Then again, this 39-year-old has never been one for panicking.

Not as a player whose mercurial skills earned him 18 Scotland caps and a successful career in this country, England and France. And certainly not as a manager.

No, Johnston will enter his second season as a boss in exactly the same manner as he conducted himself in his first. And that didn’t work out too badly, did it?

He won the Scottish PFA Manager of the Year for guiding Queen of the South to the Second Division title by a record margin – the championship was clinched in March – and doubling it up with the Ramsdens Cup, where Morton and Partick Thistle, the top two teams in the First Division, were beaten.

Oh, and let’s not forget overcoming Rangers at Ibrox.

Hibs were also beaten at Palmerston in the League Cup and two of the four defeats they suffered all season were single-goal reversals at the hands of SPL sides Dundee United and Kilmarnock in the two major cup competitions.

All in all then, not a bad start to this managerial lark.

Johnston said: “It has been great. But the players and the backroom staff deserve the credit. Sandy Clark’s experience has been so important.

“I’m quite calm – but so is he, to be fair. We make a pretty good team.”

One of the young players who shone so brightly in the Johnston-Clark regime was, of course, Sandy’s son Nicky, who scored 41 goals in Queen of the South’s sensational season.

That feat earned the youngster his move to Ibrox this week and he went with the blessing of his dad and his manager, both of whom know what it takes to become a Rangers player.

Johnston added: “Nicky thoroughly deserves his move. Scoring 41 goals for us last season was an unbelievable achievement and I’m sure he will thrive playing for Rangers as well.

“He has been great and it is good for the other boys in our team to see what they can aspire to if they work hard and hopefully they can get a move like that as well.

“He will be going to a team that will be geared to making chances and the signings they have made this summer, so far, have been positive.

“It’s a different pressure playing for Rangers, with the weight of expectation that is placed upon everybody who signs for them.

“The strength of the squad Ally McCoist is building also makes it very important to get off to a good start.

“If you get into the team you have to play really well to keep your place.

“That’s the major difference when playing for a team like Rangers – the size of the squad they have.

“I know they didn’t have a huge squad last season because of the transfer embargo but traditionally they have.

“They’ve been making signings this summer and I’m sure they’ll have a very strong squad when they have everyone available to them in September.

“Nicky has shown his ability this year and he came back for pre-season the fittest he’d ever been. He’ll be looking to do the same this summer at Rangers.

“He’s a confident boy – as are all strikers. But he’s not just a goalscorer. He works really hard for the team as well and I’m sure he’ll do well at Ibrox.

“When I was at Rangers, you couldn’t be guaranteed keeping your place even if you’d played out of your skin the previous week.

“I played a few Champions League matches and thought I did okay but then couldn’t get a game in the next league game. That was life at Rangers.”

Johnston insists he is losing no sleep over how to make up for the goals Clark provided for his team.

He has signed Iain Russell from Livingston but believes the players who were Clark’s team-mates last term are more than capable of taking up the slack.

And when you consider the Dumfries outfit scored 110 goals in all competitions – 92 of them in the league – the reason for his confidence becomes clearer.

He said: “It’s not easy for us replacing him but we did score more than 100 goals in the season that’s just ended so it’s not as if one player makes a team. Nicky’s 41 goals were crucial but we scored another 60-odd as well.

“However, he has been a major part of our team this year and we have to make sure we bring in a goalscorer and that other people step up to the plate and accept the challenge of scoring more.

“We’ve brought in one striker, Russell, and are looking for another.

“We’ve re-signed Derek Lyle and Gavin Reilly, so I’ve got three strikers already who have shown they are capable of scoring goals.”

There is a quiet confidence about next season and it is founded upon the way Queens have handled higher league opposition since he came to the club.

He said: “We won the Ramsdens Cup, while competing against teams from Division One and beating Morton and Thistle, who fought for the title all season, so that obviously gives us confidence.

“But more than that, we’ve played and beaten Hibs 2-0 at home. We lost 1-0 to Dundee United but deserved something out of the game. We lost 2-1 to Kilmarnock at Rugby Park when we had a man sent off after just two minutes.

“So, even playing against SPL teams, nobody has beaten us by more than a goal and I’m sure the boys have nothing to fear if they’ve got the same work ethic as they’ve shown this year.

“We were named the SFL team of the year, which is a brilliant achievement for a Second Division club and it was a real team effort.

“We didn’t concede a lot of goals either. Our goals against record was the best of any team in any league in the country and that is something we are proud of.

“All the credit has gone to our strikers because of the number of goals we’ve scored but the way our defence performed was nothing short of outstanding and played a massive part in the success we had.

“It has been a team effort and not just about individuals.”

There will be another change at Palmerston next season as the club has decided to rip up the grass and go with a synthetic surface.

The fact Johnston and his chairman Billy Hewitson travelled to Warsaw a fortnight ago to look at a state-of-the-art 3G pitch speaks volumes for the club’s professionalism and the manager believes it was a worthwhile trip.

He said: “We have been on grass but are changing to a synthetic surface.

“The chairman and I were over in Warsaw looking at the one we will be using and it is excellent.

“It will suit our style of football. We’ll be playing on one that is similar to the one Forfar used and we did well on that this season. It is one of the newest ones available and it is good quality.”

The pitch may be synthetic but Johnston is well on the way to proving he is the real thing in the world of football management.