THIS SQUAD IS NOT EVEN CLUB CLASS

SAYS GRAEME SHARP

FORMER Scotland and Everton striker Graeme Sharp claims Gordon Strachan is doing the best job possible with a national team ‘who couldn’t compete in the English Premier League, never mind international football’. Urging the SFA to back Strachan rather than sack him, Sharp questioned the quality of the current crop of players available to the 60-year-old and insisted there is no guarantee a new manager will deliver success. Sharp, 56, who was a team-mate of Strachan’s at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, said: ‘Gordon and I were part of an era when Scotland qualified for five World Cup finals in a row. Now it’s been 20 years since we’ve done it. ‘We went to those 1986 finals on the back of a year where Everton and Liverpool were not just the best in England, but Europe. We both won a European trophy in ’85 — they won the Champions Cup and Everton won the Cup Winners’ Cup. We won the English title twice in four years and Liverpool got the other two. ‘When you look at the side Gordon had in Slovenia, it would not be able to compete in the English Premier League, never mind international football. It would be in the bottom half of the English Championship. ‘No disrespect to players like Barry Bannan and Chris Martin, they are decent footballers, but at international level you have to be able to offer more. ‘People are saying Strachan must go. But who else do you bring in? I don’t think Gordon can do anything more. The (SFA) should have the b***s to stand up and say: “We don’t want anyone else”.’