A LEGEND CUT DOWN TO SIZE
Sad end for an icon of our game undone by his own mistakes
FOR Gordon Strachan, watching the neighbours through twitching curtains proved a horrible business in the end. Scotland’s former manager could point to six World Cup qualifiers unbeaten and promise jam tomorrow. He could remind everyone time and again that Scotland is a small nation full of small footballers.
But Iceland, Northern Ireland and the Republic are hardly footballing behemoths. And all three could be in Russia next summer while the Tartan Army watches it all unfold on telly. Again.
A career like Strachan’s really shouldn’t finish like this. He won five Scottish titles in all; two as an Aberdeen player, three as manager of Celtic. There were four Scottish Cups, a European Cup Winners’ Cup and a Super Cup. He captained Leeds United to the old First Division title in 1992.
He was an icon long before he stuck his leg over that advertising hoarding after scoring against West Germany in the 1986 World Cup finals in Mexico. And he has since proven himself a fine, decent football manager with a CV far better than potential successors.
As manager of Wales, Chris Coleman managed one point less than Strachan’s Scotland racked up in a qualifying group featuring England. While the Welsh FA try everything to persuade Coleman to stay on, Strachan leaves office after two failed campaigns... criticism ringing in his ears after an ill-advised venture into the thorny subject of human genetics.
If the new Scotland boss manages anything like 14 points from his first possible 18 when qualifying gets under way for Euro 2020, he won’t be chased from his job in ridicule. He’ll be granted his own stud farm.
Shining through the sadness and regret, though, is a stark truth. The end had come. Against Slovenia last Sunday night, Strachan’s card was marked.
After the fine win over Slovakia, stubborn loyalty to old favourites finally proved his undoing. Amidst the footballing public, a narrative has begun to form. Scotland did have the players to secure a place in the World Cup play-offs.
The manager simply chose not to play them.
‘As a national manager you can’t buy players,’ said Strachan’s former Scotland team-mate Graeme Souness.
‘You don’t have a lot of time to really influence them. You can only play what’s out there and, right now, Scotland don’t have a great group to pick from.’
Amongst former pros there is a typical reluctance to criticise in these situations; an omerta which comes over the most opinionated ‘football people’.
It falls to the rest of us, then, to ask a few ‘what if’ questions.
l What if Leigh Griffiths had started those opening games of the campaign, when the Scots drew at home with Lithuania and slumped in Slovakia?
lWhat if the manager had stuck with James Forrest in Ljubljana instead of changing a formation which seemed to be working perfectly well?
l What if Scott Brown and Stuart Armstrong had been fit for the final two games? Their loss was a savage blow and it’s fair now to draw a conclusion. How Strachan dealt with their absence pretty much cost him his job.
No one will ever know if throwing on John McGinn and Callum McGregor as late substitutes in Ljubljana might have made a difference to the final result.
Neither has extensive international experience and the stakes were high. But fielding McGinn, McGregor — and Forrest — would have played well with fans. It might even have saved Strachan’s job by offering evidence of a manager open to change and new ideas.
Instead, the former Celtic boss reverted to some old habits. A resistance to populism is admirable in a way. But if a manager is hellbent on setting himself against the will of fans, he had better be winning games. Or else.
As in the opening three or four games — when the real damage was done — he turned not to McGregor or McGinn.
But to Ikechi Anya first. Then came Robert Snodgrass and, finally, Steven Fletcher. Of the three, only Anya had enjoyed so much as a sniff in the most recent internationals. Turning to the players who landed Scotland in a qualifying mess in the first place proved, for many, the final straw.
‘The professional in him will think we should have qualified,’ added Souness. ‘We should have finished second in this group and we didn’t.
‘If there was any criticism, he would be the first to say that as well.
‘As a group, we could have finished second. Of course he will get criticism because he is a football manager full-stop, like every football manager does. Tactics, formations, etc.
‘But I wouldn’t be critical of Gordon. He did a good job with what he had to work with.’
Before the flight to Slovenia, Strachan made some big, unpopular calls in a 1-0 win over Slovakia. That night, at least, they worked. Afterwards some of us felt that he had earned the right to decide his own future unless the trip to Ljubljana ended in a bad defeat.
A 2-2 draw in the Stozice Stadium wasn’t that. But it certainly felt like one.
Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is repeating the same mistakes over and over in the hope of a different result. A Scotland campaign which began with the wrong players on the field effectively ended the same way. The wheel turned full circle.
After two failed campaigns, the SFA could not allow the same mistakes to happen a third time. In contrast with the debate over
the manager’s future last November, there was no split vote this time.
Unelected SFA president Alan McRae and vice-president Rod Petrie are loyal to the departed manager. But the loyalty could never be blind.
The League of Nations qualifying stage for Euro 2020 will pitch the Scots in a Group C pool lacking glamour or big names. The job of selling out Hampden will be hard enough without an unpopular manager at the helm.
And yet, underpinning all of this is an old saying. Be careful what you wish for. If Strachan wasn’t the perfect Scotland manager, he was the ultimate case of the devil you know.
Runners and riders for the job will start jockeying now. Yet the list is underwhelming.
David Moyes was damaged by events at Sunderland. Alex McLeish had a 70-per-cent win rate during a previous spell in charge; but that was ten years ago. Paul Lambert? See David Moyes. Billy Davies might fancy it. Michael O’Neill has popular support after doing an outstanding job with Northern Ireland and lives in Edinburgh. But how much would he cost? Lars Lagerback and other overseas candidates will inevitably crop up.
‘I know someone mentioned Sam (Allardyce),’ added Souness. ‘But I just think there are good Scotsmen who could do the job and there are some fabulous Scottish candidates.’
Malky Mackay is one of them. The SFA performance director will be asked to take the team on an interim basis, with a friendly against unnamed opposition pencilled in for November 9.
Joint favourite for the top job with the bookies, Mackay has one key advantage the others don’t. He’s already in the building.