Malky Mackay: I want new Scotland manager to follow my lead

Captained by Kieran Tierney, a young line-up saw Ryan Jack, Callum McGregor, Ryan Christie and Jason Cummings given their debuts, while Kenny McLean and John McGinn also got more game time under their belts. 

They brought a new impetus and energy to the side which saw Scotland boss large parts of the game, and Mackay, who will now return to his role as performance director at the Scottish Football Association, has said he hopes Strachan’s permanent replacement embraces the next generation of players rather than reverting to the same old faces.

“That will be someone’s call and absolutely their call because they will be the boss, but I love the look of us now, and anybody who was there, if nothing else, saw a team that matched Holland,” said Mackay. 

“We blew them over in terms of chances and in how we looked in possession and our athleticism because that’s a big thing as well. The best we have played in years was certainly Lithuania away, everybody was happy with it, we were really athletic. 

“On Thursday, we looked like we could run a team off the pitch, and that’s the way we need to be going forward, but we also had to be tactical and have technical ability. 

“We have young players coming through who have got touch, and by God it is time; we need that to play against a top European team but if we are going to go and play against mid-level European clubs and qualify, we will blow them away if we keep shifting the ball like that and are as athletic as that. That’s my view of how we should be going forward.”

A question mark still remains over  who the new Scotland manager will be, although that may be accelerated if candidate Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland fail to overturn a 1-0 deficit in Switzerland tonight.

However, for Mackay, other missing pieces of the national team jigsaw are beginning to be found.

Under Strachan, and for those before him, finding commanding centre-halves was always a major headache. As was sourcing a quality right-back, with Tierney being posted there in recent matches of the failed World Cup qualifying campaign.

On Thursday, the young Scotland captain was commanding in a left-sided role at centre-half, while Jack returned to his earlier roots at right-back. 

“Over the last decade we’ve not had centre-backs and centre-forwards,” said Mackay. “Then a hole emerged at right-back. I thought Ryan Jack came in and was fabulous. I watched him at 21s and I knew he’d perform there and we now have an option at right-back.

“Centre-back – well we’ve found a huge option in Kieran. Andy Robertson at left-back and Kieran Tierney inside him? Wow. You talk about Kieran 
stepping out with the ball, showing aggression, his level of reading danger and the blocks he made – well, he looked as if he’s been playing there for years.

“I spoke to Brendan Rodgers at length and we were both very 
comfortable about it. Then it was up to Kieran and he immediately embraced it and even more so when he was offered the captaincy. He was over the moon.

“We were missing Scott Brown and Darren Fletcher, who are getting to the far side of their career, but Leigh Griffiths and Stuart Armstrong aren’t involved and add to that two or three youngsters that are coming through as well. There’s the future, I honestly see it.

“Look at Christie, he was immense at times. He caused them so many 
problems. You have two flying wingers in [James] Forrest and [Ryan] Fraser. They need belief. What I did was just constantly reinforce it, saying ‘go and show the ability you have, you have such talent, I want tactical discipline but other than that go and show good football’. 

“McGinn and McLean had bravery to take the ball in tough areas when facing [Kevin] Strootman and [Georginio] Wijnaldum, talented, top players, and we took it and we switched it to get overloads in the wide areas.

“I knew if we could do that Robertson and Christie would cause issues down the left and Jack, Fraser and Forrest would cause issues down the right. We have players that can cause people problems.

“So going forward, am I starting to see gaps being filled? Ryan Jack has done one there. Tierney has done one and you have Armstrong to come back into midfield. It’s about these guys believing they are going to be Scotland players going forward.”

Turning back to the vacancy which is still to be filled, Mackay is clear in the kind of character and talent it needs. Just hours before kick-off SFA chief executive Stewart Regan announced it would not be Mackay that would take over permanently, but the performance director is clear someone in the mould of a “head coach” rather than simply a “manager” is needed.

He said: “I didn’t actually know about it until just before the game and when I spoke with him we talked about the team. It is what it is. I have my day job and I was the proudest man in the stadium on Thursday night.

“I think unless you have someone who has tactical nous then we’d be beaten 5-0 against the Netherlands. I don’t mean that in terms of me, I just mean we have to have someone who imparts tactical knowledge on to our players.

“Because you are there for four or five days it’s a balance. It’s between how much you train them because they are coming off the back of a weekend where they are all tired and come Monday it’s the second day of recovery. You have to balance that training session by giving them something – not too much – but making sure there is tactical information in there.

“You have four days to play against Holland, so what myself and Eric [Black] looked at was three or four key points both with and without the ball and we just drip fed that into them over the days and in training sessions. That way they were constantly getting the message.

“I think you have to have tactical information for the players. They expect it from their managers at their clubs, to not get it here would be a travesty.”