Well said.

"I only want people who are totally committed," said Burley at a brusque media conference.

"You have got to show that passion and if you don't want to show it and you want to step out, fine."

"Reputations are in the past," added Burley. "I choose a squad, I look at them play, I look at their attributes, I look at how they show up in training, which is very important, and I look at combinations.

"It worked very well (the introduction of Iwelumo and Fletcher). I'm not going to please everybody but the tactics worked.

"On another day, Chris scores and he's the best thing since sliced bread.

"Kris is disappointed not to play but this is your country you're talking about.

"I've never had a cross word with Kris. They come in, stay at five-star hotels, in this day and age they have massive wages.

"How much do you care? You don't need to like everybody. This is your country.

"Okay, he didn't get on but the only way Kris Boyd is going to get in the team is by playing regularly, showing what he can do, coming to the squad and looking lively and bright and look better than the other strikers. That's how you get in the team."


"Walter Smith is one of the best managers in Britain," said Burley. "Kris has not been a regular for the past year and, if people aren't playing in big games, I've got to think 'something's not quite right'.

"Every player has strengths and weaknesses; elements of the game he needs to improve - Kris knows that.

"But the decision has been made and now it is time to move on."

Agreed - well put. Kris Boyd is an embarrasment.

very much agreed.

if they arent playing first team football for their club, then they shouldnt be playing for their country.

That would rule out McFadden. We can't afford to be that picky.

Pretty amateurish stuff by Burley, Gordon Smith - or at least the p.r person - really is running the SFA as a shambles.

So no mcFadden for the next game?

So George,

why was Alan McGregor in the squad as at the time you picked him he was in the reserves and you left out the then Rangers No 1?

Double standards or are you just a failed Ayr Utd manager who is out of his depth?

Same applies for Paul Hartley, who has been more out than in at Celtic this season

Faddy plays for Birmingham ever week unless hes injured

http://www.skysports.com/football/player/0..._154996,00.html

i think you will find that mcfadden has started in 8 and came of the bench twice in of the ten games that birmingham have played in the league this year.

I've always felt this was a stupid point.

Darren Fletcher got a cap first as a Man U reserve, and rightly so, because he was better than the alternatives.

It should be irrelevant whether you start for a side or not, especially for impact players like Boyd.

Perhaps, but it's only one point. There are several other reasons there for Boyd's non-selection which appear to hit the nail firmly on the head.

Yes, the point is though that it is always going to make you look a hypocrite.

If Darren Fletcher goes back to being an unused Man U sub, does anyone seriously think Burley will drop him?

I have no problem with him not picking Boyd. I just think this reason is a poor one.

It's a real pity he decided to go down that route in the first instance because it's given the Burley baiters further ammunition. It needed a strong response (like the one above) but it seems, from the reaction on this site anyway, that he missed his chance.

The tactics worked?? To ensure we got a point in a must win home match?? Is this an admission that he picked the wrong team/tactics from the start of the match??

Who gives a f**k where the stay, got absolutely nothing to do with Boyd chucking it!

Extremely petty from Burley to even have a press conference to explain his decisions, will he do this for every match now where hes questioned over team selection?

Regardless of your view on whether Boyd should or shouldnt have quit, Burley is lurching from one huge embarrasment to another.

It appears Burley's in a lose lose position. He's been accused in some quarters of running scared from the media, yet he's advised to keep schtum when responding to the criticism fuelled by certain arse lickers.

The guy's really got his work cut out for him.

well said by Burley. Boyd can f**k off as far as i'm concerned.

Yes, I agree.

As I said before, I don't think Boyd would have done this with a manager who had a better stock with the media.

As it is, he has the sympathy vote with the majority of people I have spoken to, rather bizarrely.

The media have indeed hounded Burley from day one. I don't see any real difference between us now and 12 or 24 months ago, in terms of quality of performance.

Agreed.

To be fair, you could argue the tactics worked in that we created the chances that should have seen us win the game.

What didn't work was the selection, IMO.

I do appreciate Burley's now "strong" stance but I really think he should have just said he was disappointed by Boyd's decision but would be happy to consider him if he changed his mind.

If Boyd's attitude is that bad, if Walter has confirmed that his attitude is bad by not picking him for umpteen matches, if Burley thinks "something's not quite right.", if Burley reckons "Every player has strengths and weaknesses; elements of the game he needs to improve - Kris knows that."

WHY THE F*CK DID HE PICK HIM FOR THE SQUAD AND DEPRIVE SOMEONE ELSE A CHANCE TO SHOW ALL THE WONDERFUL ATTRIBUTES THAT BURLEY DESIRES?

Cos it was either him or Darren Mackie.

None of the comments made indicate he wasn't one of the best forwards available for the tie.

Darren Barr has a lot to learn, but that doesn't mean he isn't worth a place in the squad, albeit certainly not to start.

