Gordon Strachan on why he isn’t quitting the Scotland job –
Following some reflection and a catch-up on lost sleep, manager is looking towards Wembley. By Stewart Fisher
GORDON Strachan is staying with Scotland because he feels he is the best man to lead the national team to a famous result against England in next month’s World Cup qualifier .
Speaking after a week in which his position as manager has been subjected to the severest scrutiny, the 59-year-old said his determination to lead his country remained as strong as ever. With his paymasters at the Scottish Football Association solidly behind him, Strachan insists he doesn’t fear being sacked, merely letting down the players, staff and fans with a second successive qualifying failure.
Despite drawing 1-1 at home with Lithuania, then crashing 3-0 to Slovakia in Trnava on Tuesday, Scotland trail group leaders England by just three points ahead of the Wembley clash, and a win could transform hopes of reaching Russia in 2018.
“I’m really looking forward to Wembley and I think I’m the best man to go down there with the group of lads I’ve got to get a result,” Strachan said. “I’ve got to say I love this job. I love working with the people, I love bumping into supporters and I get a great response. I love dealing with my backroom staff, with the SFA staff. It’s a fantastic, fantastic job.
“Do I fear the sack? No I don’t. I’m 59, I’m all right, I have loads to do in my life. I’ve been so lucky in football to get to places people dream of.
“Do I fear not working with these players? Yes. Do I fear not working with the staff? Yes. My thoughts are, ‘How do we get these players, this staff, these fans, everybody to a tournament?’. My only fear is not being able to achieve and help people get somewhere that I know is a fantastic place to be.”
TScotland manager was sleepless in Slovakia. After a sombre flight back from Bratislava to Glasgow in the wake of Scotland’s 3-0 defeat in Trnava, Gordon Strachan and his wife Lesley picked up the car at 3.15am and drove cross country through the gathering light to attend the funeral of a friend.
Thirty-six hours in all had elapsed by the time Strachan finally got some decent rest and was able to consider the ramifications of it all. He reached the conclusion that World Cup qualification wasn’t impossible for Scotland just yet and resolved to stay on. This isn’t a one-match deal but the meeting with the Auld Enemy on November 11 already appears seismic – not just for both teams but for the occupants of both technical areas.
“It goes through your mind, for the next day or so, but you have to be careful,” said Strachan. “As with any traumatic experience you have to sit back and let the tiredness go away, the disappointment go away. I had had no sleep for 36 hours. Since Tuesday night, Wednesday morning, that has been the sequence of how my brain has been turning over.
“There’s no doubt about it – you get down. There is no tablet you can take. But it would be selfish if anybody ever did think, ‘I don’t need this’. I have been so close to cracking once. Remembering what it is like when we’re jumping about, winning, getting good results, that keeps you going.
“The outcome of it all, on Thursday morning, was what is the best team? What can we do to make sure we don’t let any goals in at Wembley? I have spoken to players, texted players, made sure everyone else is all right and am starting to put the thinking cap on. They’re right up for it again. They want to do something about it. They, like myself, hope the fans can be proud of them, hope we can keep the dream going. That’s why we’re here.”
Strachan is convincing when he says he doesn’t “fear the sack”, and not just because in the form of SFA chief executive Stewart Regan and president Alan McRae, he is answering to the most supportive paymasters in history. What is a worry, though, is the idea of letting down this group of players and backroom staff by failing to qualify for Russia, as well as the sense of him overstaying his welcome in the eyes of the fans. Media outlets and radio phone-ins have been besieged with disgruntled members of the public demanding change, and there were occasional jeers and catcalls from the travelling support in Trnava.
“You may have heard one or two boos the other night and it’s not a great feeling but it’s part of the deal,” said Strachan. “There is a disappointment period there. You have to expect some reaction and I don’t have a problem with some reaction to it. I don’t sit here and become indignant and think people shouldn’t talk about me. Of course they should because that’s the nature of the game. We’d all like it to be in a manner that’s civil but I understand totally why there would be questions.”
Addressing the questions that were raised following the game, Strachan pointed to Oliver Burke’s lack of experience as being the reason why the RB Leipzig winger went from being praised for his hour-long shift against Lithuania to being left out of the matchday squad in Slovakia. Leigh Griffiths missed out because Strachan had concerns about leaving his side vulnerable to set-pieces due to a lack of height in his team.
The manager is unrepentant when it comes his tendency to protect his players, even though it often leaves him wide open to the charge of talking down to supporters and contradicting himself. One such example was his praise of Chris Martin against Lithuania, even though the Fulham target man was promptly left out against Slovakia.
“You always have to remember that if I explained to people why I do this, and do that, I might hurt players,” said Strachan. “That’s not going to happen. These guys come along and play for nothing. It might be different if they were getting paid 30, 40 grand a week.”
While Scotland’s cause when it comes to competing at Russia 2018 isn’t entirely hopeless, it certainly requires a gigantic leap of faith. The million-dollar question is why a Scotland side which could only scrape a last-minute draw at home against Lithuania and was routed by Slovakia should be expected to produce one of the biggest results in the nation’s history against England at Wembley next month. “It’s a challenge,” admits Strachan. “But you’ve seen people written off and then a fantastic performance. You think there’s not much hope and it appears. There are times
The outcome of it all was, what is best for the team? What can we do to make sure we don’t let in any goals against England? I’ve spoken to players, texted players, and made sure everyone is all right. Now I am starting to put the thinking cap on
when people are tested and this is a testing time for Scottish football.
“But two weeks ago we weren’t too bad, we were quite looking forward to these games. We’ve got to look at the last games, pick out the best bits – what we like, what we don’t like – then go right, how do we do it when we go to Wembley? Let’s make sure England don’t score. If that happens we’ve got a good chance of winning.
“I don’t agree [it’s a calamity if we lose]. We would like to go into it feeling more confident about ourselves, or more upbeat, but I think the confidence will be fine when we get down there and meet up. I will leave it to other people what goes on after the game. All I can deal with is what goes on before the game.”
A chaotic group is a source of some consolation, even if Strachan uses a golfing analogy to say Scotland are “over par” after three holes and in dire need of hitting the birdie trail.
“Right after the Slovakia game I was told the results elsewhere and told the group was all over the place and all higgledy piggledy,” he said. “At that point, and excuse my language but I didn’t give a ****. It’s only a few days later when you sit back and have a look. If we get a 10 per cent improvement, a 20 per cent improvement then we can look positively ahead. It is a hard group, but we were in a hard group before and were so close that we do feel we can do something. We have put ourselves back – you could say we are over par considering what we thought we might have done.”
Strachan said he will make sure the pressure weighing on him won’t “encroach” upon the players and accepts that stress is part of the job for a national team manager, either of Scotland or England.
“That’ s what we get paid for ,” he said. “I think if you took my wage compared to England’s managers, they should be getting 900 per cent more stress than me but that’s not the point. It’s a fantastic job. If you go into it thinking of anything other than 24 hours of scrutiny and people asking questions about you then you shouldn’t take the job. So I wouldn’t feel sorry for us. We’re not looking for sympathy. A wee bit of understanding is all you ask for.”