Next Scotland Manager Mk II

[Jambomo]

Even Jim Delahunt was critical of McLeish’s involvement. That is how wrong this is.

[the jambo-rocker]

McLeish genuinely looks unwell, like he's suffering from dementia or something, so at the very least I'm glad that mental health awareness in Scotland will be getting a shot in the arm over the coming months.

[Virtual Insanity]

It is very clearly desperate and backwards, the former in as much as we have been in a mess for months hopelessly flailing about for anyone to come near the job, and the latter as a matter of fact. 

It might still work out, but it's a seriously uninspiring appointment. I'd be underwhelmed if he was taking the Thistle job, never mind the Scotland one. Nevertheless, his performance last time was objectively good, albeit short and finishing in disappointing circumstances. Here's hoping he can do it again. 

[forkboy]

1 hour ago, sergie's no1 fan said:

To be fair to McLeish, you can't take anything away from that win in Paris. Aye France didn't play to their best but we were incredible that night, to a man.

Probably the best win in our International history?

Still doesn't mean he should get the job this time round. The way i see it is he is not an upgrade on Gordon Strachan.



 

Recent history aye, but I'd find it hard to put it over either the Wembley Wizards in 1928 or the win over England in '67. Or the '78 World Cup win over the Dutch who'd go to the finals.

Not that there's a lot to choose from really.

[Jan Vojáček]

I've had a wee bit of time to think about it, so here's my take.

McLeish probably isn't a bad manager, and seems like a decent enough guy. If that was the only criteria we were looking for though then there are literally hundreds of other names who would be more inspiring. It's the sort of painfully predictable appointment that we all knew, deep down, was coming. After he's gone it'll be someone else equally as predictable (Lambert probably) and this cycle will go on until someone is brave enough to change it.

If the only former footballer on the panel did suggest Bielsa, yet everyone else said McKay or McLeish, then that tells a story.

Ultimately I don't really care, as long as it wasn't McKay. The national team means very little to me, and qualifying or not for three extra games a summer doesn't matter anywhere near as much as club football. It's just a shame that this appointment doesn't change my feelings even slightly. 

[MJC]

15 minutes ago, nsr said:

Regardless of his ability as a manager, can anyone see the SFA having the balls to appoint someone so hated by the sons of Attila?

Yes because the Govan mob absolutely adored Strachan didn't they?

[Crilly]

11 hours ago, ravabelli said:

Uninspiring appointment, typical Scottish football merry-go-round, same old, same old. No wonder we're miles behind, nothing ever changes and we live in the past

Aye thats it exactly.  One step forward and one step back. 

[jagfox]

10 hours ago, Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo said:

He paid 6 figures for Andy Roddie.

Just let that sink in.

[Guest JTS98]

I don't really see the problem, to be honest.

McLeish has a decent cv as a manager. Good spells with Motherwell and Hibs, leagues, cups and a decent run in Europe with Rangers, won a cup in England. That's pretty strong. Of course there have been failures, but all managers have them and I'm sure they'll each have taught him something.

Also, who else were we going to get? Lennon is way too divisive a figure in Scottish football. Steve Clarke has very little experience as a number one. Malky Mackay? John Jughes? Gary Caldwell? This is the level of person who was interested in the job.

Many people are saying the SFA should have looked abroad. Ok, looked to who? What high-level, on-the-rise foreign coach in his right mind would consider the Scotland job just now?

McLeish isn't particularly exciting, but he's not a disaster either. He's a reflection of where you end up after two decades of utter failure.

[nsr]

40 minutes ago, MJC said:

Yes because the Govan mob absolutely adored Strachan didn't they?

You would know better about that, but I doubt they held him in the same contempt they do Lennon.

[forameus]

1 hour ago, Jambomo said:

Even Jim Delahunt was critical of McLeish’s involvement. That is how wrong this is.

He wanted O'Neill to get it though, so they could both have a bevvy and have a joyride.

[forameus]

17 minutes ago, JTS98 said:

Also, who else were we going to get? Lennon is way too divisive a figure in Scottish football. Steve Clarke has very little experience as a number one. Malky Mackay? John Jughes? Gary Caldwell? This is the level of person who was interested in the job.

Many people are saying the SFA should have looked abroad. Ok, looked to who? What high-level, on-the-rise foreign coach in his right mind would consider the Scotland job just now?

It's probably partly that attitude that meant they didn't approach anyone.  That and Berti.  I refuse to believe that we can't offer a financial package to attract a manager.  And I refuse to believe that we're somehow this irreversible no-hope basket-case that no-one would touch with a barge-pole.  We haven't qualified in 20 years, yet we've come particularly close on a few occasions.  If I was a football manager, and the SFA actually decided to stump up an attractive amount of cash (which, let's face it, they've got, even if they refuse to spend it) then I wouldn't see it as a particularly difficult project.  

