Next Scotland Manager Mk II

[sjc]

My initial thoughts upon hearing the announcement.....

 

SFA: We've got some good news and some bad news.

Scottish football fans (SFF): Ahh....What's the bad news?

SFA: It's horseshit for breakfast (Alex McLeish is the new Scotland manager)

SFF: oh.....WTF is the good news then?

SFA: There's lots of it! (It's not Malky MacKay or John Hughes!) 

[Duszek]

7 hours ago, Tulloch Gorum said:

He's not prepared for it, doesn't really have anything to say on the subject and is winging it.  Poorly.

Which is the same approach he’ll apply to the Scotland job, the dunce.

[Savage Henry]

For a bloke that won 77 caps for his country (4th highest of all time) and won 7 out of 10 games in his first spell (including humping a wonderful French team in Paris) he's taking a hell of a pasting on here. Seems a bit OTT to me.

 

That French team was all over the shop. And it was daylight robbery.

 

It’s almost as if fans aren’t prepared to cherry pick ten games out of his managerial career in order to assess his suitability for the job.

 

One thing is true - there will be no honeymoon period. If he loses his first couple of friendlies, I’d say he will already be on borrowed time. That’s perhaps unfair, but it’s a retrograde appointment at best.

 

Very surprised Ian Maxwell was keen to go in this direction - he’s a bit more capable than the other halfwits on the selection panel.

[Shaggy Jenkins]

Just shows the spineless, sniveling, cretins, living in their wee west coast bubble that run our game

He walked out on his country to take the English gold.  He should barely be let back into the country let alone rescued from the scrapheap and given a 1million pound contract...Traitor! 

[Dons_1988]

After Walter Smith, this is probably the best managerial appointment Scotland could have hoped for.
I'm not a massive fan of Alex McLeish the manager after his ropy spell with us in the mid to late nineties, but he has gone on to prove since that he is nothing if not a competent and capable manager who has big wins with the National team as well as trophy success at club level behind him. He must have something going for him.
And apart from all that, this is the man who has taken Scotland closer to qualification for a major tournament than anyone else has managed before or since...since the 1998 World Cup. Therefore, I think it's safe to say that Scotland fans should be happy enough with this appointment.

He was your manager in the early to mid 2000’s mate

[RandomGuy.]

10 hours ago, sidofthesouth said:

For a bloke that won 77 caps for his country (4th highest of all time) and won 7 out of 10 games in his first spell (including humping a wonderful French team in Paris) he's taking a hell of a pasting on here. Seems a bit OTT to me.

Any hints as to why his 77 caps for us are in any way relevant? 

Also, is we had 5 shots in that match against France (they had over twenty), and 27% possession, hardly "humping" them. Gordon and McFadden deserve more credit for that win than McLeish. 

[Blootoon87]

So Mcleish did actually get it then? I thought it might've been a horrible nightmare.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

So Mcleish did actually get it then? I thought it might've been a horrible nightmare.

[sergie's no1 fan]

To be fair to McLeish, you can't take anything away from that win in Paris. Aye France didn't play to their best but we were incredible that night, to a man.

Probably the best win in our International history?

Still doesn't mean he should get the job this time round. The way i see it is he is not an upgrade on Gordon Strachan.

[Hammer Jag]

Whilst almost everyone agrees that this is a disaster of an appointment, I have to laugh at the Strachan fanboys giving it “we shoulda kept Strachan!!!”.

Emptying Strachan was absolutely the correct thing to do.

Spending the next four months dithering and embarrassing ourselves was not.

[sergie's no1 fan]

Whilst almost everyone agrees that this is a disaster of an appointment, I have to laugh at the Strachan fanboys giving it “we shoulda kept Strachan!!!”.
Empting Strachan was absolutely the correct thing to do.
Spending the next four months dithering and embarrassing ourselves was not.

As a Strachan fan boy your right, he did deserve to go. The problem was always going to be bringing in someone who would be an upgrade on Strachan.

We'd have been as well keeping Strachan rather than appointing McLeish though.

Seen it with StMirren when we let Danny Lennon go only to replace him with Tommy fkin Craig.

Opportunity missed imo and the 2 year deal hardly fills me with confidence.

[nsr]

While I believe international managers should be under the same restrictions as players (i.e. manager of nation X must be someone eligible to play for nation X), I wish we'd look outside the UK.

