EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW If I was still in charge at Ross County we would be qualifying for Europe by now

The club chairman was disappointed that we did not spend enough money

DEREK ADAMS adopts the same approach to football management as he does to life. Watch the pennies and the pounds take care of themselves. ‘I had a bank overdraft of around £100 when I was younger,’ he tells Sportsmail.

‘It actually went up to £700 when I played for Motherwell and there was a problem the day we went into administration.

‘We didn’t get paid and that taught me a lesson. I do watch the pennies in my own life. And it’s an approach I take into business as well.’

His business now is managing English League One Plymouth Argyle. After a testing start to the season, his account is comfortably in the black, his stock rising fast.

Decimated by injuries and suspensions, Plymouth were bottom at the start of December. A 2-1 win over Gillingham triggered a run of 11 wins in 16 games and last week the former Ross County boss was named Manager of the Month.

The play-offs are now within touching distance and the credit score of their frugal Scottish manager is rising by the week.

‘I went to Plymouth two-and-a half years ago when they had just missed out on the play-off final,’ says Adams. ‘The following year we lost in the play-off final.

‘The year after that we got into League One.

‘It’s all about gradual progression. That’s what I’ve done throughout my managerial career.

‘I have tried to take the football team forward year on year.

‘I was at Ross County and we went from League Two to getting to a Scottish Cup final, getting into the Premiership and finishing fifth — the highest they ever finished.’

County finished seventh in season 2013/14 and after the fourth game of the next season he was sacked. In a unique twist on the usual source of tension between a chairman and manager, Roy MacGregor wanted him to spend more money on players. Mindful of the pennies to the last, Adams refused.

‘At Ross County I believe we would have played in Europe had I still been there,’ he claims now.

‘I believe that, under my management, we would have been a Europa League team.

‘We didn’t spend what we couldn’t afford and year on year I felt we were becoming stronger in the league.

‘It’s about stability and that doesn’t happen in the football world these days.

‘I left four games into a league campaign. That’s the nature of some club chairmen these days.’ Deliberately or otherwise, he never uses Roy MacGregor’s name.

OvER the years the County chairman, one of Scotland’s wealthiest men, has worked his way through a few managers. Jim McIntyre’s reward for winning County’s first major trophy was the sack when MacGregor feared a chance to hire a former English Premier League manager like Owen Coyle might slip through his fingers.

One of the highest paid managers in the Premiership, Coyle resigned after five months with County rooted to the bottom of the table.

‘I always look out for the results and take no satisfaction from the problems they’re having now,’ claims Adams. ‘We finished fifth and seventh in that division and four games into the new campaign I was on my way.

‘Since then, the football club has spent millions chasing a dream and that’s not the right way to go about it.

‘We took players discarded by other clubs who wanted to prove a point.

‘I would have saved the club fortunes if I’d stayed longer. There’s no question of that.

‘The chairman at Ross County was disappointed we didn’t spend enough money.

‘He was urging us to spend more money.

‘We said to him: “Listen, you gave us a budget and we won’t do that”...’

The tensions became such that Adams was famously sacked by his own father George, the club’s former director of football.

MacGregor claimed he wanted to reclaim County’s identity as a community club. Adams now claims the chairman’s desire to throw money at transfers was ‘a large part’ of the breakdown in the relationship.

‘Sometimes club chairmen just