Should Strachan Go?

[Dunning1874]

I'm all for sacking a manager if i feel we are going backwards or stagnating under him like with Levein or Burley, but for me we are still in a state of progression under Strachan, which hasn't ultimately came as fast as we wanted. The players love playing for him, he has us at least trying to play football and competing well in every game we play. There's nothing to suggest that under Strachan this team won't get better rather than worse, the same way Northern Ireland have improved drastically thanks to allowing Michael O'Neill to keep his job when they were getting pumped off shite like Luxembourg.

While we're considerably better than we were when Strachan took over, we're currently regressing. Starting with Ireland away, the performances have been significantly poorer than they were at the start of this campaign and the last few games of the World Cup qualifiers. I'd say that's a massive reason to suggest things won't get better rather than worse. It's hard to pinpoint what exactly went wrong, but something has and there's no indication based on the last few games that Strachan's turning it round. If he does stay he needs to find a way to return the team to that earlier level of performance for an entire campaign rather than half of it this time.

The standard of opposition we've had in this group is better than what Levein was up against in Euro 2012 qualifying (as a result of our seeding being destroyed by him) and despite the fourth place finish results have been better under Strachan so this isn't an open and shut case where only a complete moron would argue that the manager deserves another campaign as was the case with Levein (Regan should have been hounded out along with him for giving him another chance), but ultimately finishing below Ireland is a disastrous, abject failure.

We shouldn't be sacking a manager every single time we fail to qualify as you have to be realistic about our prospects and success can't be defined solely by qualification dependent on who we have in our group. For example, the 2008 qualifying campaign was clearly better than 2004 despite finishing a place lower, because finishing third above Ukraine was a far more difficult task than finishing second above Lithuania and Iceland. However, third place here was an entirely realistic target and our failure to achieve it is entirely down to our own incompetence.

It's all well and good to say that we couldn't control Germany's failures against Ireland, but if Ireland could take points from them why couldn't we? They conceded one goal in two games against them, we conceded five, four of which were dreadful goals to concede. We twice had a lead against Poland late in games and failed to hold it on either occasion with poor defending contributing, although we took four points from six v Ireland we again lost a really poor goal. Ireland and Poland did what was necessary against Georgia, we made a mess of it. All of that was within the manager's control, primarily by ensuring the team can defend set-pieces. Luck doesn't come into it: Ireland are just a better team despite having worse players and that's an indictment on Strachan.

Unlike Levein I'll still support Strachan if he does stay on as there is at least hope that we can compete and improve again now whereas there was none with Levein - we're not favourites for second but it's still a realistic target for the next campaign, we've moved up a pot in seeding to get this draw and it was Strachan who put us there with the initial improvement under him so he might be able to get the same improvement again - but if he isn't offered a new contract he's really got no grounds for complaint.

he's brought through new talent in the form of Anya and Ritchie, who have made significant contributions and should play a part in squads up to 2020 at least.

Ritchie has been absolutely diabolical and I won't be sorry if he's never capped again.

[Monkey Tennis]

It's all well and good to say that we couldn't control Germany's failures against Ireland, but if Ireland could take points from them why couldn't we? They conceded one goal in two games against them, we conceded five, four of which were dreadful goals to concede. We twice had a lead against Poland late in games and failed to hold it on either occasion with poor defending contributing, although we took four points from six v Ireland we again lost a really poor goal. Ireland and Poland did what was necessary against Georgia, we made a mess of it. All of that was within the manager's control, primarily by ensuring the team can defend set-pieces. Luck doesn't come into it: Ireland are just a better team despite having worse players and that's an indictment on Strachan.

That's spot on.

There's an assumption that the big powerful nation will take maximum points these days.

It's not a reasonable one, because although it sometimes happens, it very often doesn't. It's not our bad luck that our rivals got results against Germany - it's simply to their credit.

I don't hold with the wisdom that says we did well against Germany. We did ok over there, but conceded a very poor winner soon after getting back into it. Over here, despite the scoreline, Germany absolutely horsed us and would have scored more if necessary.

Goergia away was clearly disastrous, but if we continue to 'challenge' the big boys as sacrificial lambs, we'll lose out to the sides alongside us in future too.

[The Shark]

Definitely should stay for me.

He's made some mistakes with team selections in the few games before the Poland game but what manager doesn't, and his team selection against Poland was vindicated although i didn't agree with his subs.

When the draw was made no one could envisage that our rivals would take 3+4 points off the World Champions. It wasn't even factored into anyone's thinking that Ireland would get 4 points off of them.

Ironically enough we actually played better against the Germans in both games than Poland did in their win, and Ireland did in their two games against him, but we gave away sloppy goals to them and it ended up costing us.

The Georgia game was poor, but we've competed in every single match and it's been fine lines between success and failure. We competed as well as could be expected against Germany, we were 10 seconds from getting 4 points from Poland which everyone would have taken, and took 4 points from Ireland which everyone would have taken.

