TIME FOR SPOT OF FINE TUNING
McLeish may have to tweak his formation so he is able to fit in free-scoring Forrest
SCOTLAND’S mission in Haifa is to shift the focus from a player who didn’t travel here to the players who did. Left out of the opening Nations League win over Albania and then hearing Alex McLeish describe Steven Naismith as his likely starting striker against Israel, Leigh Griffiths compared the experience to being kicked in the teeth before excusing himself from tonight’s game.
Quietly, without ceremony, Celtic team-mate James Forrest reacted to his own omission a little differently.
Last Sunday the Parkhead winger scored four goals in a 6-0 rout of St Johnstone in Perth, all but compelling Alex McLeish to shoehorn him into the starting line-up in the Sammy Ofer Stadium.
In the 2-0 win over Albania, the Scotland manager adopted a 3-5-2 formation to fit Liverpool’s Andrew Robertson and Kieran Tierney into the team.
Circumstances might now force
Some players accept their fate better than others. Countering accusations of petulance, Griffiths insists he will return to the international fold when unspecified ‘fitness issues’ are resolved. Scotland managers are rarely so well served for natural goalscorers that they can tell them where to go.
Yet McLeish makes no bones over the fact he preferred the Forrest response to that of his Celtic team-mate.
‘When I was out of the team I was always disappointed,’ admitted the Scots boss. ‘When the gauntlet is thrown down, you should be.
‘That was a motivation. I spoke with James very briefly after the Albania game and I could see he was upset and desperate to play.
‘I can’t ask for more than that. It’s hard to guarantee anyone a game. That’s probably one of my strengths and, going forward, I will speak to players.’
In hindsight, McLeish might now regret a public admission that Naismith was effectively his No1 striker after a man-of-the-match performance against Albania.
Griffiths appeared to take umbrage at that as much as the omission itself. Managing Scotland for a second time, McLeish acknowledged that man-management is key to the success of any coach. For international managers, it’s a huge part of the job.
‘In my younger days, the one thing Alex Ferguson always did was take you in and tell you to your face,’ he said.
‘I can’t speak for every manager in the modern game, I’m not sure everyone speaks to players. They maybe just put the team up and accept that’s what it is.
‘Collectively, you can say it. You can say: “Look guys, I can’t play everyone”.
‘But we’re really delighted with the boys who are committed to come in and sometimes they won’t play, but one day they will.’
Israel will be the first competitive qualifier McLeish has overseen on foreign soil since 2007.
A 2-0 defeat in Georgia all but cost the Scots a place at the Euro 2008 finals and they haven’t been close since. That night scarred the psyche of the national team and the manager.
‘There’s no easy away games,’ pondered McLeish. ‘What I learned from that one is that I should have changed the system. ‘I went with the same one that was successful for us three days earlier at Hampden against Ukraine.
‘We were outnumbered a bit in midfield, but we were also not prone to losing bad goals and we lost one from a corner, a flick-on and a scramble in.
‘We were denied a penalty, but aside from that, if I could take things back I’d have played three in the middle.’
Some nations make away qualifiers against so-called lesser nations look easy.
Even in the sepia-tinged days of Dalglish, Souness, Miller and McLeish, they’ve never been straightforward for Scotland.
‘Israel (1981) was a tough game,’ recalled McLeish. ‘We had some great players in the team. I started with Kenny Burns and Willie (Miller) was on the bench.
‘We were run ragged in the first half and somehow go in at half-time 0-0.
‘Jock Stein changed it for the second half. We moved Kenny forward into midfield and Willie came in beside me. We were a bit more stable and Kenny got the winner.
‘It’s hard to put your finger on it and say why it’s hard to go away from home.
‘There’s a reaction for the home team as well. For example, Israel will be a different team from what they were, say, in Belfast.’
In Austria last Thursday, Israeli striker Moanes Dabour gave a menacing taster of what he can do against Scots teams, scoring twice in a 3-1 Europa League win for Red Bull Salzburg over Celtic.
‘We have to watch Dabour and Tomer Hemed (currently on loan at QPR from Brighton),’ acknowledged McLeish.
‘We have a few people to try and keep quiet.
‘But we want to create our own tempo. We want our boys to go away from home and express themselves because we need to get that evidence that we are going to be able to qualify for these major tournaments.’
In a withering assessment of the Nations League, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp called it ‘the most senseless competition in the world of football’.
‘I wouldn’t agree with Klopp there,’ countered McLeish.
‘This is competition and we’re in competition mode.
‘Jurgen might have other fish to fry but, for me, this is extremely important...’