WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT GORDON

SFA board must not flinch from tough questions over Strachan

AS the eight-strong SFA board gather to discuss affairs of state at Hampden this afternoon, one subject will — or should, at least — dominate proceedings. What to do with a manager like Gordon Strachan, out of contract and out of a second successive qualifying campaign? In any grown-up organisation, failure to nail down even a World Cup play-off spot must be a catalyst for significant introspection and serious, hard-headed, unforgiving questioning of every single decision contributing to another summer spent watching a major finals from afar. The self-inflicted wounds from Sunday night’s 2-2 draw in Slovenia, a flattering result from a performance that seemed to sum up all of the national team’s failings in one outing, have cut supporters to the quick. And now the board members, despite having made it clear that they’re unlikely to reach a definitive outcome in one single sitting, have a job to do. On the off chance that they lack the imagination needed to ask the most important questions, Sportsmail’s JOHN GREECHAN and JOHN

McGARRY have compiled a handy crib sheet to help them through the process...

HAS Strachan genuinely learned from the failure to reach the Euro 2016 and 2018 World Cup Finals or, at the age of 60, have his once-progressive ideas on football simply been left behind?

This cuts to the heart of everything. Because what happens next isn’t a judgment on quality but suitability.

Few coaches/managers are more respected, within the game, than Gordon Strachan. He is seriously good at what he does. No debate, no ifs, no buts.

Yet the sharper members of the SFA board will be watching, surely, for at least some concession of ground from the incumbent.

Despite his public declaration of no regrets, Strachan can’t simply insist on applying precisely the same formula to our Euro 2020 campaign. That way madness lies.

In short, they’ll be looking for him to acknowledge mistakes, demonstrate an improved grasp on the peculiarities of an international qualifying campaign — and lay out a clear plan for getting the job done, next time around.

WHY change manager? If we always twist and never stick, aren’t we inevitably risking going bust?

Another key issue, this doesn’t merely question whether Strachan is the right man for this job but whether the right man even exists.

Well, there’s a reason why Celtic have been better since the arrival of Brendan Rodgers. He’s a better manager than Ronny Deila.

As John F Kennedy once put it: ‘There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the risks and costs of comfortable inaction.’

In other words, don’t stick with the incumbent just because he might not be absolutely the worst guy for the job.

IF not Gordon, do we go for a qualifying specialist with a track record of taking mediumsized nations to major finals?

Yes. Spare us the talk of Davie Moyes or Paul Lambert. Another guy who has done a decent job at club level? He’ll just take three years to adapt to the oddness of international management.

With Hampden actually staging games as part of Euro 2020’s continent-wide spread of fixtures, Scotland simply cannot afford to miss out on qualification.

Imagine the embarrassment, the humiliation, of our players paying to get into the national stadium to watch Norway take on Belarus in a Group C ‘glamour match’.

ARE there genuine candidates out there?

If you look hard enough. But, then, the SFA have passed — or refused to press interest in — people like serial qualifier Lars Lagerback and Edinburghbased Michael O’Neill in the very recent past.

A random foreigner with a good CV, someone not saddled with the baggage of repeated failure and unaware of what a Scottish cringe actually is, might be just what we need.

BUT do we have the players? Surely, as Strachan has argued, we’re too wee, too weak and too feeble to compete on the international stage?

He really went off the deep end with his genetics comments, didn’t he? They have been received, incidentally, with utter dismay down in the grassroots of the game, where volunteer coaches are working hard to convince kids of all sizes that it’s worth improving their technique and first touch.

By now, Strachan’s argument has been pulled apart pretty comprehensively. Mention of rugby’s Gray brothers and a particularly ripplesome photo of a shirtless Andy Murray put paid to talk of a physical inferiority on the part of Scots.

And is Gordon really saying that, pound for pound, we have less gifted/athletic/explosive individual players than Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland? We’re all swimming in pretty much the same gene pool, after all.

HAS Strachan been picking the right guys, then? What about Scottish Premiership-based players, or a new generation coming through?

It is true to say that, while the job of Scotland coach is no longer akin to head gardener on an iceberg, we still don’t boast the in-depth reserves of top-class talent enjoyed by many other nations. But… Iceland. Not the only example. Simply the most embarrassing.

One major complaint has been Strachan’s refusal to promote players who earn their living in Scotland, preferring to dip low into the English leagues for talent.

Even Celtic players sweeping all before them have had to wait their turn, while Aberdeen’s best candidates might as well give up. Hibernian’s John McGinn increasingly feels like a token sop to fans of Scottish teams.

The flip side of this, of course, is that even Scottish top-flight sides — Celtic excluded — have been mince in Europe for, well, forever.

DID loyalty to his old guard of players cloud his judgment?

This was certainly a feature of the wretched opening draw with Lithuania and the demoralising loss in Slovakia a year ago.

Grant Hanley and Robert Snodgrass played in both games. Chris Martin played in the first.

Stuart Armstrong was beginning to purr at Celtic yet didn’t make the squad. Leigh Griffiths was a substitute.

Strachan seemed to play the men in form thereafter only to oddly U-turn on this policy in Ljubljana. A major black mark against his name.

WE were fourth seed in the Euros and finished fourth. We were third seed in the World Cup and finished third. Is this, in fact, acceptable or should we be expecting more?

Given the limited resources at his disposal, it would be wrong to claim Strachan’s tenure has been

an abject failure. But nor has it been an overwhelming success.

It’s a manager’s job to ensure the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. There haven’t been enough of those instances.

We lost home and away to Germany in the last campaign. The Republic of Ireland took four points.

Slovakia and Slovenia comfortably beat Lithuania at home in the World Cup qualifiers. We drew. That’s the difference.

WHAT is his plan for getting us to the Euros?

Theoretically, this competition is easier to make than the World Cup but that’s not to say the same approach will yield a different result. It requires a fresh take.

IS there any scope for vastly increasing the salary to widen the pool of managers who would be interested — as the Republic of Ireland did with Giovanni Trapattoni?

A failure to reach the World Cup means the SFA are only able to shop at a certain level if they or Strachan decide it’s time for change. Scotland has a number of extremely wealthy individuals. Ask them. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

If someone will back you, then draw up a dream short list featuring only individuals who have taken a nation to a major finals.

HOW do we approach the League of Nations now we’re in Group C? Do we view this as a genuine route to qualification, or an inconvenience?

Very much the former. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that. It’s also something of a shot to nothing. Who knows what the introduction of three or four new faces next autumn might bring.

At worst, they will have been assimilated in time for the real qualification to begin in the spring of 2019. At best, they might just blaze a trail to Euro 2020 via the back door.

WE are already a speck on the horizon as an international force. Are we in danger of disappearing from view if we fail to make Euro 2020?

Every tournament is enormously important. Every failure is hard to stomach. But there is something especially pressing about the need for Scotland not to miss the next boat.

Glasgow is one of 13 cities selected to host games in this uniquely pan-European format to celebrate the 60th birthday of the competition.

Watching others go into battle at Hampden while the Tartan Army are confined to barracks would be the ultimate indignity. Perhaps now is the time to act.