Strachan was also unlucky that over the past few games he's been going into them with key players completely out of form at their clubs. Brown, Steven Fletcher and Naismith to name just three key players from this campaign were all way of their best club form when it came to the Georgia and Germany games, and it wasn't until after that that Naismith finally got a go in the Everton team, and it wasn't until last weekend that Fletcher got some confidence at Sunderland.

I'm all for sacking a manager if i feel we are going backwards or stagnating under him like with Levein or Burley, but for me we are still in a state of progression under Strachan, which hasn't ultimately came as fast as we wanted. The players love playing for him, he has us at least trying to play football and competing well in every game we play. There's nothing to suggest that under Strachan this team won't get better rather than worse, the same way Northern Ireland have improved drastically thanks to allowing Michael O'Neill to keep his job when they were getting pumped off shite like Luxembourg.

What other self-respecting football country would hang onto a manager who has, when you look at stats, group position, performances, failed to deliver. Take Gibraltar out of the equation, 1-0 wins against Georgia and Ireland? Come on. It's just not there. And so what if the players like him. Big deal. Their job is to do what they're told by whoever is in charge and if they don't like it they can f**k off. Plenty more would take their place. Look at the Dutch. Hardly the most harmonious dressing room, but despite having a shit campaign they'll likely get a play-off spot and qualify - and if they don't it'll be bye bye to the manager. Strachan has had a campaign and a half and we're still at the same level. SFA reappointed Levein then binned him four games too late. It's time to act. And this mince that Dalglish is spouting about nobody better? Really? You mean there isn't another managerial one/two in the world better than what we have just now? Keep your nonsense for the 19th hole Kenny, legend or no legend.

[Lex]

I'm not overly critical of Strachan's squad selections. He clearly has some misplaced loyalty to his former Celtic players Brown and Forrest, but apart from that his team selections were largely okay. It's not as if the alternatives are clearly better or anything.

However, for us to qualify for any major tournament, we need to be more than the sum of our parts. ,Many national teams are. Northern Ireland for example, Republic too, their squads are both weaker than ours but they have been managed well and the as a result is they get results that would seem above them.

The question is, have we been more than the sum of our parts this campaign? The answer is clearly no. If we are going to qualify for Russia we need to finish above both Slovenia and Slovakia (teams who have both been to a major finals more recently than us) and also win a two legged playoff. I'm giving us no chance of finishing above England incidentally. To finish above both those decent teams and to win a two legged playoff against another decent team we are going to need to perform way above the sum of our parts.

Strachan hasn't got us doing that. We need to take a gamble that there is another manager out there can get us doing that. Giving Strachan a new contract would basically be accepting that not even nearly qualifying is good enough for Scotland these days.

Having grew up in the 90's - a decade when Scotland qualified for 4 out of 5 major tournaments - the seeming acceptance by some Scotland fans these days of the normality of not qualifying is a sad indictment of how much we have declined. I suppose it's understandable in a way, there's Scotland fans in their 20's who have no memory of us ever playing in a major tournament, scary stuff. If we are going to break this cycle of failure we need to think outside the box with the next appointment. A proven foreign manager coming in with a clean slate, no favourites and no preconceived ideas or biases to any player or group of players is the way to go.

[MarkoRaj]

Why?Who do you suggest ?

You honestly think Neil would take the job?

[ShawfieldAggro]

Well we have heard all about this 'who else is there' since Broon was in the job, when it appeared Alex Miller was the logical successor, but its certainly not an argument with water any longer. A large number of succesful international managers are essentially career number 2s.....del Bosque, Loew, Lagerback, Jacquet, even wur ain aforementioned Broon....and without the onus on signing players, or many other club managerial duties, their main on-field issues concern which players are available and how to train them. Stevie Clarke falls into this category. Other managers are available currently, who could provide a new direction....Lambert an obvious candidate, Moyes perhaps could be tempted home with the prospect of building a legacy. On foreign names, i dont really believe whats on.offer and the employers' current status would see a baying queue forming at the door, but these are not reasons to just continue as they are. Fourth would have been acceptable (as a final outcome, but certainly not as a target) had we been blown out the water by our immediate rivals, but the attitude displayed to up to half the fixtures in qualifying left us in the position we find ourselves and that is down to one man and one man only.

[Unleash The Nade]

You honestly think Neil would take the job?

You asked me a question and I answered it

Whether he'd take it not is another matter

So, I'll ask my question again

Who do you suggest ?

[MarkoRaj]

You asked me a question and I answered it

Whether he'd take it not is another matter

So, I'll ask my question again

Who do you suggest ?

Strachan

[Unleash The Nade]

Strachan[/quote

Fair enough

I think who ever has the job ( Strachan or I otherwise), really needs to start bringing in younger players now.

