Scott Brown’s retirement from the Scotland team was welcome, and not just because I have no wish to see him play under Alex McLeish.
I won’t be watching McLeish’s team, so I couldn’t care.
Scott’s in the form of his career right now and if we want to keep him here for a few years yet it’s important that he is not playing more games than he needs to. International football is more than he needs.
There is an argument being had, increasingly being had, in Celtic cyberspace about whether or not we should boycott the national squad altogether. Already, the drums are beating; Sevco players are “back in contention” as if they were ever out of it, as if successive managers hadn’t taken the decision to fill their squads with non-Scottish players, as if the current crop were good enough and had just been summarily ignored.
They will not be ignored by McLeish.
Sevco’s Scottish contingent – such as it is; most of these guys are only there on loan at the moment – are important to “the business plan” which requires that they be “developed” and then sold. In spite of the big talk coming from Ibrox they know that the group stages of a European competition is a pipe dream.
Scouts from abroad are not going to be sold on many players on the basis of some SPL games. With European football out, that leaves international football. These guys will be selected for national squads under McLeish; you had better believe it.
That will actually be to our benefit in some ways. Every one of their players who is selected means one less of ours in the squad. I do not believe McLeish will base his selections purely on merit, not that it matters. His ideas are from another era, and he will bring nothing fresh to the national team. He has failure written all over him before he even starts. The appointment was scandalous. Those who did it must own that failure when it comes.
As far as I’m concerned, pulling our players out of squads would only give McLeish, his media pals and those who hired him an alibi they don’t deserve. Besides, the idea of our footballers being pulled out of the national team makes me queasy, not that it would ever happen; they are too professional and our club plays this stuff straight.
It’s what separates us from others.
It is an honour to represent your country in anything and I know our players would feel that way no matter who the manager of the national team was. So I expect them to be available and where McLeish is not playing those Ibrox wants to put in the shop window they will feature. And because the core of the team will not be made up of Celtic stars, nobody is going to be able to blame us in any way for whatever disaster befalls Scottish football next.
I prefer it that way. Their excuses are their own.
They will have nobody to blame at Celtic Park.
Nobody to blame at all. Except themselves.
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