Next Scotland Manager Mk II

[HibeeJibee]

9 minutes ago, bernardblack said:

What is more embarrassing about the candidate search was that it seemed the next gaffer HAD to be scottish - following O'Neill rejecting it. 

Hughes, McLeish, Walter Smith - all Scottish but all who have done nothing of merit in the past 5 years (at least)

You also suspect O'Neill being Northern Irish, living in Edinburgh and having managed here made him "Scottish enough", tbh.

[forameus]

1 minute ago, JTS98 said:

Really?

So our 2004 campaign in which we finished a narrow second ahead of Iceland, Lithuania and the Faroes, and which included a 2-2 draw with the Faroes, a defeat in Lithuania, and a 6-0 reeming in Amsterdam was as good as beating the World Cup finalists twice, World Cup quarter finalists once, Lithuania home and away, Faroes home and away and going into the last five minutes of the campaign with a good punt at qualifying? Right enough.

McFadden missed a great chance at 1-1 v Italy. If that goes in, we got to 2008. Easily the best campaign. Unless you just want to cheaply snipe at McLeish, of course.

No, they were both as bad as each other.  Neither qualified.  Lionising McLeish as our brave manager who got us so close, then chastising Berti for effectively achieving the same thing is quite a leap.

I've not once "sniped" at McLeish either.  It's a beige appointment, but one I hope does well.  I'm not going to go as far as putting imaginary goals on his CV to boost it though.

[Guest JTS98]

2 minutes ago, wastecoatwilly said:

Sorry your totally wrong,the last time i counted we had about 15 players in the EPL eligible to play for Scotland so you would pick them first before any other players playing elsewhere?

I'm pretty sure the countries I've mentioned above have other players playing in good leagues too. The point is that they can select players regularly playing to a good level and we cannot. People get very precious about it, but winning every week in Scotland doesn't prepare Celtic players to play against good international sides. Neither does playing for Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen etc.

We're turning up with these guys in our team to play against players who routinely play in and against better sides. That's why we never qualify. Change the manager all you want (and we have, many times) and you'll see no difference (and we haven't).

[Guest JTS98]

Just now, forameus said:

No, they were both as bad as each other.  Neither qualified.  Lionising McLeish as our brave manager who got us so close, then chastising Berti for effectively achieving the same thing is quite a leap.

I've not once "sniped" at McLeish either.  It's a beige appointment, but one I hope does well.  I'm not going to go as far as putting imaginary goals on his CV to boost it though.

Nobody is putting imaginary goals anywhere. You do seem a rather obtuse individual, it must be said.

You, and another poster, suggested that Berti 2003 was closer to qualifying than McLeish 2007. This is quite false.

Anyway, we're not getting anyone better. I don't understand the rage this seems to have unleashed.

[HibeeJibee]

1 minute ago, Shandon Par said:

Berti's policy of giving a debut to any male born in Scotland between 1982-1984 certainly unearthed a few guys who'd go on to have good careers for Scotland. 

Line-up for Brown's last competitive game:

Sullivan (31)
Dailly (28), Elliott (33), Weir (31), Boyd (36)
Burley (30), Lambert (32), Matteo (27), Naysmith (23)
Hutchison (30), Dodds (32).

Subs - McNamara (28), Cameron (29), Booth (30)

Add 2-3yrs for ages come Euro 2004.

Huge rebuild.

[RandomGuy.]

17 minutes ago, JTS98 said:

Willfully harsh, in my opinion.

Georgia away we had no Brown, McCulloch, Hutton and Naysmith. All important players at the time. We could have had a penalty in the first half as well.

And the Italy game wouldn't have been irrelevant. We'd still have needed a draw.

That Georgia team was literally their U20 side, the fact you're making excuses for failing to get a point from that game suggests you're blinded in respect to McLeish, especially since you're trying to twist the failure to qualify as being unlucky against Italy. 

We only finished two points behind France. A win v Georgia was the pivotal game. 

[troopio]

2 hours ago, JTS98 said:

I respectfully disagree. Allow me to explain why.

