Didn't see this coming. Apparently, it's too good an opportunity to miss, which sounds very exciting. Although, I wonder what made us suddenly go from "Liddell's in charge until the end of the season" to "here's the new manager on a three year deal" inside a fortnight.
His record's quite impressive. Inherited a Brentford side doing pretty badly under Terry Butcher and turned results around almost instantly, then took them up and kept them up. He also took charge of some impressive Carling Cup results, beating Everton and taking Birmingham to penalties. Before that, he was part of Martin Ling's coaching team, as Leyton Orient got promoted from the fourth division and then stayed up.
He's young, too, especially to have taken charge of nearly 170 first team games. He seems to have impressed a fair few other clubs in his time at Brentford, being interviewed for the Sheffield United job (whilst still at Brentford) before Mickey Adams took that particular poisoned chalice. He was linked, too, with the Barnsley job that eventually went to Mark Robins.
Indeed, much of the way he operates is reminiscent of Robins. Robins is a meticulous planner and the kind of manager who involves himself in the details of skills-based training sessions. Scott seems to have similar traits. That style of management (as opposed to the more lofty, swan-in-and-bollock "gaffer" style of Moore) seems to be increasingly successful, with the top three in League Two all having the younger, coach-as-leader style of management.
All of which offers hope.
However, despite his time as a player at Sheffield United, this is the furthest north he's operated for a while and ever as a manager or coach. A glance at his signings shows, as you'd expect, a heavy bias towards players and clubs drawn from the south of England. Will he find it so easy to convince the likes of Arsenal and Spurs to lend out youngsters with first team hopes (like Szczesny and Bostock)? Will players with roots in the south be willing to move to Yorkshire? Does he have contacts with clubs up here?
And what of his style? The two games between Mark Robins' Millers and Scott's Brentford were tedious, negative, cagey affairs, between two teams with a determination not to lose and little beyond that. The game at Don Valley, in particular, was awful, with Brentford consciously spoiling and wasting time from the off and keeping eight or nine players behind the ball at all times. Perhaps these were one-offs, but one of the criticisms levelled at Scott around the time of his departure from Brentford was the poverty of quality of play from the Bees.
It'll be interesting to see who makes up his back-room team. Sensibly (and again similarly to Robins), he had the experienced Terry Bullivant as his assistant at Brentford. However, where does that leave Liddell and Warne (who've come across well in their interviews and have clearly worked hard in their caretaker roles)? It would be a massive shame to lose them to the club, having given them valuable coaching and management experience. The ideal would be to have one or both of them alongside Scott: but does he need an "old head" to guide him? And, if so, would Bullivant, a man who's career (again) and life is London based (he was a London cabbie for a while), be prepared to relocate to join him as he pushes 60?
All in all, though, it seems a sound appointment. Like anything, it needs a bit of luck to work out (and we're not exactly the luckiest of clubs) and patience (which neither fans nor board have shown this season). Already some fans seem unconvinced, but then many were unconvinced at Robins' appointment ("the cheap option", "need an experienced man") and he turned out ok. Let's hope Scott can lay the foundations for success on the pitch for a change, and persevere with us to see it through.
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