When Neil McCann signed for Southampton for £1.5m in 2003, it was a case of second-time-lucky for manager Gordon Strachan whose offer of £5m had been rebuffed when he had tried to buy him for Coventry. Strachan welcomed the “change of pace” that left-winger McCann would bring to the club.

“It is OK being fast, but if you haven’t got a change of pace then it doesn’t count for much.”

It counted for 26 Scotland caps in Neil’s case, dating back to 1998, just before he left Hearts for Rangers. He would continue to win Scottish caps while with the Saints, making him the first outfield player to do so for 104 years. But in his injury-disrupted time at St Mary’s, the club got only 25 starts from him – at £60,000 apiece.

His contract terminated by mutual consent, he returned to Hearts, where he suffered a double-break of a leg in August 2007. He then bowed out – or so it seemed – at Falkirk, for whom his last match was the 2009 Scottish Cup Final v Rangers. Neil now became a pundit, commentating on the SPL for Sky.  But then, in February 2011, he agreed, after a trial, to turn out, unpaid, for his former team-mate, Barry Smith, who was managing a debt-stricken Dundee. In the first of his three appearances, he headed a late winner. The following season, he turned to coaching and was for a short while manager of Dundee.