The current Scotland squad is made up almost completely of players who either play in the Scottish League or play in the English second tier. Celtic, Hearts, Aberdeen, Hibs, Rangers, Milwall, Cardiff, Blackburn, Leeds, Hull... and we have two or three players from the English Premier League, only one of whom is at a big club. As painful as it is to say it out loud, that's a dreadful international squad.

Let's do a quick comparison with the clubs other middling European countries can pick from.

Turkey - AC Milan, Roma, Dortmund, Wolfsburg, Fenerbahce, Levante, Everton

Slovakia - Hertha Berlin (x2), Newcastle, Inter Milan, Bari, Napoli, Celta Vigo (x2).

Denmark - Monchengladbach, Sevilla, Chelsea, Udinese, Werder Bremen, Tottenham, Ajax, Bordeaux, Feyenoord, RB Leipzig, Atalanta.

Austria - Schalke, Werder Bremen, Leverkusen, West Ham, Hertha, Hoffenheim, RB Leipzig

Czech Republic - Udinese, Werder Bremen, Basel

The point is that the standard of player and Scotland coach will have at his disposal is very low, even when compared to teams we consider to be around our level internationally. The chances of success for any coach are low.

It's not as attractive a job as we'd like to think it is.

It is a cultural/social thing for me mate. With the slight exception of the Turkish League the other countries above Leagues are not as good as SPL/Championship IMO, any good young players in these countries are snapped up at a younger age by clubs in other countries. On Mainland Europe I do not think it is that big an issue for these lads to up sticks and move at a young age, it is very much a British/Cultural thing as I said as it is very rare do our younger players want to move abroad if given the chance, that's the difference.  That said, for arguments sake, does it matter if they play abroad or not?  Where you play shouldn't really matter in essence, actually playing regularly and being in form is more important.

[Guest JTS98]

1 minute ago, RandomGuy. said:

That Georgia team was literally their U20 side, the fact you're making excuses for failing to get a point from that game suggests you're blinded in respect to McLeish, especially since you're trying to twist the failure to qualify as being unlucky against Italy. 

We only finished two points behind France. A win v Georgia was the pivotal game. 

Right. So we write McLeish off because he had a bad result in a game where we had lots of important players missing, and ignore the fact that it was only a big game in the first place because he'd had such good results.

The SFA could appoint anyone and people would moan about it.

[LondonHMFC]

All well and good talking about his previous stint, but football has moved on in that relatively short amount of time. His stint at Brum until winning the League Cup was pretty impressive, since then it has got progressively worse. 

Shite choice, boring choice, and completely underwhelming. 

[RandomGuy.]

Just now, JTS98 said:

Right. So we write McLeish off because he had a bad result in a game where we had lots of important players missing, and ignore the fact that it was only a big game in the first place because he'd had such good results.

The SFA could appoint anyone and people would moan about it.

McLeish bottled a winnable game against a smaller nation (it was their youth team, claiming us missing four or five players is an excuse for losing 2-0 is fucking embarrassing), and we failed to qualify because of it. Exactly the same reason we sacked previous managers. 

That's the reason this appointment is odd and discouraging. Losing to smaller nations has always been our issue, all we've done is a hire a man who has previous for that exact issue. Nothing has changed. 

[Guest JTS98]

1 minute ago, troopio said:

It is a cultural/social thing for me mate. With the slight exception of the Turkish League the other countries above Leagues are not as good as SPL/Championship IMO, any good young players in these countries are snapped up at a younger age by clubs in other countries. On Mainland Europe I do not think it is that big an issue for these lads to up sticks and move at a young age, it is very much a British/Cultural thing as I said as it is very rare do our younger players want to move abroad if given the chance, that's the difference.  That said, for arguments sake, does it matter if they play abroad or not?  Where you play shouldn't really matter in essence, actually playing regularly and being in form is more important.

I think part of the problem is that young players here can aim to play for the old firm and then make so much money that they are basically set for life without ever having to move house. That, and the fear lots of British people have of foreign languages makes a lot of players stay at home. Young Slovak players have more to gain by going abroad. Young players from mainland Europe in general are less phased by languages etc.

I think it undoubtedly has an impact on the team. Our players don't encounter the style of football you meet at international level on a regular basis.