It's a decent attempt at a response, but my sympathies still rest more with Boyd (with reservations) than with Burley.

Leaving him out because others have left him out isn't the strongst argument and I get a bit fed up of the emphasis on "passion" and "commitment". There's more to the game than that and I think we overrate those two virtues in this country.

I really don't think George Burley has came off well here even though he probably shouldn't be the guilty party in all of this.

That media conference made me squirm a little bit. Burley really doesn't have alot of charisma or know how when it comes to speaking to the media - it showed when he wanted to get up and leave and then decided to continue answering questions on his feet. You could clearly see in the PR officers body language he wanted Burley to shut up and leave. I think the media, well the tabloids at least, will make Burley out to be a complete idiot after this incident.

I can see where both Boyd and Burley are coming from but the thing is, Burley was clearly raging that Boyd has decided to leave, but when you come out in the media, as a previous poster has said, just say "oh, I'm disappointed but if he changes his mind then great - I'll think about him again"...even if Burley was never going to.

Oh and I loved the line "I was right, I done the right thing, my tactics worked." He doesn't show any humility at all when he gets it wrong and worse of all, he thinks he was right. He wasn't, okay we may have had more of the ball but we created 1 excellent chance and 1 half chance after the changes. Norway made around 4 excellent chances. I wouldn't call that tactics that worked.

Darren Mackie, one of a long line of Scottish strikers that couldn't hit water sitting on a toilet

He has his work cut out for him because he's performing poorly; both as a manager in the tactical sense and in terms of his motivational abilities - the Broadfoot incident being most notable.

He (or rather his team, controlled by himself) is not on the way to meeting the points target he himself had set. He should acknowledge that this is his fault and he should stop claiming that Scotland played better than they really did - this is a particularly annoying trait.

Next he'll be telling us we had more corners than them. You know, someone should use that as a viable argument

Hah, they won't have to try too hard to make Burley McVogts look like an idiot. He did that all by himself last Saturday.

By insisting that he got the tactics right and showing no inkling that he might, just might have been wrong, his credibility left the building.

Well said, my arse.

More like, "Shut the f**k up Burley you ameteurish diddy".

I think the Broadfoot incident is about the only thing Burley's got right. Broadfoot has done a decent job in the games he's had. Burley's quotes certainly seem to have spurred him on a bit.

It's a bit different with Fletcher though, as when he isn't playing it is because he's being kept out the team by some of the finest players in the world. Boyd is being kept out by complete duds like Darcheville and Novo. Walter Smith doesn't think Boyd is good enough to score a goal against St Mirren. IMO, if you were George Burley and you saw that a manager who knows Boyd inside out doesn't think he should start against St Mirren, then you'd have to be an idiot to think he deserves a place against Norway who have Premiership class defenders.

He had his work cut out from the start due to Smith's blundering. What's occured since has hardly helped, but, as H_B said, I really don't hink we're any worse than we were under Smith or McLeish.

Short memories I think.

Mind you, there were threads calling both Smith and McLeish idiots for various tactical decisions also. The bottom line is that we aren't a great side. I'm not at all convinced starting with a formation and personnel the majority of fans wanted would have made any difference to the result.

There's something in the suggestion that we were little better under the last two managers. The important bit though is that we DID better under them. This was where managers who got the team well organised and playing to its strengths were able to acheive some good results.
Luck plays a part - we know that, but the team is performing poorly AND delivering poor results.
I too am getting increasingly annoyed by his post match observations. I know he feels under attack and is therefore on the defensive, but he just talks rubbish.
The effect is that many of us feel that our intelligence is being insulted. More importantly, the absence of humility suggests (perhaps wrongly, but I doubt it) that he's incapable of learning from errors.

Did we?

Where did we finish in the group under Smith, then McLeish? Ultimately both failed to even finish second in the group.

Erm, because it's a squad? A squad has more than 11 players. Is every player that doesn't get to play part of a game get to throw a childish wobbly?

Spot on. If we had lost that game 3-1 we couldnt have had any complaints.

What? What game were you watching? Scotland were at least worthy of a 0-0 draw. If Iwelumo had scored and we had got a 1-0 win, there wouldn't have been many claims of daylight robbery. If the game shows nothing, it's that we are at least as good as Norway,

Gordon and a good block (Naysmith?) kept us in it at the end and Carew blazed over when he was one-on-one. We had one shot on target and were shite. Norway were crap as well but could easily have won it.

That's true. But the same argument could be used to suggest we were in fact better under Vogts who DID get us to second in a qualifying group. Maybe you think we were better under Vogts, I don't know, but I don't think it's fair to look at things in isolation like that.

The Smith / McLeish campaign saw us get a very close 3rd in a group that contained the two world cup finalists and, even if France at least were on the wane a little, that was a phenomenal achievement. We lost four ties in qualifying under them, twice to Italy (and one of those was probably partly because a draw was no good), once in Ukraine and once in Georgia. Yes, the Georgia result was poor but the other three are hardly surprising.

