Ray McKinnon is the kind of guy that you want to succeed.
He is as amiable a person as you will find in football, while also being respectful and professional.
Even his worst enemy – that’s if he has any, and I would doubt it – would admit that McKinnon gave his all to try to get Dundee United promoted.
He jumped financial hurdle after hurdle as he tried to assemble his squad, dealt with a catalogue of injuries to key players and got United a fatigued 90 minutes away from the Premiership via the play-offs against Hamilton last May.
Of course, all that doesn’t make his departure from Tannadice any easier to stomach but it is also important to accept and appreciate that it just wasn’t working out.
While United fans showed what they thought via their barrage of boos on Saturday, there will be some who will claim – and Willo Flood is already one of them – that McKinnon would have turned things around had he been given more time.
The big problem for the Tangerines is that they don’t have time to wait on bad results becoming good ones.
Any player who thinks the decision, expected to become official any time soon, is a harsh one should consider the last two performances against Livingston and Inverness in particular and ask themselves if the club could really afford to continue like that when promotion is a must this season.
In an ideal world, the Tangerines would be able to sit tight and wait for an upturn but that is not an option when they need to stay in touch with the top of the division.
Failure to get promoted for the second season in a row is such a scary scenario for everyone with the club at heart that the board have been left with no option because of the dismal fare being dished up on the park.
Now comes the greatest challenge of all for chairman Stephen Thompson and his directors.
They need to get this appointment right.
They can’t just hope to get it right – it must happen.
The new boss, whoever that may be, can’t really be offered much time to bed in either.
It needs to work and it needs to work quickly.