[Guest JTS98]

1 minute ago, RandomGuy. said:

McLeish bottled a winnable game against a smaller nation (it was their youth team, claiming us missing four or five players is an excuse for losing 2-0 is fucking embarrassing), and we failed to qualify because of it. Exactly the same reason we sacked previous managers. 

That's the reason this appointment is odd and discouraging. Losing to smaller nations has always been our issue, all we've done is a hire a man who has previous for that exact issue. Nothing has changed. 

Why was it such a big game in the first place? Or does he only get the blame for the bad result, but not the credit for the good results?

And I think you're barking up the wrong tree in blaming McLeish for the defeat to a smaller nation. We replaced him with Burley. Then Levein. Then Strachan. We kept losing these games. Maybe it's not the manager... Maybe it's always been the players...

 

[troopio]

2 minutes ago, JTS98 said:

Right. So we write McLeish off because he had a bad result in a game where we had lots of important players missing, and ignore the fact that it was only a big game in the first place because he'd had such good results.

The SFA could appoint anyone and people would moan about it.

So So So True. If there was Euros/WC for moaning we would be Champions every time.,

Have had many a heated debate with people on here over the years but one thing is clear, I hope, we ALL want the same thing and that is for our Nation to improve and prosper. I

As has been said, McLeish is a beige appointment but one thing he does have going for him is he has done the job before and knows what we all want, he wants the same as the fans. My only hope is that he tries to take the things Strachan got right and mixes it with the young talent we do have emerging. We finally seem to have some Young CB coming through finally, lets use some of them. I can handle slow progress but not if we are looking backwards by calling up the same old failures. Lets move forward.

[pub car king]

Taken a balanced look at this it's a safe sensible low risk appointment from the point of view of the sfa.

He's done the job before

70% win rate

Had the best go at qualifying for something in recent decades.

He's unemployed so cheaper.

 

The other side of the coin is that the sea are in a state of turmoil. No chief exec, potentially no ground to play in, the national game is and has been for some time in a state of terminal decline, nobody wants this job.

There needs to be wholesale changes within the game in this country the national coach is very much a temporary gig at the minute until there is a  massive overhaul from top to bottom  and to that extent decent and average managers will give it a wide berth.

 

McLeish mk2 doesn't fill me with joy or a lot of hope as above its very much a short term measure  but it could have been far worse.

[monthe blues]

I think big eck is a reasonable choice at the moment ,As clarke is being primed for the new gers post

[Scary Bear]

The main positive is he's not Malky MacKay.

The main negatives are that he's done f**k all of note since 2011, it's the kind of unadventurous appointment you would expect from the SFA and the more cretinous Sevco fans see it as some sort of validation of the protestant cause.

McLeish didn't look to be in the best of health last time I saw him, either.

Anyway, good luck Alex. Your last stint was glorious failure but qualifying from a group with the the World Cup Winner and Runner-up was always going to be a challenge for Scotland. Onwards and upwards.

[RandomGuy.]

6 minutes ago, JTS98 said:

Why was it such a big game in the first place? Or does he only get the blame for the bad result, but not the credit for the good results?

And I think you're barking up the wrong tree in blaming McLeish for the defeat to a smaller nation. We replaced him with Burley. Then Levein. Then Strachan. We kept losing these games. Maybe it's not the manager... Maybe it's always been the players...

 

He can win the big games if he wants, you don't get any extra points for it. He bottled a game away to Georgia and we lost out on qualifying because of it. 

Failing to qualify is failing to qualify. I'm not sure if beating France twice and still failing to qualify is something to boast about. 

[Barney Rubble]

In an attempt to lighten the tone, here are a couple of oddities from McLeish's last spell in charge.

Re the Georgia game - Scotland's right back that night was one G. Murty.

And Cristian Panucci is the current manager of Albania.

[SpoonTon]

Strachan's 2017 > McLeish's 2007

Neither were capable of winning their crucial away match in Georgia.

This is Craig Levein type progress. 

[Savage Henry]

In an attempt to lighten the tone, here are a couple of oddities from McLeish's last spell in charge.
Re the Georgia game - Scotland's right back that night was one G. Murty.
And Cristian Panucci is the current manager of Albania.

Not really going to improve the mood for me... I’d take either of them over McLeish.