[forameus]

13 minutes ago, Hammer Jag said:

Whilst almost everyone agrees that this is a disaster of an appointment, I have to laugh at the Strachan fanboys giving it “we shoulda kept Strachan!!!”.

Empting Strachan was absolutely the correct thing to do.

Spending the next four months dithering and embarrassing ourselves was not.

I think the two go together though.  The sensible time to get rid of him, if we were, was after the Gibraltar game.  Punting him after Slovakia was the next chance, but that would've been harsh with hindsight.  They punted him after probably the best run of his tenure, which was odd given what had gone before.  

However, had they gotten rid of him with a well thought out shortlist in hand ready to go approaching managers, that isn't too much of a problem.  But they spent months humming and hawing, getting rejected all over the place, and, again with hindsight, keeping Strachan on would have been the better option.  For me.  Don't expect you to agree given your loathing of Strachan.

But anyway, that's irrelevant because we have the very definition of beige in charge now.  I don't think he's the worst option we could have gotten, but in a Scottish Premiership sense, he's very much the side that finishes top of the bottom 6.  A safe, boring choice that smacks of the SFA being absolutely terrified of taking a risk, and ending up taking a huge risk anyway.  The one saving grace is that he appears to only have been given a 2 year contract, which is absolutely the right thing to do from now on.  Tell any new manager we get that he has one campaign and start offering extensions at the end based on achievements.  

He may not get that far though - f**k up the Nations League, and I wouldn't wait until the qualifiers start to ask some questions.

[Savage Henry]

1 hour ago, sergie's no1 fan said:

 

As a Strachan fan boy your right, he did deserve to go. The problem was always going to be bringing in someone who would be an upgrade on Strachan.

We'd have been as well keeping Strachan rather than appointing McLeish though.

Seen it with StMirren when we let Danny Lennon go only to replace him with Tommy fkin Craig.

Opportunity missed imo and the 2 year deal hardly fills me with confidence.

 

Neil Lennon was basically begging for an interview.  (As was John Hughes, but we'll ignore that.)  Steve Clarke did nothing to dissuade an approach.  Either of those two would have been an upgrade on Strachan, and actually taken the SFA in a new direction.   It's quite clear in retrospect that Regan left because this is the way he saw things going.  A retrograde manager, to be closely followed, no doubt, by one of the same semi-literate, mustachioed directors to fill the role of Chief Executive.  The SFA, and the people who applaud this move, get the football team they deserve.

[Savage Henry]

27 minutes ago, forameus said:

I think the two go together though.  The sensible time to get rid of him, if we were, was after the Gibraltar game.  Punting him after Slovakia was the next chance, but that would've been harsh with hindsight.  They punted him after probably the best run of his tenure, which was odd given what had gone before.  

However, had they gotten rid of him with a well thought out shortlist in hand ready to go approaching managers, that isn't too much of a problem.  But they spent months humming and hawing, getting rejected all over the place, and, again with hindsight, keeping Strachan on would have been the better option.  For me.  Don't expect you to agree given your loathing of Strachan.

But anyway, that's irrelevant because we have the very definition of beige in charge now.  I don't think he's the worst option we could have gotten, but in a Scottish Premiership sense, he's very much the side that finishes top of the bottom 6.  A safe, boring choice that smacks of the SFA being absolutely terrified of taking a risk, and ending up taking a huge risk anyway.  The one saving grace is that he appears to only have been given a 2 year contract, which is absolutely the right thing to do from now on.  Tell any new manager we get that he has one campaign and start offering extensions at the end based on achievements.  

He may not get that far though - f**k up the Nations League, and I wouldn't wait until the qualifiers start to ask some questions.

The best run of his tenure resulted in failure to qualify from what is likely to be the easiest qualification group Scotland will have in the foreseeable future.  He should have gone after the Gibraltar game (the Tartan Army had an absolute minter there), which would have given us a campaign under McLeish.  McLeish would have bottled it, been sacked or walked at the end of the last group, and Scotland would have just appointed.... Gordon Strachan?

[AMMjag]

49 minutes ago, sergie's no1 fan said:

To be fair to McLeish, you can't take anything away from that win in Paris. Aye France didn't play to their best but we were incredible that night, to a man.

