ANGE POSTECOGLOU is odds on to lead his transformed Celtic to the Premiership title while Rangers could yet reach a European final under Giovanni van Bronckhorst, but Robbie Neilson believes Dick Campbell is Scotland’s manager of the year.
Neilson has himself been nominated for the Scottish football writers’ award after steering Hearts to next month’s Scottish Cup final against Rangers and to third place in an impressive and successful return to the top-flight.
The Tynecastle head coach will battle it out with Postecoglou, Ross County’s Malky Mackay, Scotland boss Steve Clarke and Campbell for the annual journalists' accolade.
However, in the PFA Scotland awards still to be announced, Neilson has revealed he plumped for Campbell, who guided Arbroath to within a whisker of the Championship title and who could still pull off the fairytale feat of winning promotion to the Premiership with the Angus part-timers.
“I voted for Dick,” he said. “He has had an outstanding season. I know the league well, it is a tough league to play in and he has managed to get a part-time team and, firstly, build the team over the last four or five years and to almost get the title, which would have been unbelievable.
“But to even get to the play-offs for them is outstanding.
“He loves the game and if you speak to Dick, and I do speak to him every now and again, because we have a player [Chris Hamilton] there on loan, he is so enthusiastic about the game. He loves football and he has an idea how he wants his team to play, and to have that longevity is outstanding.
“Teams will look at them, potentially, because the job he has done has been outstanding this year, and not just this year, probably the last three or four years in getting the promoted.
“There are a lot of contenders but we will have to see what happens in the end. I would be delighted if Dick got it. I think it would be outstanding.”
Barely a year ago, Neilson was the target of a section of the Hearts support who wanted him out. Protests sprung up after Hearts were embarrassingly knocked out of the Scottish Cup by Highland League side Brora Rangers.
This season’s success has made a mockery of those demonstrations last March, and his nomination reflects that, but he has his focus firmly fixed on different silverware.
“It is nice to see but does it really mean anything,” he added of his nomination. “Ultimately. it is about the players; players win you football matches and it is my job to try to help them. Getting nominated is just the offshoot of that, but it is nice.
“It has been a good season but it is four games away from it being a great season and if we can do that then it doesn’t matter what else happens.”
That Scottish Cup final meeting with Rangers is now the deciding factor and Neilson has deliberately given his players a hard time in training this week in a bid to help ensure there is no slackening off ahead of the Hampden showdown on May 21, for which he is confident injured pair Craig Halkett and John Souttar will be fit.
“We have a cup final in three weeks but we still need to work hard and make sure it’s not holiday season until we get there,” he said ahead of Saturday’s encounter with Ross County. “The next two weeks will be quite tough then we’ll play Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday through to the final.
“We can’t feel we have done it. We have to be ready for the final but we also need to win these games. We want to drive the squad forward, get work in to the players coming back from injury and make sure we are as prepared as possible for Hampden.”
