Stuart Kettlewell knows a lot about football, as he has demonstrated for almost two years in charge of Motherwell, but there is something that needs to learn about management: you can't make fans enemies.
His relationship with the followers of the Lanarkshire Club was already in Breaking Point after a defeat in the Scottish Cup in McDiarmid Park last Saturday, when the unfortunate exhibition of the team was booed by a furious itinerant support.
Then he poured oil into the flames before Motherwell's return to Perth for a league game this afternoon, sarctastically calling those who have dared to criticize him and his tactical approach during a gloomy winter period.
“There are many experts and many people who know better than the people who have really entered the shoes and experienced tribulations and tribulations,” he said the other day.
“It is sure to say that I will not be influenced by any noise or opinions of people who have never done the job and have never dedicated their lives to this game.”
That last comment has angry many Motherwell fans, of which some 1,700 traveled to Perth for a match that they expected to start a long glass. It is sure to say that most of them dedicated themselves to Motherwell long before Kettlewell was and will be for a long time later.
Stuart Kettlewell Look while his team collapsed at a defeat of the Scottish Cup of St Johnstone
Around 1,700 passionate supporters of Motherwell expressed their frustration in McDiarmid Park
Lennon Miller has been surprised since he received an injury against the Rangers last month
The problem for its manager is this. Followers may be right, in which case it is in real problems. But even if they are wrong, and, let's be honest, it would not be the first time, there is another more constructive way to interact with them.
SFA learning and courses training are very good, but they don't necessarily prepare it for the most subtle challenges of management. They do not teach you how to play the game, not the real game, but the one that develops outside the field, in the media and with the public he pays.
Whatever you think of your views, followers must be respected. They can be too emotional, too simplistic and, in some cases, stupid, but the trick is to understand and commit, instead of alienating, a group of people who only want the best for their team.
That is the least they deserve to pay their door money every week. They finition their salary, provide the club with a constant source of income and, therefore, have the ear of the Board. If they decide that he is not the man of work, the directors have few options to agree.
Kettlewell has made a decent fist in Motherwell. He has kept his head over the water, developed players who will earn the club a lot of money and took them to the semifinals of the League Cup.
Despite its recent fall, which has not been helped by a catalog of injuries, they are still fifth in the Premier League. They have nine points more than in the same stage last season.
What worries supporters is their recent form on the road. In their last five games away from home, they have secured only one point. Worse, they have noted only once in that sequence and have shown little ambition in the attack.
Fans are fed up with Kettlewell's back and frustrated because his team cannot cope with injuries to people like Lennon Miller and Apostolos StamateloPoulos.
More relevantly, they are in danger of falling into the lower six, where the teams are so closely full that anything could happen.
Suddenly, only two points are found in front of the old Hibs lower dogs and only seven away from the descent racing place.
Above all, they are frustrated with the manager, who seemed increasingly inflexible lately. In addition to firmly sticking to his beliefs in the field, he has been so sure of his opinions that a series of yellow cards have been won and has been sent to the Rangers. His defense of the Tackle by Liam Gordon in Adam Idah attracted little sympathy.
Kettlewell is passionate, determined and honest, maybe sometimes. He is a brilliant and articulated guy, with a large tactical brain, but you need a little more than that to succeed in management. You must calculate, you must be cute and you must take people, which means listening to the followers, or at least it seems that you are listening to them.
There will be no 1,700 Motherwell fans in McDiarmid Park this afternoon, but there will be enough to publicize their feelings if they do not see a change of fortune, or even approach.
If they have to sit as meek and submissive as they witnessed in the same place seven days before, it will be a long way for the manager who insulted them.