If Neil McCann wasn’t the best ‘pundit’ on Scottish TV and radio, he was surely the best ‘analyst’.
Amid the social media free-for-all, it is the pundit’s job to divide opinion with trenchant views on the issue of the day.
And McCann tended to shy away from those, preferring instead to focus on the football.
But when it came to the game’s mechanics, the former Dundee, Hearts and Rangers winger offered unparalleled insight with his analysis.
Too many so-called experts tell us only what we already know, interspersing it with vague references to ‘intensity’ and ‘the press’.
McCann, on the other hand, added value to TV coverage with his judgment of a game, its players and how they were arranged at any given moment.
Neil McCann led his team to a 1-1 draw with Livingston in his first game as Kilmarnock manager
McCann was angry that ref Don Robertson did not send off Livingston’s Brooklyn Kabongolo
He will be missed by the broadcasters who employed him as their sounding board, in the studio or at the venue.
The question is whether their loss will be Kilmarnock’s gain as he sets about reviving his managerial career at Rugby Park.
His return to the frontline started with a 1-1 draw at Livingston on Saturday, when substitute Marcus Dackers cancelled out Connor McLennan’s opener just before half-time.
It wasn’t the prettiest performance by McCann’s relegation-threatened team, but they responded well to adversity and maintained the four-point cushion that separates them from Livi.
The worry for Stuart Kettlewell’s successor will be that, even against the Premiership’s bottom dogs, Kilmarnock could not end a winless run that now extends to 15 games.
With only 16 left in the league, a playoff place looks about the best they can hope for, unless McCann can instigate a dramatic turnaround in their fortunes.
To do so, the 51-year-old will have to use everything he has learned in a coaching career that amounts to something of an enigma.
Despite his knowledge of the game, so ably communicated from the Sportscene couch, he has dabbled only briefly in management.
His ability to coach and develop players, as well as his experience of playing at the highest level, has been rather an untapped resource.
Apart from a short stint in interim charge of Inverness, he has previously managed only Dundee, where his 18 months were nothing if not eventful.
Having saved them from relegation in his five matches as caretaker, he became their permanent boss for one full season before a poor start to the next one prompted his sacking in October 2018.
There was a lot to like about McCann during that spell at Dens Park, although the consensus was that many of his strengths were also a weakness.
He believes in possession-based football and building from the back, but it sometimes proved costly for Dundee who didn’t always have the players to make it work.
He defended his club to the hilt, but that stubborn streak also manifested itself in the dressing room where they say he wasn’t the most popular with players.
Over the weekend, his former broadcasting colleagues, Kris Boyd and Chris Sutton, joked about the ‘angry little man’ who had deserted them for a return to management.
Being a good coach doesn’t necessarily translate to being a good manager, but McCann will give it his best shot between now and the end of the season.
Marcus Dackers scores the equaliser that keeps Kilmarnock four points ahead of Livingston
And one of the key questions will be how he sets up his Kilmarnock team for a relegation battle, especially if he is unable to bring many of his own players in.
Sticking too rigidly to their principles has cost a number of managers their job recently, among them Wilfried Nancy and Jimmy Thelin, sacked by Celtic and Aberdeen respectively.
Only the other day, St Johnstone owner Adam Webb said he had warned their idealist manager, Simo Valakari, that he had to swallow his pride and be adaptable when circumstances demanded.
‘The number one fatal flaw for coaches, in my opinion, is stubbornness,’ said Webb.
Worn down by the Kettlewell era, many Kilmarnock fans were underwhelmed by the appointment of McCann, seen by some as a pundit who had failed in his only challenge as a manager.
But if he can add flexibility and pragmatism to his skillset, on and off the pitch, they might just have themselves a manager who has more to offer than most.
