Donathan

If splitting McLeish into two separate spells you probably put them 3rd (2007) and 4th (Second spell) Second spell was poor in terms of the World Cup qualifying but he at least won the nations league group.

It’s mental to think that as poor as Strachan was, he’s probably above average in terms of our managers in the 21st century 1. Steve Clarke (Certified Demi god. Got us to the euros and league A of the UNL) 2. Walter Smith (We’d have surely qualified for Euro 2008 if he hadn’t left) 3. Alex McLeish (Good wins over France and Ukraine in his first spell and of course he won us a Nations League group, but Georgia 2007 and Kazakhstan 2018 take him below Smith for me) 4. Gordon Strachan (Best of the bad bunch) 5. Craig Levein (The 2014 World Cup qualifiers were horrendous, but he at least came close to Euro 2012. We were a last minute dodgy penalty to the Czechs away from a winnable playoff against Montenegro) 6. Craig Brown (Only taking into account the 2002 qualifiers. I mark him down for sticking with dad’s army and giving his successor an impossible job) 7. Berti Vogts (Horrendous, but as mentioned, following Levein and revamping the squad was a very tough job. I do give him a small amount of credit for building the nucleus of the side that Smith and McLeish went on to have some success with) 8. George Burley (Total disaster)

IF Clarke was to move on, should McPhee be offered the promotion?

There’s a decent chance we’ll have our first ever match against Kosovo in the upcoming qualifiers. Two of our pot 2 companies (Serbia and Bosnia) are both prohibited from playing them so the usual 10% chance is more like 12.5%

I wonder if part of the reason this hasn’t been announced yet is to do with us not wanting to announce it before next Sunday’s Euro qualifying draw and then if we draw Turkey, it’ll get shelved. You could get around this by playing a fellow pot 2 nation. France, England, Wales and Serbia will be in Qatar, but you could easily play Finland or Bosnia-Herzegovina for the first time in a while. Austria, Czech Republic and Israel are also around but I’m not sure we’d fancy playing them for the 4th, 4th and 8th time since 2018 respectively.

Why wouldn’t they be mandated to do so? It’s a legitimate international window and we shouldn’t be prevented from playing friendlies just because we aren’t going to Qatar

Good point. We could play Turkey on Wednesday 16th as planned and then play someone else on the Saturday. Probably too late for a WC nation though.

Agreed. There might be a new face or two but it’s not going to be a B team kickabout. The nucleus of the squad will be the exact same as it always is.

Any word on whether they’re moving it to Istanbul/somewhere else or if it’s just being cancelled entirely?

Not sarcasm, I just completely lost track of the guy’s career after he left Hearts

What about that young guy Jack Hamilton that was playing for Hearts a few years back and got in the Scotland squad at least once? Where’s he playing these days?

As an absolute minimum they should always host the final at the venue of the 1v4 winner. The top seed has earned home advantage right through the playoffs and if the 4th seed can go and win there away from home then they have earned home advantage for the final. Both times we’ve been seeded 1st in the playoffs and both times we’ve been drawn to play the final away from home. It’s never actually been an issue for us because we won away from home once and failed to even make the final the other time.

Food for thought. We all hope this doesn’t happen any time soon, but if Clarke was to decide to move on or take a club job then who would be the best candidates for the role?

Poor Chesney. Hard to do well when your players are genetically programmed to be shite at football. Good news for Clarke is that those genetic challenges have been overcome

I’m surprised that Craig McGillivray from Charlton doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the squad at the minute.