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McLeish Report


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This is why my enthusiasm in the national team has taken a massive nosedive in recent years. Strachan failing to qualify was the straw that broke the camels back and the obvious lack of improvement since just cements my lack of caring.  Until we see a massive shift in personnel at the SFA, it'll be a continuation of the same old shit as other same size countries go on to continue to produce world class players (done of which on smaller budgets that the SFA has) and continue to qualify for tournaments

Edited by Bobby Russell's Lovechild
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10 minutes ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

This is why my enthusiasm in the national team has taken a massive nosedive in recent years. Strachan failing to qualify was the straw that broke the camels back and the obvious lack of improvement since just cements my lack of caring.  Until we see a massive shift in personnel at the SFA, it'll be a continuation of the same old shit as other same size countries go on to continue to produce world class players (done of which on smaller budgets that the SFA has) and continue to qualify for tournaments

Strachan’s sacking was a huge moment for me also, as it showed we have no interest in giving a good manager time to do the job, and we’re convinced that the grass is always greener, and very short-sighted in our thinking.

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3 hours ago, dohadeer said:

Strachan’s sacking was a huge moment for me also, as it showed we have no interest in giving a good manager time to do the job, and we’re convinced that the grass is always greener, and very short-sighted in our thinking.

Three failures from Strachan. I can’t believe the cunt was given so long. 

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5 minutes ago, WCTA said:

Three failures from Strachan. I can’t believe the cunt was given so long. 

It was obvious in his final press conference that he was tired, hinted he was out of ideas and was glad to be leaving.

Strachan did a lot of good as manager but he was also frustratingly stubborn, far too slow to adapt and his final year in charge was miserable. 

Edited by ErsatzThistle
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At the time I felt Strachan deserved to go, but I recognized it was a gamble that may have set us back as I did not see a suitable replacement who would have been an improvement.  He did seem to grow over over his tenure and adapted, hind site is a wonderful thing but he would have done better than McLeish Mk II.  That 2018 WC campaign was the most painful conclusion in recent memory only rivaled by the Euro 2008 qualifiers.    This one is not over, but I think the draw has not been kind and I only now starting to feel the embers of hope fan into flame which may be a grave error. 

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15 minutes ago, ErsatzThistle said:

It was obvious in his final press conference that he was tired, hinted he was out of ideas and was glad to be leaving.

Strachan did a lot of good as manager but he was also frustratingly stubborn, far too slow to adapt and his final year in charge was miserable. 

Wasn’t his final year in charge when we went on our best competitive unbeaten run for decades?

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34 minutes ago, romanticscot said:

At the time I felt Strachan deserved to go, but I recognized it was a gamble that may have set us back as I did not see a suitable replacement who would have been an improvement.  He did seem to grow over over his tenure and adapted, hind site is a wonderful thing but he would have done better than McLeish Mk II.  That 2018 WC campaign was the most painful conclusion in recent memory only rivaled by the Euro 2008 qualifiers.    This one is not over, but I think the draw has not been kind and I only now starting to feel the embers of hope fan into flame which may be a grave error. 

McLeish Mk II got us to a play off. If he hadn't done that we would be out of Euro 2020 already.

 

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30 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

McLeish Mk II got us to a play off. If he hadn't done that we would be out of Euro 2020 already.

 

Not denying that but he was awful overall, a pale reflection of what he used to be as a coach. 

Edited by romanticscot
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1 hour ago, WCTA said:

Three failures from Strachan. I can’t believe the cunt was given so long. 

Two failures. We can’t blame him for WC 2014 as we’d already played four games before Levein was emptied. Strachan led us to two wins v Croatia that campaign. 
 

I wanted him gone too, but in hindsight, if I’d known it was McLeish they were going to bring in I’d have preferred to keep Strachan. 

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1 hour ago, WCTA said:

Three failures from Strachan. I can’t believe the cunt was given so long. 

Steady on, 2 failures. His first was realistically over before he even got started due to Levein.

The 2016 Euro’s campaign was a failure as we should have finished 3rd in that group and could have finished 2nd!

The 2018 World Cup group was tough but not impossible. I honestly didn’t think we were qualifying from that but after a shakeup start he nearly turned it around so he deserved credit for that!

