RIGHT CALL AND A FRESH START
Mackay made a bold decision on Rangers player and solved a problem for Scotland
WHEN the boos abated around Pittodrie, Malky Mackay offered a confident prediction. In Ryan Jack, Scotland might finally have found a solution to the right-back problem.
One of the positions where Gordon Strachan was disadvantaged, the former manager was forced to resort to improvisation.
Ikechi Anya, a winger, played against England at Wembley. Kieran Tierney, Celtic’s left-back, didn’t care for playing there.
With Callum Paterson short of match practice after a long-term injury, interim-manager Mackay studied old videos of Scotland Under-21 games and came up with a new answer. An international debut for Jack in a role he filled for Aberdeen until converting to a holding midfielder, the position he now fills for Rangers.
The identity of his new employer in Glasgow explained why a vocal section of Thursday’s 17,833 crowd booed his every touch. Born and raised in Aberdeen, the treatment of the 25-yearold ran contrary to the entire point of the night. A fresh start.
‘I thought Ryan was terrific,’ said Mackay after a 1-0 defeat to the Netherlands. ‘I thought he was calm.
‘There was a lot of debate about him concerning his sendings off, how Rangers have played, how he has played, the fact I was playing him at right-back and also the fact he was coming back to Aberdeen.
‘There was an awful lot of criticism attached to him being picked from various quarters.
‘But, again, I knew what I was going to get. He was as good a right-back as we have had at Under-21 level for years.
‘I have got a couple of coaches and one of them in particular, Campbell Money, was pushing massively for him to play there.
‘So I watched as many videos as I could of Ryan at right-back. I also watched him recently to see what he is as a player at the moment. I knew that there was a boy who would die to come and play.
‘I told him he was going to play at right-back and he said: “I will play anywhere you want, as long as I have got a Scotland strip on”. That is a good start.’
His selection as a midfielder controversial enough, the decision to field the former Aberdeen captain as right-back was a bold call for an interim manager to make.
Matt Phillips at centre-forward was another and, with Mackay ruled out of the running for the job by SFA chief Stewart Regan, it seems unlikely the experiment will be repeated.
Returning to his day job as performance director, however, Mackay hopes to forge a working relationship with the new manager. If advice is sought, he will tout Jack for an extended run at right-back.
‘The technique that he has got showed on Thursday night,’ said Mackay. ‘He is so comfortable on the ball at right-back. We had comfortable players on the ball all over the pitch. We needed that.
‘If we were going to play the way we played the other night, we needed players who were comfortable on the ball. Ryan is comfortable on the ball. ‘But he is also tenacious. That was Memphis Depay he was playing against. He was playing against top players and he was playing out of position. Did anybody get the better of him? No. Did he go and join in? Yeah. Can he handle the ball terrifically well? Yes. I was so happy for him.
‘Whether somebody else puts him there going forward is another matter, but we have had a problem at right-back.
‘Kieran Tierney going there is not the answer. He doesn’t want to be playing there, trust me.
‘Callum Paterson has been out for a year. He is ten minutes back from a torn cruciate. But maybe there is competition at right-back now.’
These decisions are no longer his to make. Publicly discarded from the selection process via an interview on talkSPORT on the morning of the game, Mackay felt there was no pressing need to choose between being the Scotland manager or the performance director. Picking a team and taking games is a parttime job, he could have done both.
For the SFA that was never an option. Sacking an unsuccessful manager while keeping him as performance director would be an awkward business. The job of pushing through Project Brave is either a full-time, important pursuit or it isn’t.
Also lurking in the background was the baggage Mackay brings from the Vincent Tan text message fall out at Cardiff.
There may be a willingness to forgive and forget one day. The evidence of social media would suggest that time is not now.
‘Who knows what happens in life,’ shrugged the Glaswegian. ‘I am delighted, proud and honoured to have not only managed the team but to have managed them to a performance like that and to have a group of players who have done their country proud in terms of the way they have played.
‘Okay, we lost 1-0, but to end up with 18 attempts at goal and for Craig Gordon to have only picked the ball out of the net once is a great testament to the group.
‘They needed to hear there was somebody in charge from the minute they arrived. They needed to hear there was a leader, somebody they were going to listen to, somebody who wasn’t a lame duck.
‘That would not have helped us. They needed clear direction. If nothing else there was clarity.’
Any disappointment at being omitted from a shortlist for the manager’s job is offset by the fact he already has an important role within the SFA.
‘I certainly know that, trust me, but everybody does,’ he added. ‘We have got to start having our youngsters qualifying for tournaments. There has to be a pathway coming through. There has to be joined-up thinking. There has to be a level of performance around about our teams that is elite level.
‘I want it to be Premier League in terms of the sports science back-up, the medical back-up, the physiotherapy back-up and the analysis back-up.’
If joined-up thinking is the order of the day, it would make sense for the performance director to be involved in the selection of the new manager.
Mackay sees a future where Scott Brown, Stuart Armstrong, Leigh Griffiths and Darren Fletcher add experience to Thursday’s youthful squad. As yet, however, the SFA have no plans to include him on the sub-committee drawing up a shortlist.