The Alex McLeish Appreciation Thread

[BillyAnchor]

[GordonS]

We're probably going to need The UEFA Appreciation Thread too.

World's gone mad.

[HibeeJibee]

Fine margins. McGregor fails to save that late effort and he'd be facing a crescendo of criticism and calls for the sack. (Would we also have dropped to 4th seeds? That would've badly hurt our chances in proper qualifying had he survived).

Ultimately this is probably the best opportunity we'll ever have to qualify... Start out in 3rd level of a new tournament but the tier has its own slot. Drawn into the only section with 3 sides and get the weakest opponent from pot 2 and among the weakest in pot 3. Israel contrive to lose their opener meaning loss there isn't fatal. We huff & puff in both Israel ties, especially away - but top the group. Finland surprisingly top their section and we host them in SF. Not to mention the finals are being held Europe-wide and we're hosting games.

Job done so far but long way to go.

[Gordopolis]

8 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

Fine margins. McGregor fails to save that late effort and he'd be facing a crescendo of criticism and calls for the sack. (Would we also have dropped to 4th seeds? That would've badly hurt our chances in proper qualifying had he survived).

Ultimately this is probably the best opportunity we'll ever have to qualify... Start out in 3rd level of a new tournament but the tier has its own slot. Drawn into the only section with 3 sides and get the weakest opponent from pot 2 and among the weakest in pot 3. Israel contrive to lose their opener meaning loss there isn't fatal. We huff & puff in both Israel ties, especially away - but top the group. Finland surprisingly top their section and we host them in SF. Not to mention the finals are being held Europe-wide and we're hosting games.

Job done so far but long way to go.

Nah, our name is as good as on the trophy

[BFTD]

2 hours ago, BillyAnchor said:

Some chairman will see this thread and lure him away to  an English Division one relegation dogfight.

The SFA board are probably used to the Plymouth Argyles causing them a lot of discomfort.

[Poet of the Macabre]

The minimum requirement, according to McLeish himself, was to win the group. He achieved that. But let's not pretend everyone and their gran wouldn't be wanting him chucked if McGregor hadn't made that big late save.

I'm impressed that we've responded well to bad situations but we are still flawed. The side looked excellent at times going forward last night but it was a heart attack at the back against a poor Israel team.

However, we now have a superb chance of reaching a major tournament and can play the Euro qualifiers with a bit less stress, knowing we have the play-off spot in our back pocket. Let's hope we take a few risks and utilise our attacking talents.

[Scary Bear]

Good to have the pro-McLeish thread up and running.

Scotland were good in the last two games.  

If he does something of note, like qualifying us for a tournament, then I’ll get on the bandwagon.

[Estragon]

Job done certainly, although his bizarre double sub immediately after the Israeli 2nd goal made it harder than necessary. 

As an aside, I really hope the ones who are wistfully opining that he's an alcoholic, or has Alzheimers, never have to deal with either. Atrociously poor taste.

[Antiochas III]

7 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

Good to have the pro-McLeish thread up and running.

Scotland were good in the last two games.  

If he does something of note, like qualifying us for a tournament, then I’ll get on the bandwagon.

Scotland have played well in 3 of their 4 competitive games under McLiesh.  Israel away seems to have made people forget this. 

[MarkoRaj]

21 minutes ago, Estragon said:

Job done certainly, although his bizarre double sub immediately after the Israeli 2nd goal made it harder than necessary. 

As an aside, I really hope the ones who are wistfully opining that he's an alcoholic, or has Alzheimers, never have to deal with either. Atrociously poor taste.

Shinnie was excellent when he came on and pretty much exactly what was needed at the time. Not sure what he thought Philips was the answer to mind you

[Estragon]

3 minutes ago, MarkoRaj said:

Shinnie was excellent when he came on and pretty much exactly what was needed at the time. Not sure what he thought Philips was the answer to mind you

I felt that both were probably the answer to defending a two goal lead - but we entirely stopped stretching the game when they came on. Just put ourselves under more pressure than we needed to be from a fairly unspectacular outfit. 

[Jambomo]

47 minutes ago, Estragon said:

As an aside, I really hope the ones who are wistfully opining that he's an alcoholic, or has Alzheimers, never have to deal with either. Atrociously poor taste.

I don't think anyone wistfully hopes he has either of those things. I believe he might, actually because he shows some of the characteristics that my gran had before she died. I very much hope it isn't the case though.

[Ya Bezzer!]

The formation and line up look good and the style of football was impressive.

That's really all an international manager has to do.

In my opinion a lot of players haven't been bothering there ass lately and there was a strong strand of unprofessionalism in the Scotland camp.

The glut of call offs did us a favour.

 

 

[Estragon]

30 minutes ago, Jambomo said:

I don't think anyone wistfully hopes he has either of those things. I believe he might, actually because he shows some of the characteristics that my gran had before she died. I very much hope it isn't the case though.

I'm not saying that anyone is hoping for it.

I'm saying I really don't think that people are saying it with anything like the kind of personal experience, or  foundation with which you're obviously approaching the issue.  The overall tone has been extremely poor.

[sergie's no1 fan]

Wasn't a fan of his appointment the second time round but fsir play to him. 2 big results early on in this reign, if it went to 3-3 last night it could have been curtains for him already, so fair play.

This gives us a wee boost for the qualifiers. Hopefully we get a favourable draw, if not we have the insurance of a one off game against Finland to put us 1 game away from the Euros.

He still hasn't achieved what is expected of him but he has done all he can so far, under a good deal of pressure. Needs a good start in the qualifying group.

[Ross.]

Still not convinced he is the right answer. Definitely a lot of luck involved in terms of forcing him to make major changes to the team. Forrest would likely have been on the bench at best for the last 2 games had a few others been available. We topped that group in spite of McLeish, not because of him. As the saying goes though, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

All the same, we done the job we had to do and he has bought himself the next set of qualifiers.

[harry94]

I think a lot of people hold a grudge over McLeish and want to have a moan at him. He's not the most popular figure due to how he left last time and people inherently like to throw the 'DAE THINK OLD FIRM BAD?!' at figures like him because they can't understand why a manager would pick a squad player at Celtic when there's a player at a mid table team in good form not being picked.

The ranking system has changed so it's given him a brilliant opportunity to really play a lot of tough friendlies and properly experiment. He's been accused of 'stumbling' onto his team last night but the theme of the last few years is that we've had a Scotland team who have focused on grinding games out and with our lack of defensive prowess, this was becoming more of a problem. There's also been a changing of the guard with key figures like Scott Brown and Darren Fletcher end their national careers.

I think he's inherited a squad with something in it that can make it work and he's obviously met minimum expectations but I think that our performances this year do really bode quite well for the future. With the exception of the Israel game, we've always had a spark of some sort when going forward and despite the huge number of call outs, the players he deployed last night featured in the friendlies in March and there has obviously been an effort to create a cohesive team. The theory of 3 at the back was that it would unleash our forward thinking players and provide a bit more rigidity to the back line, this was tested and didn't quite take off but we at least know a lot more about it now.

Another accusation, still being made to this day is that his selections have been somewhat blinded by this Old Firm centric universe that sees no more than the those two clubs and the English Championship and Premier League but in my mind, he's shown himself as someone pragmatic and thoughtful enough to make the tough decisions that don't fit anyone's specific formula or sterotype. Scott McKenna and David Bates being our centre half pairing is a big example of that for me last night and I think the opportunities given to Stephen O'Donnell and a few other players shows that he isn't afraid to make that gamble on occasion. For some, that won't go far enough but I think there were moments of Craig Levein's era which serves as a warning of what happens when you just give someone a cap who is playing well domestically rather than taking the time to assess if they are actually good enough for international level (as opposed to it being a player like Gary Kenneth playing in a well performing team and deployed in a specific role).

Overall, positive from me and while I don't doubt that they'll be setbacks and he might make some big errors along the way, I feel more confident with him in charge than I have in any manager we've had since him. He's got a big big opportunity to make himself a popular figure again.

[SpoonTon]

I thought what our new manager had to do was to build on what Strachan had done. Adjust to the losses of players and help us find consistency. I was worried with McLeish's rip it up and start again approach, but I think with these two matches he seems to finally have gotten to the point that we were at when Strachan left. There's no reason whatsoever to doubt that Strachan would have helped us to win the group (he had a favourable record against the teams at or around this level - Slovenia, Ireland, Lithuania). In that sense McLeish is incredibly lucky to have gotten the job when he did. But he has done what was asked of him in terms of the Nations League results and the big test for him now will be to try to build a defence and find tactical flexibility that will help us to some consistency over a longer, more varied qualifying campaign. 

I'm not convinced by McLeish, and I don't know why he speaks like he's had a stroke, but he got things right this month. He has now built himself a great platform from which to move forward. Ultimately, anything other than qualification for Euro 2020 would be failure from the position that we're in but we have reason to believe that we won't fail. 

[wastecoatwilly]

Apart from not having a clue about formations
Not picking Naismith
Alienating  Griffiths
Not picking  Forrest
Square pegs in round holes
Not picking Fraser  
Aye hes done OK

[The Moonster]

5 hours ago, Poet of the Macabre said:

I'm impressed that we've responded well to bad situations but we are still flawed. The side looked excellent at times going forward last night but it was a heart attack at the back against a poor Israel team.

Not sure we need to worry too much here.  We're Scotland, we'll always have flaws. As for the "poor Israel team", before the match we had folk saying Zahavi and Dabbur were players that would walk into our team and we'd need to be at our best to stop them. For me the defence coped quite well and were let down by the midfield standing off. When we sort out right back I think we have decent options at the back in Bates, McKenna and Souttar.

29 minutes ago, wastecoatwilly said:

Apart from not having a clue about formations
Not picking Naismith
Alienating  Griffiths
Not picking  Forrest
Square pegs in round holes
Not picking Fraser  
Aye hes done OK

You're a clown, willy.