THE SFA were last night accused of undermining Alex McLeish’s authority as Scotland manager before he was even appointed as a result of their “amateurish”, “botched” and “messy” pursuits of both Michael O’Neill and Walter Smith.
The governing body’s board will meet at Hampden today - and the main item on their agenda will be deciding on McLeish’s future with the national team after a bitterly disappointing start to the Euro 2020 qualifying campaign.
His men crashed to a calamitous 3-0 defeat to Kazakhstan in their opening Group I match in Nursultan last month and followed that up with an unconvincing performance in a nerve-wracking and ultimately meaningless 2-0 triumph over minnows San Marino in Serravalle a few days later.
The SFA are set to debate whether to continue with the 60-year-old - who secured a Euro 2020 play-off place when Scotland topped their Nations League section back in November - or bring in a replacement in time for the crucial Cyprus and Belgium matches in June.
READ MORE: Comment: Alex McLeish will lose his job today and his replacement must already be known
McLeish’s 14-month reign has, despite the impressive wins over Albania and Israel which ensured the country have a safety net if they fail to finish in the top two in their group and qualify for the finals automatically, been tumultuous to say the least.
The 60-year-old was a controversial choice to succeed Gordon Strachan in February last year; many members of the Tartan Army were still unhappy at the way he left for a job at Birmingham City during his first spell in charge in 2007 and were vehemently opposed to him returning.
Others felt that putting their faith in a man who had, aside from a two month-long stint at Egyptian club Zamalek in 2016, not worked in management full-time in almost three years was a retrograde step.
It has also been alleged that SFA president Alan McRae and vice-president Rod Petrie, who are personal friends with the Aberdeen great and former Hibernian manager, were only allowed to get McLeish on board by their fellow board members when they sanctioned the appointment of Partick Thistle managing director Ian Maxwell as chief executive.
The likes of Scott Brown, Leigh Griffiths, James McArthur, Allan McGregor, Matt Ritchie and Robert Snodgrass have all either retired from international football or made themselves unavailable for selection during his second tenure.
READ MORE: Motherwell chief defends decision not to offer long-term contract to Rangers target
The former Motherwell, Hibs, Rangers, Birmingham, Aston Villa and Genk manager has successfully blooded a raft of young players, including Scott Bain, David Bates, Scott McKenna, Scott McTominay, Stephen O’Donnell and John Souttar.
But a large number of call-offs before the Albania game last year, which his team ended up winning 4-0, led to claims, which McLeish refuted, that key personnel either didn’t want to represent their country or play under him.
One report after the opening Euro 2020 double header last month implied there had been disquiet behind the scenes in the Scotland camp and stated the SFA were within 24 hours of parting company with their manager.
No official backing of the man at the helm has since been forthcoming from the sixth floor at Hampden.
Yet, George Peat, the former SFA president, feels the fact the governing body allowed it to become public knowledge that McLeish wasn’t their preferred candidate to take over from Strachan, and in fact was the third person they approached, has made his job even more problematic.
READ MORE: Timothy Weah hoping to be at Hampden for Celtic despite World Cup opportunity
Peat, who was involved in the appointment of both George Burley and Craig Levein during his presidency, is highly critical of the SFA over their attempts to land both Northern Ireland manager O’Neill as well former boss Smith.
“They made a mess of the appointment with Alex McLeish,” said Peat. “Telling the whole world that they wanted Michael O’Neill was an amateurish way of doing things to put it mildly.
“They should have found out before they made an announcement if O’Neill was interested in the job. People have contacts all over the place. It wouldn’t have been difficult to find out if he was interested in coming to Scotland or not. That could have sorted out the messy problem of it dragging on for weeks and then him turning them down."
Smith, the vastly-experienced and hugely-respected former Rangers, Everton and Scotland manager, was sounded out about coming in after the O’Neill saga and was intrigued by the prospect. But he withdrew from the running within a matter of days after the SFA failed to contact him again. “They botched that,” said Peat.
Asked if he thought the O’Neill and Smith debacles had made it harder for McLeish to command respect in the role, Peat said: “That is right. Reading between the lines, Alex was just desperate to get back involved.”
READ MORE: "If Scotland don't reach Euro 2020 I can't see us qualifying for a tournament finals ever again"
He added: “During my presidency, what I did was say to every member of the board ‘write down the names of three people you would consider to become manager’. We looked at the list, picked out two or three with the most mentions and then interviewed them. Then we reported back to the board and said: ‘Here’s our recommendation. What do you think?’
“But any managerial appointment is a gamble. You can never be sure when you appoint somebody if they are going to be a success. You can get guys who have been a success with one club and when they move to another job things just don’t work the same. You can never guarantee an appointment, that’s the problem.
“What Alex did the first time was fine. Walter came in after Berti Vogts and turned the whole thing round. Alex came in, carried it on. Unfortunately, after that, things went downhill.When I was president we were 13th in the FIFA World Rankings. Thirteenth! Where are we now?”
If Alex McLeish is kept on for the Cyprus match at Hampden on Saturday, June 8, he will need to win to keep alive slim hopes of qualifying automatically for the Euro 2020 finals and survive as Scotland manager.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel