This Saturday evening Steve Kean will open a notebook and record every incident, every move and every reflection on Blackburn Rovers' visit to Newcastle United. It is a daily routine he has followed with religious devotion for more than a decade, whether as a youth-team coach at Reading, an academy head at Fulham, an assistant at Real Sociedad or a fledgling Premier League manager with Rovers. Meticulous attention to detail helps explain the rise but not the response to the intense scrutiny that has accompanied Kean's 30 games in charge at Ewood Park. That comes entirely from within.
Kean's fiercest detractors, a few hundred of whom marched on Ewood Park before last Saturday's game with Arsenal, may grudgingly recognise he has faced the incessant pressure to justify his position with an openness and determination that more seasoned managers would struggle to find. Few would grant an audience to one before such a critical game and provide, as Kean did, a 40-minute interview for a podcast on a supporters' website.
"Kean Out" flyers littered the gutters around Ewood before kick-off last weekend. They had washed away after a merited 4-3 victory that switched the spotlight back on to Arsène Wenger. It is unclear whether the downpour, road sweepers or jubilant Blackburn fans embracing David Cameron's "big society" were responsible but Kean can only hope the dispersion of the protest reflected a sea change in his reign. He denies, however, that the entry in his notebook for Saturday 17 September reads simply "relief".
"I don't know if relief is the right word. The overriding feeling was just the enjoyment of a winning dressing room," says the Blackburn manager of his first league win of the season, achieved in part by his astute substitutions. "I felt we had been playing well. We got a good point at Fulham, who came back to draw with Manchester City the next weekend, and how we did not beat Everton I'll never know [Rovers missed two penalties before the visitors converted a controversial one of their own in stoppage time]. The Arsenal performance was an extension of that."
Criticism has followed the 43-year-old's every step as Blackburn manager and not necessarily for events on the pitch. His promotion in the wake of Sam Allardyce's sacking by Venky's last December raised questions about his lack of experience and the influence of agents – notably Kean's representatives, SEM – and Kentaro, Venky's advisers in the takeover process, in the running of Rovers. He has had to defend the Indian owners' grandiose designs for Blackburn while the club's finest talent, Phil Jones, was sold to Manchester United for £16.5m, a sum close to that reinvested in the Rovers' squad this summer. And all while handling his first manager's job and changing the style and average age of the Blackburn team. Kean has not shied from any aspect. It is not in his nature to do so.
"I would never hide," he insists. "I think where you are brought up has a lot to do with it. I was brought up in a very tough area in the east end of Glasgow where you had to survive. You had to try and get to school and back every day in one piece. I signed for Celtic at a very young age, 13, and had great years there. In my first year as a pro there were 54 professionals at the club and I couldn't get in the team. I knew I had to go and play elsewhere.
"When my playing career finished much quicker than I was expecting [due to a broken tibia and fibula] I thought: 'What am I going to do? I don't know anything else apart from football.' There is a fear that you have to stay in the game and so I started coaching under-nines, under-10s. I've got a hunger and desire to give something back. Maybe I have more drive and determination because I feel I was short-changed. Maybe I have a drive and desire in this job that others who had long playing careers don't."
Kean left Glasgow without a senior appearance for Celtic and enjoyed his most productive spell as a player with Académica Coimbra in Portugal. His coach at Académica, Antonio Oliveira, who led the national team at the 2002 World Cup, remains a lasting influence, but it was the education at Celtic – and from four Lisbon Lions in particular – that continues to shape the outlook of a man born four months after Jock Stein's team lifted the European Cup.
"I was taught how to play the Celtic way," he says. "Billy McNeill was my first manager at Celtic and his team talks were very authoritative. He was quite a scary figure. David Hay was my second manager at Celtic. I also had the experience of working with Jimmy Johnstone and Bobby Lennox, two Lisbon Lions, at youth level. Just listening to their stories and their desire to play football rubbed off on me.
"Jimmy would always say that he should never have been a player because he was too small. He went on to become one of the best players in the world, if not the best in my opinion. His dedication to be a player was fantastic. He wasn't going to let the opportunity pass him by. That was our staff at Celtic – Billy McNeill as manager, a centre-half, John Clark as his assistant, another centre-half who won the European Cup, and the two wingers from that team as youth and reserve team coaches. It was a great place to learn football.
"I also took bits from Portugal and France [Jean Tigana dispatched Kean to Clairefontaine for three weeks at the end of every season while Fulham manager] and put that altogether. You always develop. There are things I do now that I wouldn't have done last year. You have to be self-critical. I write a lot every night. I detail everything that happened during the day. I don't watch much television, apart from football. I've been writing in a journal every night for 12 or 13 years."
The demand for young managers to develop is not accompanied by time or patience in the Premier League. "I've gathered that," Kean says with a resigned air. Not surprisingly, given his coaching background and Blackburn's budget, and despite the game-by-game inquests, his faith in youth as the way forward for Rovers is absolute.
He adds: "I hope what we are trying to do has not been lost on people. The good thing from my point of view is that I've always had the backing of the dressing room, of the owners and of the majority of supporters. It will take time, I've always said that, and that is not me trying to buy myself time. It will take time for the young players who are coming into the team, for lads like Mauro Formica, Rubén Rochina and Jason Lowe to adapt, but they are getting there."
Part of Blackburn's problem, and therefore Kean's, is perception. The club cannot spend like a Champions League hopeful but that has not deterred Venky's from setting the top four as a long-term target, or talking up interest in Ronaldinho and David Beckham during their first transfer window as owners.
The manager insists: "The criticism maybe came because some big-name players were meant to come to the club and people thought that wasn't true. But they were genuine attempts to put us on a level through a player of that ilk. We tried hard on a couple and they didn't come off but if the opportunity arises again, I think we will have another go. They would have to add to the team, though. We want them here to play, not to graze."
Blackburn Rovers has an established history of running Prince's Trust programmes for disadvantaged young people in the Blackburn area and have committed to fundraising for the Charity of the Year partnership throughout the season in addition to the pro bono shirt contribution. Through its partnership with the Premier League and Professional Footballers Association, the Prince's Trust has helped more than 17,000 young people through football since 1997, working with more than 65 Premier League and Football League clubs to deliver a range of programmes that have helped three in four young people in to work, training or education. To find out more about the Prince's Trust's programmes visit their website at www.princes-trust.org.uk or call 0800 842842.