I'm not making judgements on Burley yet because he hasn't had enough competitive football to make any in my opinion. The defeat in Macedonia was disappointing but no more so than the one in Georgia. The win in Iceland was encouraging and deserved and had the makings of something quite comfortable until McManus' stupidity. Reminded me of Walter's win in Lithuania. And Saturday? Well, if Iwelumo knocks the ball in from three yards we probably aren't hearing too many questions about it. Wasn't a great performance but reminded me a lot of McLeish's home one v Georgia where we really didn't play well but Beattie got him out of a hole late on.

I don't hold with all the "that's us as good as out" nonsense being spouted in the media (Radio Scotland on Saturday night was appalling with that line), although it does mean we probably won't challenge Holland for top and that even if we get second there's a fair chance it'll be the 9th of them. And I agree there's probably not a whole lot of odds between Burley's Scotland and those of his two predecessors. I just think judging solely on where they might finish in a group is the wrong route to go down. I also happen to think we probably will still get second in this group.

well said burley, boyd can get to

I agree that Burley made a wrong call by not playing Boyd on Saturday but that's fitba and he'll stand or fall by results

Boyd may well be pissed off but you just don't turn your back on Scotland

Burley has not done himself any favours by saying all this in public either imo

By the looks of it, the same game as Cj20, Wug and many others who saw two teams on the pitch and realise a game is played over at least 90 minutes, not just the time it takes for one incident to occur.

17 shots on goal, with Gordon making 6 saves opposed to Scotland and their 8 shots with 2 saves made by Knudsen. Norway could have easily won that game.

As for Burley, he said Boyd hasn't proven himself, despite last season Boyd almost single handedly winning two cups for Rangers. What the hell has Steven Fletcher ever done?

Burley going on about 5 star hotels, and wages, almost trying to curry favour with people thinking the players get paid too much, when that idiot can't even work out a decent formation to play at home against a poor Norway team. I was one of the ones saying let Burley stay until the end of the group, at this rate he won't last until the end of the month.

Yes, I agree, and it's not a route I would choose as particularly valid. I do feel though that we were actually favoured last time out by having an "impossible" group to qualify from. No one expected anything, and the pressure was off.

Saturday's game reminded me of several recent home games in the last 4 years performance wise. Burley should be judged after the campaign. I think he was unwise to spout nonsense before a game about changing the style of play. That patently hasn't happened, and won't. We just don't have the players to play expansively.

Yes, we did.
Smith almost rescued a campaign Vogts had misguidedly been allowed to start. And after a good start under Smith, McLeish came very close in a group which you'd have to admit was strong - even allowing that the big two maybe weren't quite the super powers they'd recently been.

I've already conceded that each enjoyed some fortune, but the fact is they had some great results - Norway away and France at home for Smith; Ukraine at home and France away for McLeish. Now I know that both also endured setbacks to rival the ones we've just had - Belarus at home and Georgia away respectively.

Burley however hasn't (yet) had the good results and has started badly, thus scuppering a campaign, something his predecessors avoided.

These stats are totally meaningless. A shot on goal can be a powder puff one the goalie throws his hat on, and the Iwelumo miss doesn't count as an effort saved, and it was an open goal.

Gordon had one excellent save at the end and Caldwell did well to block Carew's shot. I think 1-1 would have been a fair result, as indeed 0-0 was.

Carew is exactly the type of player we are crying out for. He is a nightmare.

Not been impressed with Burley's tactics so far but I agree we should wait until the end of the campaign.If we had won the game with that open goal embarrassing miss we would probably all be happy enough.

We can still get a play off place but need to start winning games. We could finish on 16pts which hopefully be enough for a play off spot with home wins against Iceland,Macedonia,Holland and winning in Norway. .We will obviously lose in Holland.

And if Burley was using that game and Smith's decision-making process as his yardstick, then he IS an idiot.
Smith put out his string of international 'better than Boyd' superstar forwards and they failed to do the job. (I'm pleased to note. )
The sole lesson to be taken from that by Burley was that Smith was an inept manager on that day. Not that Boyd wasn't good enough.

I had the sad misfortune to see Boyd doing what all those superstars could not do at the end of last season. He scored the necessary goal to kill off QoS in the Cup Final.

Boyd does perform on the big occasion, when the pressure is on. I understand why he should be pished off with Burley. I'm not supportive of him turning his back on his country, but he should have stayed, complained and taken his chance when it inevitably had to come.

We have an awfy lot to do yet. It should not have been made this difficult, this early.

All of this 'you don't turn your back on your country! Freedom!' bollocks goes out the window when you realise David Weir chucked it, came back, and was one of the 'Hampden Heroes' that beat the French.

Boyd will come back when Burley screws up qualification and all will be forgotten when he scores.