Eck right to stay on deck
Losing heavily at home is never good.
And Alex McLeish will have been ready for the flak coming his way after a 4- 0 defeat to Belgium at Hampden on Friday night.
No one has to tell him that the glaring errors made by Scotland’s players simply can’t be repeated.
But don’t let the barrage of criticism cloud judgment on the team’s overall performance.
This isn’t a popular opinion with pundits but I believe there were positive signs for McLeish.
He’s being abused for encouraging his players to try to play their way up the pitch.
And it’s difficult to defend those tactics when three of Belgium’s goals came from dark blue shirts gifting them possession. But with this group of players at his disposal, what alternative approach should Eck take?
This isn’t like when he was last in charge of the national team a decade ago. Back then, under McLeish and Walter Smith before him, Scotland turned themselves into a solid unit.
And with the likes of Davie Weir, Stephen McManus, Christian Dailly, Gary Caldwell, Lee McCulloch and Kris Boyd in your squad, that was the right way to go.
Now? Apart from big Scott McKenna, we don’t have any players with that type of physicality.
Scotland’s best players all want to play on the deck.
McLeish needs a result against Albania tomorrow night. Nothing else will do.
If it doesn’t come he’ll rightly get it in the neck.
We have to qualify for Euro 2020. But in terms of how he’s going about it, with this set of players? That’s something he can’t be criticised for.