We see to wait until it's either too close to qualifications for a major tournament or wait until it's started then come up the the same old excuse that " Now's not the time to introduce youngsters " , or " It's not fair to bring in young players at this stage "

If they're good enough, they're old enough

[Doc Sportello]

Ritchie has been absolutely diabolical and I won't be sorry if he's never capped again.

He was our best player on Thursday.

[Cannon Fodder]

Hopefully he stays. The SFA should be doing all they can to keep him.

He clearly has the backing of the players and that is good enough for me. Football fans have a tendency to over react and the truth is we are performing better than we have in previous campaigns and we haven't been too far away. Fine margins an all.

I think the fact that we'll likely be the only home nation sitting watching it all on TV next summer is making this even more hard to take and frankly a bit embarrassing.

Failure to get out of the group in the next qualifiers would seal his fate but he deserves another chance.

[Monkey Tennis]

Hopefully he stays. The SFA should be doing all they can to keep him.

He clearly has the backing of the players and that is good enough for me. Football fans have a tendency to over react and the truth is we are performing better than we have in previous campaigns and we haven't been too far away. Fine margins an all.

I think the fact that we'll likely be the only home nation sitting watching it all on TV next summer is making this even more hard to take and frankly a bit embarrassing.

Failure to get out of the group in the next qualifiers would seal his fate but he deserves another chance.

On what basis does he deserve another chance?

Seriously, other than wanting continuity for its own sake, or pointing to the absence of obvious successors, there's virtually nothing positive that can be said in Strachan's favour.

Whether the players want him or not, he's not been able to get the best from them remotely consistently.

I don't have clear idea of who I think should take over, but that in itself is not a good enough reason to leave someone who has demonstrably failed in the job, still in it.

[Cannon Fodder]

On what basis does he deserve another chance? Seriously, other than wanting continuity for its own sake, or pointing to the absence of obvious successors, there's virtually nothing positive that can be said in Strachan's favour.Whether the players want him or not, he's not been able to get the best from them remotely consistently. I don't have clear idea of who I think should take over, but that in itself is not a good enough reason to leave someone who has demonstrably failed in the job, still in it.

I already said my reasons in previous post. We have performed better than in previous campaigns and seems to have the backing of the players.

In the end we haven't been good enough, but to be fair there isn't a great deal between ourselves, Ireland and Poland. We've just come up a ball hair short.

I don't think that warrants binning the manager.

[Monkey Tennis]

I already said my reasons in previous post. We have performed better than in previous campaigns and seems to have the backing of the players.

In the end we haven't been good enough, but to be fair there isn't a great deal between ourselves, Ireland and Poland. We've just come up a ball hair short.

I don't think that warrants binning the manager.

It's actually a push to say that we've been better than in previous campaigns. The evidence is scarce.

The fact that there's little between us, the Irish and the Poles, yet we're well adrift of both, is hardly a ringing endorsement of our current manager now, is it?

[accies1874]

There's usually a player that emerges over the course of a campaign yet there has been nothing of the sort this campaign. If anything folk have gone backwards (Anya and Robertson have appeared to do so) and I think Strachan has to take most of the responsibility for that.

[Gordopolis]

There's usually a player that emerges over the course of a campaign yet there has been nothing of the sort this campaign. If anything folk have gone backwards (Anya and Robertson have appeared to do so) and I think Strachan has to take most of the responsibility for that.

Aye, Anya has been a strange case. We haven't seen a token burst of pace from him in the last 5 qualifiers (well there was that one in Georgia where he had the guy on toast then shat out of it and checked back)

[Savage Henry]

Aye, Anya has been a strange case. We haven't seen a token burst of pace from him in the last 5 qualifiers (well there was that one in Georgia where he had the guy on toast then shat out of it and checked back)

I suspect we rather caught lightening in a bottle in his first few games. He's really not played well since then.

[Gordopolis]

I suspect we rather caught lightening in a bottle in his first few games. He's really not played well since then.

Yeah I remember you saying that before. But surely his pace is still there? I'd guess it was more a confidence thing, i.e. how and when to use his speed? Maybe playing with Scotland has beaten all that initial chirpiness out of him

[Cannon Fodder]

It's actually a push to say that we've been better than in previous campaigns. The evidence is scarce.The fact that there's little between us, the Irish and the Poles, yet we're well adrift of both, is hardly a ringing endorsement of our current manager now, is it?

Well if you're looking for a ringing endorsement, I don't have one. But my point is that the campaign has been far from a disaster that some people would have you believe. We are not far away and I don't see the need for change.

[ShawfieldAggro]

There's usually a player that emerges over the course of a campaign yet there has been nothing of the sort this campaign. If anything folk have gone backwards (Anya and Robertson have appeared to do so) and I think Strachan has to take most of the responsibility for that.

He can hardly be held accountable for a players personal regression at his club side....he can however look elsewhere for suitable options. In the case of both players, left back and wide right are probably the two most-staffed positions at the standard both those players are at among Scottish players in England.