WHY WOULD ROSS HAVE LEFT SAINTS FOR DENS?

JACK ROSS should give thanks to Dundee for the easiest pay-rise in history. Forgive a degree of cynicism, but it’s hard to shift the conclusion St Mirren’s manager never harboured any serious intent of moving to Dens Park. Why would he? Premiership football is a lure. But the evidence of the second half of the season, from January to May, suggests Saints have as good a chance of being a top tier club next summer as Dundee. A bigger transfer budget? Dundee’s last manager, Paul Hartley hardly spent transfer windows fighting Cristiano Ronaldo off with a big stick. When Hartley needed the Dens board to push the boat out to keep key guys like Greg Stewart and Kane Hemmings — players who might conceivably have saved his job — it was never really an option. Dens managing director John Nelms was willing to fly to Spain to meet one of Scottish football’s hottest properties and he would have done so with a hefty contract in his back pocket. There’s no question Ross (pictured) could have made a few quid by going back to the club he started his career with. But let’s be blunt here. St Mirren are a Premiership club in all but status. Maintain the progress of the last six months and they won’t be hanging around the Championship a minute longer than they have to. Right now you’d be staggered if they didn’t make the playoffs. For Jack Ross, then, moving to Dundee would have been a sideways move. He was right to stay put. His stock is rising and, with a little patience, he can land a bigger club. For that reason alone Saints chairman Gordon Scott should be standing at the arrivals gate of Glasgow Airport — new contract in one hand, pen in the other — when his highly-coveted manager returns from his holiday in Spain. Rumours of Sunderland’s interest in Derek McInnes haven’t gone away. And there are one or two old heads on the Aberdeen board who think St Mirren’s manager could be a very decent replacement. Dundee were easy to resist in the end. Neil McCann should be very grateful Ross did — but if Aberdeen come calling, the northern lights could prove a tougher lure to resist.