Probably the best win in our International history?

Still doesn't mean he should get the job this time round. The way i see it is he is not an upgrade on Gordon Strachan.



 

Yes I think people are going way over the top on a couple of points. 

Absolutely no one had a bad word to say about our win in Paris at the time - it was a terrific performance and McLeish got his team selection spot on. That we left it late to beat Georgia and Lithuania at home doesn’t matter either, you’ll ultimately get what you deserve from a game after 90 minutes. Complete revisionism, and there was near unanimous disappointment when he left.

I’m also uncomfortable with the groundless attacks on his mental health and perceived alcoholism. We actually know that Michael O’Neil got tanked up and got behind the wheel of a car, yet he escapes the same treatment. A complete lack of class.

 

That said it’s still a completely underwhelming appointment. It’s at best a sideways step from Strachan and shows up the shambles the SFA are in at the moment. No fresh ideas and just downright lazy and self-interested. I like to think even I could manage us to at least a play off in 2020 and that bare minimum expectation should still be in place, but I’m struggling to be interested anymore and won’t be renewing my membership.

[forameus]

1 minute ago, Savage Henry said:

The best run of his tenure resulted in failure to qualify from what is likely to be the easiest qualification group Scotland will have in the foreseeable future.  He should have gone after the Gibraltar game (the Tartan Army had an absolute minter there), which would have given us a campaign under McLeish.  McLeish would have bottled it, been sacked or walked at the end of the last group, and Scotland would have just appointed.... Gordon Strachan?

The Euros group was easier than the World Cup one we got.  This time around we had to better Slovakia and Slovenia to have the chance of a playoff spot, where previously we just had to get past a pretty dreadful Ireland side to achieve the same.    If we were going purely by performance based on where we expected to be, after the Euros group was the time to do it.  In the hours after the Slovakia game, without knowing what was coming, I doubt many would have complained if he went then, but it proved to be the right decision not to.  

Again, the problem is not that they dropped him, it's what happened afterwards.  Keeping him would have been a better option on most fronts knowing what came next.  The one thing I always said we shouldn't do is act to drop the manager without having a very good idea as to what came next.  Was O'Neill even the plan on the day Strachan was sacked?  He could well have been going to the World Cup with the playoffs still to play.  They clearly just punted him, expecting that since we didn't have a meaningful game for a year that they could just save on wages and take their time.  And look where that's gotten us.

[GroundskeeperWillie]

When even Steven Thompson is even being critical of the appointment, you know the SFA has gone cocked it right up....!  Hate to say this, but given the comments of a couple of posters on here, and browsing through the usual guff in the comments section of the BBC article, do you think the SFA have just done this to appease the small-minded bigots (those who may have not bothered going to Scotland games because of a lack of proper-minded Raingurs men...)  The direction they suddenly took in going for firstly Walter Smith was baffling enough, but a man who has been actively whoring himself out to any job going (and failing, until now) suggests either a lack of imagination, a complete display of desperation, or both!

As already stated, this appointment is underwhelming, unimaginative, unbelievably shit, unattractive, uninspiring, and any other un-somethings you care to mention.  As with any manager that comes in though, I'm willing to give McLeish a chance, his record before was good, although whether the talent at his disposal then was better or worse than it is now is hard to tell.  I just worry now with this appointment who suddenly comes in as CEO.  Given Peter Lawwell was actively touting Neil Doncaster for the role, it's a racing certainty he will be  frontrunner, especially with Leanne Dempster saying no (probably because she knew what was coming!)

Sigh!

[nsr]

19 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

Neil Lennon was basically begging for an interview. 

Regardless of his ability as a manager, can anyone see the SFA having the balls to appoint someone so hated by the sons of Attila?

[ShaggysBeard]

Seems McLeish is getting a lot of stick here that should really be directed at the SFA for their fannying about since the end of the World Cup qualifiers.

And the reaction of appointing him has been ridiculously over the top.

He contributed to us being a baw hair from qualifying from a group including France, Italy and Ukraine 10 years ago, including the win in France and an excellent win against Ukraine, obviously the game in Georgia was a bit of a disaster. He's shown enough in the past that there is maybe something there as an international manager.

It's not exciting appointment, but I'm not sure it's "desparate" as Michael Stewart has said or backwards as the Sun has reported