Worst case, they achieve the same as we've done in 20 years, and leave with their pockets suitably filled.  Get that extra 10% out of a slightly limited squad, and he'll be the first manager to take us to a tournament, and he can suddenly do no wrong.  It's just the usual self-loathing to believe that we're that bad.  It's purely the SFA's fault that they didn't look further afield.

[MJC]

10 minutes ago, nsr said:

You would know better about that, but I doubt they held him in the same contempt they do Lennon.

I don't know any more than the next non-Rangers fan, but I'd hazard a guess they didn't like him, which kind of blows your theory that the SFA wouldn't have the balls to hire someone that Rangers fans dislike straight out of the water.

This would be the same SFA who also wouldn't have the balls to allow Scott Brown, the Celtic captain and serial troller of the Rangers fans, to captain Scotland, would it? 

[jagfox]

I just remembered the last time I went to see Scotland, McLeish was in charge of a 3-1 win over Ukraine.

This was apparently our 6th win in a row. All went sour a little after that.

I suppose the clutching at straws scenario is that Eck carries on the unbeaten run using the squad that Gordon built into 2018. The worry within that is that he doesn't blood any of the younger players on the fringes.

Overall in someways International football can be a simpler game due to the limited time spent with players and a lot of it comes down to man management and motivating the squad. Maybe, just maybe Big Eck ticks those boxes?

 

[Guest JTS98]

3 minutes ago, forameus said:

It's probably partly that attitude that meant they didn't approach anyone.  That and Berti.  I refuse to believe that we can't offer a financial package to attract a manager.  And I refuse to believe that we're somehow this irreversible no-hope basket-case that no-one would touch with a barge-pole.  We haven't qualified in 20 years, yet we've come particularly close on a few occasions.  If I was a football manager, and the SFA actually decided to stump up an attractive amount of cash (which, let's face it, they've got, even if they refuse to spend it) then I wouldn't see it as a particularly difficult project.  

Worst case, they achieve the same as we've done in 20 years, and leave with their pockets suitably filled.  Get that extra 10% out of a slightly limited squad, and he'll be the first manager to take us to a tournament, and he can suddenly do no wrong.  It's just the usual self-loathing to believe that we're that bad.  It's purely the SFA's fault that they didn't look further afield.

1) How do you know they didn't approach anyone?

2) Not many on-the-rise managers are interested in managing national teams these days. Look at the difficulty England had in finding someone. The FA could pay as much as they like, they still ended up with Allardyce followed by Southgate. It's not easy to get people to do these jobs, especially a job like Scotland that is relatively low-profile and a high chance of 'failure'.

3) Any names?

[nsr]

5 minutes ago, MJC said:

I don't know any more than the next non-Rangers fan, but I'd hazard a guess they didn't like him, which kind of blows your theory that the SFA wouldn't have the balls to hire someone that Rangers fans dislike straight out of the water.

This would be the same SFA who also wouldn't have the balls to allow Scott Brown, the Celtic captain and serial troller of the Rangers fans, to captain Scotland, would it? 

I guess that depends if it's possible to hate two people with differing amounts of hate. Do you think that's possible?

[Dunning1874]

I'd like to focus on the SFA here rather than McLeish. It's clear they didn't have any fallback option in the event of O'Neill turning them down, but even at that the lack of imagination on their part has been absolutely startling.

O'Neill doesn't want it? Oh f**k, we better ask Walter 'Walter' Smith.

Walter doesn't want it? Oh f**k, we better ask Alex McLeish.

What if McLeish didn't want it? Were they going to ask George Burley again?

Seemingly the only dissenting voices within the SFA to this approach were those who wanted Malky Mackay instead. The mind boggles. Even discounting the well publicised 'issues' around Mackay, it says a lot about how seriously some take the position of Performance Director, a role which should ostensibly be as important as the manager and should be even longer-term. That role badly needs someone to get in it and stay in it to provide some stability after the previous two holders departed in quick succession, but it seems that some on the board and even the man in the post himself view it as merely a placeholder for someone to be lined up for the managerial job. That would certainly explain why they appointed someone with absolutely no qualifications for it in the first place.

The whole situation is an utter shambles. My usual feeling when people jump on a bandwagon of 'we need to get rid of short-term thinking, get all the blazers out and reform everything' is that it's reactionary, knee-jerk nonsense which is itself short-term thinking. You can't tear up the whole structure of the professional game and start again every single time something goes wrong with the national team, while throwing around tabloid buzzwords like blazers or beaks just betrays a Keith Jackson level of understanding of the issues at hand. However, it's getting increasingly difficult to escape the conclusion that everyone on the board needs to be fired directly into the sun.

The concern is that if the current situation does lead us down the road of reform when a new Chief Executive is in place, it's going to be the wrong kind of reform. We're already simultaneously getting noises in the media about the role of Chief Executive being more like a figurehead with too little power so they need to be given more control, but at the same time saying the SFA aren't accountable enough to clubs. The tone of that BBC article on Lawwell the other day gives me the fear that there's going to be a drive towards reform that ostensibly gives the Chief Executive more influence over the direction of the SFA, but in reality just concentrates even more power in the hands of bigger clubs at the expense of smaller clubs.

