BoldYin’sScotland claimwillhaveJags fansrollinginaisles

MANAGERS are egomaniacs. A fair few are borderline sociopaths, wrapped up in their own wee worlds, so paranoid even old Joe Stalin would be telling them to chill out a tad if he was still kicking around.

They’ve all got a level of self-confidence, scrub that, arrogance, that would put contestants on The Apprentice to shame.

But there’s no shame in it. The rampant ego is what makes a manager.

They need to have complete and utter faith in themselves – otherwise no one else would.

But there are times when self-confidence can spill over and turn a boss into a figure of fun.

Gary Caldwell bombing at Partick Thistle was no laughing matter for Jags fans but his comments this week will have had them rolling in the aisles.

The Bold Yin said: “I’ve never played in the Championship but I’ve played 55 games for Scotland. I know how international players think.

“I don’t know how Championship players think. I do now but I didn’t when I first went in.

“I feel like I could do the Scotland job. I feel like I’m more qualified to do that than I am to manage Partick Thistle.”

Steady on Gaz. That is not self-belief, that’s howling at the moon.

No one should be slaughtering Caldwell for keeping the faith though.

God knows he has made plenty of mistakes in his early years in management but we shouldn’t be writing him off just yet.

He just needs to learn from them. It might not seem like it right now but there’s a top boss in there.

The weird thing is Caldwell needs to have a bit more, well, belief in himself. I know how that sounds, the guy’s just said he tanked at Firhill because he was too good for the gaff.

Ignore all that guff. The issue Caldwell seems to have is he’s not yet found himself as a gaffer. He has been a managerial magpie so far in his career.

There was an interesting piece he wrote for The Coaches Voice, a website that gives managers and coaches a platform to tell their stories and share their ideas.

The Caldwell one took in his time as a rookie boss at Wigan and his ill-fated move to Chesterfield. But what stood out were his constant attempts to copy things he’d learned from elsewhere.

He admitted he looks at the NFL, how Seattle Seahawks’ Pete Carroll responded to a Super Bowl loss.

Gordon Strachan gets called for advice. Forget it.

There’s nothing wrong with taking inspiration from managers you’ve

Caldwell hasn’t yet found his voice. He has been a managerial magpie

worked for – but that’s all it should be.

Paul Lambert even looked like Martin O’Neill when he first went in to the dugout but the former Celtic star eventually found his own style.

Neil Lennon learned from the same gaffer but he’s his own man and his teams are nothing like the ones O’Neill had.

Half the players who played for Sir Alex Ferguson tried to be him and failed miserably. It’s the ones who followed their own path who were successful.

Caldwell shouldn’t be dismissed as a dud at just 37 years old.

But he needs to go back to square one on the football snakes and ladders board and find his own voice as a coach.