Don’t go pinning all the blame for this shambles on McLeish
Yes, McLeish is failing to cope but he is an easy target and is not the guilty party...
THERE are many guilty parties worthy of our anger as the national team hurtles headlong into the flames. Alex McLeish, however, is not one of them. Indeed, at the heart of the rancour, recrimination and ridicule, there lies a separate emotion overshadowing all when it comes to the bruised and battered figure of the Scotland manager: sadness.
Genuine sadness at watching him stagger through the agony of this death by a thousand cuts with no one brave enough, perspicacious enough or maybe even concerned enough to lead him from the arena and protect him from being dismembered in front of our eyes.
What is unfolding with McLeish right now is a tragedy from which there no longer seems to be any dignified way out.
That dismantling at the hands of Kazakhstan on Thursday proved, beyond doubt, that McLeish simply isn’t coping with the challenges of being Scotland boss, on or off the field.
He looks lost in the headlights. His post-match interview in Nursultan lacked emotion, explanation, recognition of the enormity of the result.
What unfolded there was beyond humiliation. It was a point of no return. Everyone can see that. Everyone other than those best placed to take him out of the line of fire, it seems.
His friend Alan McRae is the president of the SFA, worse luck. McLeish’s son is his representative. Between them, they must see the benefit of sorting out something mutually acceptable before the sniping, trolling and tittle-tattle — this lust for biting lumps out of McLeish as he flounders in the wind — become even more unpleasant.
McLeish is a carrot-topped, copper-bottomed titan. An ageing lion and a proper gentleman, who should be carried shoulder-high in celebration of his triumphant moments rather than being subjected to running the gauntlet every time he appears in public.
He could have left with his good name pretty much intact after Scotland scraped through the Nations League into the play-off that now represents the only hope of avoiding the ultimate ignominy of hosting Euro 2020 and not being welcome at the party.
We could have thanked him, hit the reset button on the search for a national coach that went way off track after Northern Ireland’s Michael O’Neill said ‘no’ and put McLeish back where he belongs in the public consciousness — ruling in Europe with Aberdeen, lifting trophies as manager of Rangers and masterminding
that win in France during his first stint with Scotland.
Instead, we are having to confront the fact McLeish is nothing like the force he was back then, looking on, slack-jawed in horror, as he slides closer to going down as the architect of our game’s greatest disgrace.
His assertion in Kazakhstan that we ‘started brightly’ in a game which saw us 2-0 down after 10 minutes against a side ranked 117th in the world was, arguably, the hardest moment of a bad week to deal with.
When his assistant Peter Grant then starts parrotting the same sentiments, you really are dealing with the stuff of parallel universes.
Maybe age is just catching up with McLeish. Maybe he was out of the frontline and sitting at home too long before a panic-stricken SFA, fresh from the lunacy of trying to get Walter Smith out of retirement, picked up the phone.
Maybe, now aged 60, he just suffered one dunt to the confidence too many when lasting 65 days under a despotic chairman in his last job in the footballing hinterland of Zamalek in Egypt in 2016.
Whatever the reality, remaining imprisoned in this predicament is no good for anyone. Particularly him.
There was no valid case for him replacing Gordon Strachan a year ago.
He would be nowhere near the job if it wasn’t for the fact the SFA is a skint, rudderless shambles, with shameless chancers such as McRae and his vice-president Rod Petrie clinging on to power.
McLeish is, without doubt, poisoned by his association with them, his appointment seen as an old pals’ act encased in a wider SFA carve-up that led to Ian Maxwell — the other member of the sub-committee that hired him — becoming chief executive.
How can you blame him for taking the job at the time, though? His career was as good as over.
And, of course, he is not going to give it up without a fight. There is nowhere else for him to go and he has always been the type to look adversity square in the eye and try to stick the nut on it.
This is going to take someone stepping in and spelling out just how much this is damaging him. How little respect he is currently being paid by anyone.
Supporters, as recent Hampden attendances prove, gave up on McLeish a while ago.
Players have, too. How else do you explain the countless call-offs every time a squad is named or the many experienced figures retiring or refusing to turn up?
What makes matters worse is that McLeish and his support staff just don’t seem to have a grip on any of it.
We have the makings of a decent team, certainly one capable of getting through these play-offs next March, but this current management team cannot now hope to bond them together as a unit.
There is no explanation over Fulham’s Tom Cairney failing to show for over a year and Matt Ritchie of Newcastle United and West Ham’s Robert Snodgrass refusing to be picked.
Allan McGregor made McLeish look foolish when quitting just days after he had been lauded by him. Leigh Griffiths blanked his phone calls after being dropped and went online to ‘like’ abusive Tweets about him.
Steven Fletcher has taken this undermining of McLeish’s authority to entirely new levels by declining a call-up on the basis of managing an injury and then playing and scoring in consecutive matches for Sheffield Wednesday. It is agonising to watch, particularly when McLeish, who threw his players under the bus in the most uncharacteristic fashion post-Kazakhstan, keeps making such basic errors.
There is no rhyme or reason to team selection. Liam Palmer is parachuted in from nowhere and plays ahead of Stephen O’Donnell. Scott McTominay, back in favour at Manchester United, can’t get in the line-up. James Forrest, thriving at Celtic, couldn’t get near the team at one point. Ryan Fraser, a prime creative force in England’s top flight at leftwing, got thrown in at right wing-back against Belgium. McLeish only fielded both of them on the flanks, in their proper positions, at the end of the Nations League campaign because he had no other options.
Steven Naismith went from not being in the squad to being first-choice during the Nations League. Same with Fletcher.
It goes on and on. And that is before we even get on to the performances. Kazakhstan probably was the worst ever, but the 2-1 loss to Israel in Haifa, another side that had forgotten what winning was until we appeared, wasn’t far behind.
Who can forget Callum McGregor asking what the formation was supposed to be during that particular collapse? Now the Celtic midfielder is reduced to grappling on the touchline with coach James McFadden.
McFadden is simply another staff member offering McLeish scant assistance. He created the impression the coaching team didn’t fully understand the concept of the Nations League when describing it as ‘a free hit’ rather than, by far, the best chance of Scotland making it to the finals.
Such confusing messages are just par for the course, though, as shown by Grant making the ridiculous assertion that captain Andy Robertson might travel to Kazakhstan on his own after dental surgery. As if Liverpool would even have countenanced such a hare-brained idea.
McLeish is an easy target. It is hard to paint him as anything other than part of the cronyism that shapes the top end of a national association unfit for purpose.
His cronies have put some cash in his pocket, but they have done him no favours otherwise.
Money played no part in McLeish building such a glorious, storied reputation. It offers precious little recompense for that stature within the game continuing to be broken apart.
It feels cruel and unnecessary and it has to stop. Soon. For everyone’s sake.