IT’S FERGIE TIME
O’Neill was allowed to hire Roy Keane for the Irish.
If he asks for Ryan Giggs or Paul Scholes then give him them too. Let him do exactly as he pleases and put in place around him a team of young thrusters who can take care of the day-to-day stuff on the training ground.
After they’ve collectively qualified for Euro 2020 then Ferguson can step back into retirement and, if he so chooses, decide which of them should be promoted in his place.
Mind you, given his track record of appointing his own successor, perhaps this may be one promise too far.
When Ferguson hand-picked David Moyes for the Manchester United job it set in motion a chain of events so unfortunate his successor’s reputation has never recovered. That’s a shame for Moyes whose excellent work at Everton is now largely forgotten.
Today Moyes might be available and willing to take on the Scotland role but, unfortunately for him, the very last thing the national team needs right now is a leader who suffers from being so prolifically accident prone.
If Ferguson can’t be persuaded into doing his bit for the country then Moyes should not necessarily be seen as the next in line to the throne. When they tried it at Old Trafford it was like swapping the Godfather for Uncle Albert.
And while we’re on the subject of bad ideas, wasn’t it a relief to wake yesterday and discover Sam Allardyce had ruled himself out of the running? How very kind of him.
The concern here is McRae, Stewart Regan and Rod Petrie might well have looked admiringly south and fluttered their eyelids at this man who was, coincidently enough, England’s choice as manager for the Brexit generation.
And look how that turned out. No, the very idea of replacing Wee Gordon with Big Sam sounded like a bad plot twist from a 70s sitcom, the sort that ends in hilarious consequences.
There’s nothing remotely funny about the situation Scotland are in and the fact the SFA make the Tories look like shrewd operators makes our managerless plight all the more frightening.
The answer to their problems is staring them in the face. The answer is Sir Alex Ferguson.
All they have to do is ask him the question.
After all, if this entire Brexit fiasco has taught us anything, then it’s surely if you don’t ask you don’t get.