Taken in tandem with suggestions of a merger or at least a closer working relationship between the SFA & SPFL, I'm seeing a dystopian vision of 2020 where after yet another failure to qualify which has absolutely nothing to do with the structure of the domestic game and absolutely everything to do with the national team having the wrong manager, the usual suspects declare that Something Must Be Done. This time these calls come in a world where SFA Chief Executive Jackie McNamara has the power to force through sweeping changes like an enhanced Project Brave or the absolute abomination of an idea that is Colt Teams in the league set-up, with the clubs who will suffer as a result powerless to stop it; not content with the national team going further and further into the mire, they'll drag the domestic game down with it.

That's obviously an overly dramatic worst case scenario, but it's fair to say I am shitting myself. If nothing else, the next couple of years are going to be very interesting.

[forameus]

6 minutes ago, JTS98 said:

1) How do you know they didn't approach anyone?

2) Not many on-the-rise managers are interested in managing national teams these days. Look at the difficulty England had in finding someone. The FA could pay as much as they like, they still ended up with Allardyce followed by Southgate. It's not easy to get people to do these jobs, especially a job like Scotland that is relatively low-profile and a high chance of 'failure'.

3) Any names?

I don't.  I'm only going by the SFAs usual complete distrust of anyone foreign in the job after what Berti did.  Much like you don't know they did or didn't either.  All we have is their past behaviour.  Do you think they were happy to approach them and were just knocked back?  Seems very much like they had their targets and they didn't want it.

I still stand by the job being more attractive than people realise.  I get that international jobs aren't what they perhaps once were, but to say it's some kind of poisoned chalice is just wrong.  It's certainly less of a nightmare than the England job.

10 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

Taken in tandem with suggestions of a merger or at least a closer working relationship between the SFA & SPFL, I'm seeing a dystopian vision of 2020 where after yet another failure to qualify which has absolutely nothing to do with the structure of the domestic game and absolutely everything to do with the national team having the wrong manager, the usual suspects declare that Something Must Be Done. This time these calls come in a world where SFA Chief Executive Jackie McNamara has the power to force through sweeping changes like an enhanced Project Brave or the absolute abomination of an idea that is Colt Teams in the league set-up, with the clubs who will suffer as a result powerless to stop it; not content with the national team going further and further into the mire, they'll drag the domestic game down with it.

That's obviously an overly dramatic worst case scenario, but it's fair to say I am shitting myself. If nothing else, the next couple of years are going to be very interesting.

I've cut down your post, but it's pretty much spot on.  Just wanted to expand on this part.  I fully expect this to be what happens.  I don't want it to, and I want McLeish to prove everyone wrong and lead us to the European tour that is Euro 2020.  But I can completely see us being awkward and uninspiring in the Nations League and missing out on the playoff, then getting an "ok" draw for the qualifiers, but finishing 3rd, not qualifying, then coming here on 2 years with the same tired cliches getting thrown out.  Project Brave will probably be quietly canned - if it hadn't been already - because if we're not qualifying in a few years, then what's the point?  

The only bit I'd disagree with is the "further and further into the mire" part.  We're not really sinking, we're just treading water.  If we fail to qualify, it's unlikely to be this calamitous explosing that sees us finish bottom of the group.  It's more likely to be by a couple of points, no doubt down to one poor away result.  If we really do start to drop, that's when we should really start to worry, because I have no faith in the SFA to turn that around.

[MJC]

3 minutes ago, nsr said:

I guess that depends if it's possible to hate two people with differing amounts of hate. Do you think that's possible?

Ahhh so they measure it on just how much the Rangers fans dislike the individual then? The conspiracy deepens. Maybe they've got a wee bar chart, or maybe they use a matrix system to determine it.

Of course it is possible to have differing levels of hate, but I'm still not buying your theory.

Apart from anything else, I think it is fair to say that Scott Brown is highly disliked by the Rangers support, yet he not only is allowed to captain Scotland but apparently can pick and choose the games he plays in or indeed whether he is retired or not. Then you have the several Celtic players in the current Scotland set up, not to mention the fact that the Celtic chief executive, Peter Lawwell is the most powerful man currently in Scottish football and holds a great deal of influence over the authorities AND was also at one point actively involved with the SFA on an official capacity.

Maybe I'm wrong and you are right and the reason Neil Lennon wasn't considered because the authorities didn't want to upset Rangers fans or maybe, just maybe, they thought that Alex McLeish was the better option seeing as he's been there and done it, got closer to qualification than anyone since 1998, who was there and willing to take the job and wouldn't have required paying compensation to a club and is an older man which a lot of International sides tend to favour when appointing a manager. 

I'm the last person to defend the SFA as they are barely fit to run a bath never mind a National game, but I don't think they've went wrong with this appointment.

[nsr]

Given that Celtic and Sevco exist primarily as a means of mitigating social unrest amongst the uneducated, it'd be astonishingly naive to think that isn't a factor in any major decision the SFA make.