Stable partnership can go a long way in McLeish’s eyes
WHERE have all the good Scottish centre-halves gone?’ is a common complaint whenever Gordon Strachan rhymes off his national squad featuring the same defensive staff. The answer to that question in Alex McLeish’s playing days, incredibly, was: ‘On the bench’.
The former Scotland boss, who was in charge for a 3-1 win over this Saturday’s visitors Lithuania in 2007, was part of an era so golden for quality provision at the heart of defence that he will never forget Willie Miller being dropped for a tough World Cup qualifier in Israel. All this at a time when Alan Hansen was no regular.
‘I remember playing with Kenny Burns and the first half was a complete shambles,’ he said. ‘Willie was dropped and couldn’t believe it! Israel mounted attack after attack and somehow we survived to half-time 0-0. At the break, Jock Stein said: “Right Kenny (Burns), midfield — Willie on” and he took (John Wark) off. We won 1-0. Kenny (Dalglish) scored with my flick on.’
If Strachan had anything like those luxuries at his disposal, then Scotland would be feeling much better about the chances of qualifying for Russia 2018.
In truth, if those upgrades had been available two years ago then the killer goals conceded against Germany and Poland last autumn that plummeted Scotland down to fourth place in their Euro 2016 group would not have occurred.
Centre-half is regarded as the problem position and there is no sign of a high-class solution coming through the ranks. So, for the foreseeable future, the honest but limited Championship quartet of Grant Hanley, Russell Martin, Christophe Berra and Gordon Greer is the pool from which Strachan will select his central defenders.
Hanley has been a peripheral figure at Newcastle since a £6million move from Blackburn. The 24-year-old did not feature on Wednesday night as a Norwich defence with Martin at its core conceded four goals — two of them deep into injury-time — to fall 4-3 at St James’ Park.
Yet McLeish’s message is for Strachan to persevere with his most popular choice of Hanley and Martin. His reasoning is that you cannot underplay the importance of a partnership, even one short of top-flight quality.
On the subject of Scotland’s paucity of class operators in the position, McLeish (right) said: ‘They are not exactly standing out, are they? I went to the training session before the friendly against Italy and Gordon Greer was still there, Hanley and Russell Martin but is Russell an out-and-out centre-half? There seems to be a shortage.
‘I’d say Hanley is from that old-school type of defending but where are the rest of them? What you see with Hanley is he’s a real battler. He’s not the quality of, say, the German centre-halves but he has shown a reasonable level for Scotland.
‘There’s nobody else and he and Russell have a reasonable partnership. That is important. Hansen was a magnificent player and I wouldn’t say I was at his level. But I knew I could play and had a great understanding with Willie.
‘Then I remember the first time Brian Irvine got called in to play beside me for Scotland. It raised a few eyebrows. But we were playing together at club level and had a really good understanding. We came through against a good Romanian team to win 2-1. ‘For me, if Gordon has forged an understanding already with these guys then for now it looks like being about fostering a relationship that works. You have to walk before you can run and there’s still nobody else on the horizon. ‘So I don’t think he’s got experimentation to do at the back. We just have to keep encouraging centre-halves, keep working with them. I’m sure Gordon has looked back in the last campaign and gone over the goals lost. The goals conceded were heart-breaking. ‘It’s not giving them painful memories, it’s just education. Switching off at a certain moment has to be dealt with. The Poland game at Hampden, the goal in Georgia. Those were avoidable. We must tidy up those loose ends and cracks.’