coach Steven Naismith is among those who have been linked with the Kilmarnock job
Stuart Kettlewell was sacked after his Kilmarnock team collected just two points from 10 games
In 2023, the former Partick Thistle striker returned to the Firhill club as an academy coach and within a month had taken interim charge of the first team.
After just three games, he was announced as a permanent successor to the sacked Ian McCall and, in the two-year stint that followed, twice took Thistle into the promotion playoffs.
This week must feel strangely familiar to Doolan, who was barely in the door as Kilmarnock’s head of youth development when he was asked to fill the void at Rugby Park.
The immediate challenge for him will be to steady a ship that had been listing badly under Kettlewell, starting with a home game against Falkirk.
It won’t be easy. Kilmarnock have not won since early October and are second-bottom of the Premiership table, having taken just two points from their last 10 games.
But how many times have we seen it happen? New manager waltzes in and, at the first time of asking, strolls off with the victory that had painfully eluded his beleaguered predecessor.
Should Doolan be lucky enough to make an instant impact, you know what happens next: the fans get onside, the media ask questions about his long-term ambitions and, if the form continues, he emerges as an easy option for the board.
A quick glance at the fixture list shows that Kilmarnock have St Mirren and Dundee after Falkirk’s visit. Then come Hibs, Livingston and Dundee again.
They are not easy games, but they are not the hardest either. It is, in truth, an undeniable opportunity for Doolan to make an impression if Kilmarnock are at all undecided about their permanent appointment.
These stop-gap situations can be dangerous territory if clubs read too much into them. The game is littered with successful caretakers who have later proved to be inadequate after being appointed for the wrong reasons.
Very often a caretaker has limited experience and perhaps a cv that is ill-suited to the job at hand, but he is given a three-year deal on the strength of his managerial ‘bounce’.
Like everyone else, Kilmarnock have made that mistake a few times already. Gary Locke, Lee McCulloch and Alex Dyer were temporary bosses who came undone in the fullness of time.
If Doolan was the man for the job, they would have appointed him already. It’s safe to assume he was not among their targets last summer when Kettlewell took over from Derek McInnes.
If Kilmarnock are going about their business properly, they will undertake a rigorous interview process and appoint a manager based on his body of work and the quality of his application.
They will not do it on the strength of a short audition in the post. No matter how successful, a handful of games is no guide to a manager’s aptitude in other areas such as recruitment and strategic planning.
That, at least, is how it should work. In the real world, it takes a strong board to overlook an interim manager who is stringing wins together right under their nose, especially if he has become popular with supporters.
If Doolan can get off to a flyer against Falkirk, he will keep saying what he has been saying all week. That he is only there to provide stability. That he is not looking beyond the next game.
But a rare victory would bring a much-needed smile to the struggling Ayrshire club. It would also take the pressure off in their hunt for a new manager and, in all probability, present them with another option in the process.
