Stevie May believes his former strike partner Steven MacLean was always cut out for management and he has backed the St Johnstone interim boss to guide the club to safety.
MacLean has been put in charge of the Perth team after cup-double-winning manager Callum Davidson was sacked from his position following a poor run of league form.
As a result, Saints are just five points from the bottom of the Premiership table, but May is confident that things will turn this weekend against Hibernian at McDiarmid Park.
On MacLean, he explained: “He’ll have no problems. There are players who have played with him and in the bit of coaching this week he knows what he wants and how to get us going so I think that’s going to be a big thing.
“He was a big leader from the front too as a player. I know him better myself playing up front with him and he was always a big motivator. Even for himself, he always got himself going.
“He was always good at talking to me when I was up front and telling me where I should be.
“It's no surprise. There were a few in that 2014 dressing room I could have seen going into management. A few have and I expect to see others as well.”
MacLean famously delivered a passionate half-time speech in 2014 with St Johnstone 1-0 down against Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup semi-final at Ibrox.
The delivery worked wonders as Tommy Wright’s team turned the game on its head and booked their spot in the final against Dundee United.
May scored the famous double to defeat the Dons and on MacLean’s team talk, he continued: “That was a common thing for Macca. He’d come in and say what he thought.
“It was a motivating speech as much for himself as everyone else. He was always loud talking and I'm sure he’ll be the same as a manager.
“He was an experienced player back then and you position groups all over the park. For strikers to play together you need to be on the same page and he was a big talker back then.
“I don't know if I've called him anything yet, I haven’t thought of calling him gaffer. It might change.
“If I saw Cal I’d call him ‘gaffer’. It’s the same with other managers I've had before. It might be ‘gaffer’ for ‘Macca’ now.”
It has been an emotional week for the Saints squad with Davidson’s sacking announced in the wake of their defeat to Livingston at the weekend.
May worked closely with the departing boss over the years and he admits coming to terms with the departure has been difficult.
He explained: “Yeah it’s been tough. Obviously, it’s a terrible way when managers lose their job, especially someone I know so well from years gone by. We can't dwell too much on it because there are games to come.
“Is it the first time I’ve been involved in a manager being sacked? When I was on loan at Hamilton Billy Reid left and Alex Neil took over. That's the only time I've had it before but I was a young pup so I don't remember too much.
“It’s not ideal. We felt like we could have done more, not through lack of trying but things in games we could have done better. It’s not an ideal week but we need to go past that and not overthink it.
“I spoke to him a few days after just to give him a text wishing him well for what is next. I'm sure I'll see him soon. He's had such a career here and he’s so well connected here I'm sure he’ll be around the place again.
“He’s a legend, he was sold for money when he was younger, he’s been involved in three cup wins and there's no doubt he's a legend at the club. It was an unfortunate way for him to end in management but everything he's done before is still there, there’s no doubt about that.”
On how things will change under the leadership of MacLean, May added: “I'm not sure what decisions were made and who chose tactics etc but that's not what it comes down to. It comes down to what we’re being told to do on the training pitch. He’s a big motivator.
“This week we've had good training, it’s been intense and hopefully the weekend we can put everything in the week into a plan and we pick up the points we need.
“We had a conversation between the players and Macca had a meeting. We were off then we came in and Macca spoke to us then we had a word amongst ourselves as well for what we thought should be done better. That was it was done then it was focus on training week and get ready for the weekend.
“Tommy Wright was assistant and it's happened before. I've no idea what the plans are, he's the manager until we know anything else. We can't look beyond the weekend and picking up points.
“Of course, the position we've found ourselves in isn’t great and it’s got worse over the last few weeks. It’s still better than what we were last year so three points would be huge and change a lot. It’s down to us to put the performance in and get three points.”
