Gemmill will never mind if Malky is looking over his shoulder
SCOT GEMMILL insists all Malky Mackay’s involvement in his work has been welcome and should not be misconstrued as interference.
Mackay has been a visible and occasionally vocal presence on Scotland lower age group trips including for the duration of the Under-20s tournament in Toulon and last month’s European Under-21 qualifier in Latvia.
Gemmill confirms that the SFA performance director has ‘got the balance just right’ in his work with the coaches employed to run the lower age group squads.
Mackay will take charge of the senior side on Thursday night but will be freed up to catch Friday night’s Under-21 home tie against Latvia at McDiarmid Park, then Ukraine’s visit to Perth on Tuesday.
Gemmill has been accustomed to his boss, a former English Premier League manager with Cardiff, regularly looking over his shoulder at games.
The Under-21 coach stressed it would be folly not to accept Mackay’s experience as a force for good in the search for improvement at all levels.
Gemmill said: ‘I’ve obviously come across Malky prior to coming to the SFA. Now that I do know him after him being here since January, he’s never going to be anything else.
‘Wild horses wouldn’t stop him. I think you just have to accept the guy has got a passion about football, a passion about Scotland. It may be that a different coach wouldn’t enjoy it. I
haven’t had a problem with it, I’m not the kind of person who’d feel intimidated by it. Maybe I should be. But I’m not.
‘I don’t care if someone is looking down saying: “Is he really the head coach? Or is Malky doing this?” So that’s for other people to judge. They don’t know the working relationship between me and my boss. Of course if they perceive it that way then I cannot stop them. But I certainly don’t find it a concern to me. If it was, I would speak to Malky and ask him not to do it.
‘I speak to him a lot, of course I do. He’s the kind of boss who likes to know what’s going on. That’s how he chooses to manage his staff. Malky has worked closely with me. I understand a lot of people might look on from afar and think, well, maybe it’s not enjoyable for a coach to have his boss so close. I can assure you that it’s not like that.
‘It is done in the correct way and everything really is about the team. When we were with the U17s, everything is about trying to get the U17s as far as possible. Same with the 20s in Toulon. Same with the 21s now.’