Can You Sack a Manager Who Has Won Silverware?

Motherwell’s 5–0 dismantling of St Mirren FC was emphatic, clinical and uncomfortable viewing for Stephen Robinson. It was as much about Motherwell’s cohesion and clarity as it was about the visible fragility in the Paisley side.

Since lifting the Premier Sports Cup before Christmas, defeating Celtic FC in a rain-soaked Glasgow final, the emotional temperature around the SMiSA Stadium has shifted. What once felt like validation now feels like distance.

And so the uncomfortable question presents itself, can you sack a manager who has just delivered silverware?

Stephen Robinson has undeniably done an excellent job at St Mirren. Regular top-six finishes, European qualification and now a major domestic trophy represent tangible progress for a club operating within clear financial constraints. The cup triumph was not an accident. It was built on defensive organisation, collective discipline and a defined identity.

Robinson’s St Mirren have typically been compact, aggressive and difficult to break down. They have known exactly who they were.

But football has a short memory. Achievement recalibrates expectation. Once silverware enters the equation, overachievement quietly becomes the new minimum standard. When results begin to wobble, scrutiny shifts from what has been achieved to where the club is heading.

Scottish football has never been sentimental for long. Alex McLeish departed Rangers not long after delivering a domestic treble when structural tension and trajectory concerns surfaced. Derek McInnes brought a League Cup and sustained European qualification to Aberdeen but ultimately lost his position when momentum stalled. History suggests boards act not when trophies are fresh but when direction feels uncertain.

The case for retaining Robinson is clear and rational. He has built stability where volatility once lingered. He has delivered results beyond budgetary expectation. One heavy defeat does not constitute systemic decline and panic sacking a manager who has embedded a culture can create more chaos than clarity. St Mirren have, for much of his tenure, punched above their financial weight. That context matters.

Yet the counter-argument cannot be ignored. Football is governed by trajectory. If performances have eroded over a sustained period, if defensive assurance weakens and pressing intensity dulls, then the past becomes less relevant than the present. Silverware is a memory, relegation is an existential threat. Boards must weigh emotional loyalty against economic survival.

This is where leadership psychology enters the conversation. Managers operate in cycles. There is the installation phase, where belief is fresh and ideas feel new. There is consolidation, where habits embed and structure becomes second nature. There is a peak, where cohesion and confidence align. And then there is fatigue. Fatigue does not mean failure, it means predictability. It means players have heard the message enough times that it loses edge. The sharpness that once defined transitions becomes hesitation. The compactness that defined defence becomes fragmentation.

The concern in Paisley is not the scoreline alone but the manner. Motherwell did not simply win, they exposed space between lines, won second balls aggressively and exploited defensive uncertainty. St Mirren did not appear to have solutions. That absence of tactical response is what boards notice.

For Keith Lasley and the St Mirren hierarchy, this is not a binary emotional decision. Removing Robinson risks destabilising recruitment alignment and fracturing dressing-room cohesion. Retaining him risks allowing decline to accelerate if momentum is genuinely slipping. It is a calculation of memory versus momentum.

What should ultimately decide the matter is not the trophy, nor the noise surrounding a heavy defeat but the answers to quieter internal questions. Do the players still respond with conviction? Is tactical evolution visible? Can defensive solidity be restored quickly? Is this a temporary wobble or evidence of structural decline? If the answers trend positively, patience is justified. If not, action becomes pragmatic rather than sentimental.

So can you sack a manager who has won silverware? Yes, you can. Football history shows that trophies do not shield managers indefinitely. But you should only do so when trajectory, not emotion, dictates it.

Robinson deserves respect for what he has built. The cup triumph will remain part of St Mirren’s history. Yet football does not protect the past, it responds to the present.

The coming weeks will determine whether this is a brief loss of rhythm or the beginning of something more serious. That distinction, more than any medal in the cabinet, will shape the board’s decision.