TURF Moor, August 2009. Two hours have passed since Burnley have defeated reigning champions Manchester United on the opening day of the Premiership season courtesy of a famous Robbie Blake goal. Up in the manager's office, Owen Coyle glances at his watch one last time before reluctantly motioning his guest to leave. "I'm sorry Sir Alex," he says, "but it really is time to go."

The anecdote is a snapshot of boom times for what Ferguson called the "master race" in the Barclays Premier League, and the role their godfather from Govan played in nourishing their respective careers. It was an era which reached its high watermark in the 2011-12 season when Coyle (Bolton Wanderers), Ferguson (Manchester United), Alex McLeish (Aston Villa), Steve Kean (Blackburn Rovers), David Moyes (Everton), Kenny Dalglish (Liverpool) and Paul Lambert (Norwich) all held post in the highest league in the land. But now there is only one (Moyes) and Coyle has never been more in need of friends in high places than he is right now. If any manager's situation sums up the scarcity of openings for the Scottish managerial fraternity south of the border right now, it is his.

"The thing about Sir Alex, is that he was always there when somebody needed a little bit of help," Coyle said. "A lot of it obviously was a few years further back because I was in America [with Houston Dynamo]. But he was there when I signed Chris Eagles [for Bolton] and he was always there with a text message or something to say your team is doing well or whatever. He has been such an influence - and not only on Scottish managers, but with very young managers.

"If I think back to when we used to play them in the Premier League, you could spend hours in the room, just chatting away and it wasn't always about football. That first game in the league when we beat them, when they were the champions, he came in and spent about two hours in the room. I actually had to say to him 'look, it is time to go'. That is just the quality of the man he is. He was always there, regardless of what your situation was.

"I went to the Premier League under my own steam - no-one gifted me a route to the Premier League. But once you are there you have to do it on merit. It is up to you to kick on. I think there will still be opportunities [for Scottish managers], although it is tougher, certainly with the elite clubs. But there are still examples for us there, guys like Eddie Howe and big Sean [Dyche] at Burnley. Those boys are showing that it is achievable. They are doing a great job with significantly less resources than the big boys have got."

Now 50, Coyle saw Ferguson briefly again at Old Trafford in midweek as he diligently did his homework ahead of today's FA Cup meeting with Manchester United. It is a match-up which once held the destiny of the top division in its hands, but while Coyle is the same man he always was, these days he has his hands full breathing some life into a Blackburn side which has become a basket-case under the eccentric absentee ownership of Venky's, an Indian firm whose main specialism lies in the chicken processing industry. For some, his past experience with Burnley is viewed as a hindrance rather than a help.

Lying second from bottom in the table, even despite a decent run of form which has seen them win four and draw three of their last 11 matches, twice taking the scalp of Newcastle, whatever happens today, Coyle knows that 15 cup finals await as he endeavours to keep Blackburn out of League One. He is a good man and a good manager who deserves better than a week of internet innuendo and speculation that his sacking is imminent. Even Ferguson needed some time to get things started at Manchester United.

It isn't just a raft of football superstars that Coyle will have to shut down today. With Jose Mourinho shrewdly allowing Ferguson to turn up from time to time at the training ground, he must also pit his wits against two of the world's all-time great managers. Coyle has never come up against the self-styled "special one" previously, but he does have some inside info from the friend they have in common, the Manchester United manager's countryman Andres-Villas Boas who was a classmate on the same Pro Licence course as Coyle in Largs.

Mourinho can rotate his squad after their exertions against St Etienne in the Europa League on Thursday night, which means the likes of Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick are likely to start, supporting physical specimens like Jesse Lingard, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial which Coyle likens to facing "a team of Olympic sprinters".

By contrast, he has had to bring in around £22 million in transfer fees for Jordan Rhodes, Grant Hanley and Ben Marshall, but been handed just £200,000 to replace them by the club's chaotic front office operation. He is also in the midst of an injury crisis, with Corry Evans and Sam Gallagher on the sidelines. The big-match experience of Charlie Mulgrew is at least something.

"I just waved hello to Sir Alex in midweek," Coyle said. "He is looking great, still active, still at the games, and it is a fantastic club. It is hard enough without putting the two of them [Ferguson and Mourinho] together. Because there is no doubt to my mind that Jose Mourinho is the perfect man to get Manchester United back to where they feel they should be. When Sir Alex left it was always going to be difficult. People forget that it took Sir Alex time to build things up too.

"Social media doesn't do anything for me, I have no interest in it, so whatever rumours you are talking about I have no idea about them. When I come into the football club, I concentrate fully on the players. That is the only thing I concentrate on and anything else has no relevance."

Blackburn's prospects look bleak against the reigning cup holders but Coyle has quite a pedigree. As well as his sundry cup exploits in the Scottish game with Falkirk and St Johnstone, he made his name in the English game with a starring role in the swashbuckling run by Bolton Wanderers in 1994 which saw a team who included Alan Stubbs, Jason McAteer and John McGinlay, triumph over big guns Everton, Arsenal and Aston Villa to reach the quarter-finals. It is a run which will live long in the memory, but it almost ended before it got started against plucky minnows Gretna, long before their days in the Scottish league.

"I've always loved cup competitions both as a player and a manager," Coyle said. "There is a freshness and a different energy from the weekly challenge of the league. Growing up in Scotland the Scottish Cup was a huge thing, but every one of us watched the FA Cup final at Wembley. That was the pinnacle for everybody. Everybody if they were a young footballer, that was where they wanted to play. And that hasn't changed.

"We went to the quarter-finals with Bolton, although I also went to the semi-finals with them as a manager. In the first round of that '94 competition, we actually played Gretna, who were in the Unibond League at that time and we were 2-1 down with six minutes to go. We managed to beat them 3-2. Somebody scored two goals late on. Yeah, that's right, it was me."