So just who would be your Manager of the Year?

Hughes, Neilson, McInnes, Hartley, Deila and McIntyre are all in with a shout this year.

John Hughes is close to claiming his own page in the history of Scottish football.

Winning the Scottish Cup with Inverness Caley Thistle would be an enormous achievement. Falkirk will be going all-out to stop their former manager on May 30, but Yogi has already confounded many critics by taking the Highlanders to within touching distance of European football. That in itself is a major achievement.

The style of football encouraged by the 50-year-old with an emphasis on passing and possession has also won him many plaudits. It’s easy to believe he’s just a loveable rogue who inspires commitment with his larger-than-life personality. His rough and ready demeanour is unlikely to change. He is however, fiercely committed to altering the way players think about football.

Hughes asked his men to abandon the easy option of playing the long ball and has clearly succeeded. Terry Butcher left some real gems at the Caledonian Stadium when he made the disastrous defection to Hibs. Those who doubted the wisdom of his appointment have watched as Hughes and his men have taken the club to a new level.

A question that he won’t consider but that has to be asked is whether all of this is enough to see him crowned as Scotland’s Manager of the Year? There is certainly plenty of competition for the award.

The Scottish Professional Footballer’s Association will announce their winner next Sunday, with the Scottish Football Writers’ being unveiled at the end of May.

Robbie Neilson is an outstanding candidate after leading Hearts to the Championship title with six weeks and seven games to spare. He has proved to be a fine coach and made the most of the backing that came from owner Ann Budge and Director of Football Craig Levein. Work done in recent years by John McGlynn and Gary Locke provided the rookie manager with some fine young players. His ideas, like introducing double training sessions, have seen them flourish in fine style. To secure automatic promotion so comfortably from a division containing Rangers and Hibs adds to the achievement.

But we’re talking here about the second tier of Scottish football, and the inconsistency shown by Hearts’ main rivals undoubtedly smoothed the path back to the Premiership. Celtic boss Ronny Deila would surely have been crowned as the country’s top manager if the domestic Treble had been secured. His side’s failure to make the Champions League, and their faltering start to the campaign, would have been quietly overlooked. There’s something about the prestige that comes with a clean sweep that’s very hard to ignore.

Yet if we can forget the Josh Meekings’ handball for just a moment, the Scottish Cup semi-final wasn’t Deila’s finest hour. His substitution of James Forrest, the introduction of the long-forgotten Aleksandar Tonev and his side’s reckless play during extra-time has been forgotten amid the furore cause by a refereeing howler. That aside, we also have to consider the massive money advantage Celtic have over the rest. Only Rangers still battling to sort out their financial mayhem can consistently compete for the title of Scottish champions.

Former Celtic striker Chris Sutton’s voiced the opinion that anything other than a Treble would be a massive flop for the Parkhead club. He’s not far wrong.

Derek McInnes continues to improve a resurgent Aberdeen, and has done well to keep them in the title race for so long.

Tommy Wright has again taken St Johnstone into the top six, and relinquishing their grip on the Scottish Cup so meekly at Queen of the South is the only major flaw in their season.

Dundee’s Paul Hartley will undoubtedly get a few votes. Taking a newly-promoted side into the top six at the first time of asking is no mean feat. He has also revived the careers of men like James McPake and Kevin Thomson, both being written off in many quarters as too old and too injury-prone. Recruiting Greg Stewart from part-time football at Cowdenbeath was a masterstroke and the Dens Park faithful will hope Alloa defender Daryll Meggatt, signed on a pre-contract, proves to be a similar success.

Conventional wisdom says only managers who lead their team to an honour, or defy the odds to challenge for one, can be acclaimed as amongst the best in the land. That way of thinking overlooks those using all their ability to breathe new life into what seemed a lost cause.

And that brings us nicely to Jim McIntyre. He was doing fine work at Queen of the South, and had them occupying fourth place in the Championship, when he elected to join Ross County in September of last year. James Fowler has taken advantage of the squad left by McIntyre at Palmerston, and could yet lead them to an unlikely promotion to the Premiership via the play-offs. But it’s in Dingwall where a minor miracle has occurred.

At the dawn of 2015, few gave Ross County any hope of avoiding automatic relegation from the top flight. McIntyre will have hoped for a quicker turnaround in the club’s fortunes, but reviving a struggling side is rarely a quick job.

Brian Clough once said: “Rome wasn’t built in a day. I wasn’t on the job.” Other lesser mortals take a more realistic view of how quickly progress can be made.

Once they got going, however, there has been no stopping the Staggies.Their manager won back-to-back Manager of the Month awards as his team won nine matches in an unbeaten 10-game spell. That is championship-winning form. To lay the foundations for a promotion push with one club, then mastermind a great escape for another, isn’t the normal route for a Manager of the Year. But, as seems likely, if Ross County maintain their top-flight status, Jim McIntyre is surely John Hughes main rival for the award?

He certainly gets my vote.