them at risk of relegation. Defeats in the bottom half for Hibernian led Butcher to cancel players' day-off. Further defeats to Ross County and Kilmarnock placed Hibernian eleventh place and facing the play-offs to keep their Premiership place. On 25 May 2014 Hibernian were relegated to the Scottish Championship, losing a two-leg playoff against Hamilton Academical. After the match, Butcher described Hibernian relegation as his "darkest day in football". Butcher was criticised by James McPake, who Butcher replaced as captain with Liam Craig, for not selecting him to play despite being fit. After a meeting with new chief executive Leeann Dempster to discuss Hibs' future plans, Butcher was sacked by the club on 10 June 2014. There were also rumours of Butcher losing the dressing room and then asking players to leave the club in the January transfer window, only to use them to help the club survive relegation. Butcher interviewed for the vacant managerial position at Motherwell in December 2014, but then asked not to be considered for the position. Newport County On 30 April 2015 Butcher was appointed manager of Welsh club Newport County in League Two on a two-year contract. He took up the role at the end of the 2014–15 season in preparation for the following season, but was sacked on 1 October 2015 with Newport bottom of League Two after gaining just five points from the first ten matches of the season. Philippines On 14 June 2018, Butcher was announced as the new head coach of the Philippines. In 2016, he almost got appointed as head coach of Global Cebu which was set to play in the inaugural edition of the Philippines Football League, but the club favoured Japanese coach Toshiaki Imai instead. He was due to lead the Philippines national team in the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, but on 2 August 2018, he announced that he will not take the role as head coach of the national team because he did not believe the system is in place for his time in charge of the Philippines to be successful. His assistant coach, Scott Cooper took over his post and take charge of the team's 2019 Asian Cup preparations. Guangzhou R&F On 26 July 2019 it was confirmed, that Butcher had joined the coaching staff of Chinese club Guangzhou R&F to help fix the teams leaky defence. He was hired as a defensive coach. Return