Scotland needs a fresh start. The job as national coach requires someone with new ideas and innovation. That’s why today’s appalling stories in the media, about Alex McLeish and Walter Smith being “in the running” for the gig, are so disgraceful.
I understand the desperados at Sevco considering these two.
The myopia at Ibrox, that they think their problems can only be solved by someone who “gets it” is leading them down a blind alley and into the next full-blown crisis. They can fumble about embarrassing themselves with such shocking decision making all they like, and the rest of us ought to leave them to it.
But this is the national team.
The humiliation such an appointment would bring to Scotland would be acute, even in the short term. Jobs for the boys is bad enough; jobs for any out of work ex-Ibrox employee who happens to have enough pals in the press is far worse.
Nobody does nepotism quite like this lot.
The national team is forever being bent into ridiculous shapes to appease Ibrox. This would be the worst example ever of that.
There were already worrying signs under Gordon Strachan that some things were bigger considerations that the team on the park. There had to be a “Glasgow balance” in the coaching team for a start; a piece of sheer nonsense that awarded mediocrity for the sake of appeasing idiots in the press and the stands – and not even the Hampden stands, but those elsewhere. Sevco players got into squads based only on the colour of the club shirts they wore.
It will be worse now with the likes of Cummings and Murphy at Ibrox.
McLeish has been out of the game for years. Not even Sevco would touch him.
The idea of Walter Smith being wheeled out of the retirement home as some kind of saviour … well that’s just incredible, amongst the most ignorant and backward ideas I’ve ever heard. Has Hampden itself become a retirement home for the Real Rangers Men?
An online poll on The Record has over 70% in favour of this idea; I am guessing these aren’t the people who attend Scotland games.
Such an appointment would be scandalous. There is no merit in it whatsoever. His ideas were outdated even when he was at his so-called prime. Whoever is pushing those two names is devoid of imagination or even the slightest measure of ambition.
Today Stuart McCall was sacked; why not add him to the shortlist as well? Go all out.
I would prefer it if the next Scotland boss was a foreigner, someone with no interest in appeasing the gurning idiots who lobbied for Lee Wallace’s inclusion when he was playing third division football, and wondered aloud why Scotland fans booed Ian Black.
I would prefer someone who came in with a view to ignoring press hype whenever someone at Parkhead or Ibrox has two good games in a row. Someone who picks players on merit alone and doesn’t feel he has to staff his backroom team with unemployable dreck who’s “credentials” are impeccable only in the lodge.
But today’s headlines don’t promise any of that. It makes it very hard to care about the national team. It makes it very hard to even want to see them succeed, when those at Hampden clearly have more interest in looking after their pals.
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