I wanted him sacked after the home draw against Lithuania but he eventually won me round and I couldn’t believe the SFA let him go.

I wonder when Henry McLeish is going to just come out and just say he’s the man for the job. He’s obviously been after it ever since he wrote that report

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1 hour ago, ErsatzThistle said:

Strachan did a lot of good as manager but he was also frustratingly stubborn, far too slow to adapt and his final year in charge was miserable. 

I agree he was stubborn, but he definitely approached things differently at the start of 2017 (his final year).

What I remember about 2017 is that Leigh Griffiths was selected more often than he had ever been previously and that we were unbeaten in that year (Strachan's last).

The trajectory was going in the right direction... Then we let Strachan go.

 

Okay, we failed to qualify, but we were on the up.

Letting Strachan go was a bad decision IMO.

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6 minutes ago, McTeeko said:

Two failures. We can’t blame him for WC 2014 as we’d already played four games before Levein was emptied. Strachan led us to two wins v Croatia that campaign. 
 

I wanted him gone too, but in hindsight, if I’d known it was McLeish they were going to bring in I’d have preferred to keep Strachan. 

I would absolutely have kept Strachan if it was McLeish

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6 minutes ago, Rich NATA said:

I agree he was stubborn, but he definitely approached things differently at the start of 2017 (his final year).

What I remember about 2017 is that Leigh Griffiths was selected more often than he had ever been previously and that we were unbeaten in that year (Strachan's last).

The trajectory was going in the right direction... Then we let Strachan go.

 

Okay, we failed to qualify, but we were on the up.

Letting Strachan go was a bad decision IMO.

The problem was that he changed things (and reluctantly at that) far too late on though. 

If he had brought in Armstrong, Fraser and McGregor several games earlier than he did then he might very well still be Scotland manager as of February 21st 2020 !

If you can find footage of his final press conference watch it. He was so obviously tired, scunnered and clearly was looking forward to not having all that pressure on his shoulders much longer.

Edited by ErsatzThistle
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3 minutes ago, McTeeko said:

Two failures. We can’t blame him for WC 2014 as we’d already played four games before Levein was emptied. Strachan led us to two wins v Croatia that campaign. 
 

I wanted him gone too, but in hindsight, if I’d known it was McLeish they were going to bring in I’d have preferred to keep Strachan. 

I think that some Scotland fans need to reassess their definition of ‘failure.’ 
 

The only Scotland manager since Craig Brown that has ended up with Scotland finishing below their seeded position in a qualifying group was George Burley, in World Cup 2010 qualification, when we were seeded second and finished third.

It doesn’t make sense to still be defining success/failure along the exact lines of qualifying/not qualifying, we have to be intelligent enough to analyse things deeper than that. Strachan presumably was sacked along those lines of judgement, when realistically he was doing a good job at the time he was sacked, and would have been the right person to take us to a major finals.

If we are seeded below the qualification threshold, it isn’t fair to the players, manager, or ourselves, to be judging success or failure against the expectations of qualifying. Anyone still doing that is stuck many decades in the past.

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1 minute ago, Rich NATA said:

I agree he was stubborn, but he definitely approached things differently at the start of 2017 (his final year).

What I remember about 2017 is that Leigh Griffiths was selected more often than he had ever been previously and that we were unbeaten in that year (Strachan's last).

The trajectory was going in the right direction... Then we let Strachan go.

 

Okay, we failed to qualify, but we were on the up.

Letting Strachan go was a bad decision IMO.

It was a good decision if we were going to get Michael O'Neil, which the SFA seemed to think was a sure thing

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1 minute ago, ErsatzThistle said:

The problem was that he changed things (and reluctantly at that) far too late on though. 

If he had brought in Armstrong, Fraser and McGregor several games earlier than he did then he might very well still be Scotland manager as of February 21st 2020 !

If you can find footage of his final press conference watch it. He was so obviously tired, scunnered and clearly was looking forward to not having all that pressure on his shoulders much longer.

His final press conference would have been days - or even immediately - after just missing out on a playoff towards World Cup qualification. Obviously he would be deflated at that point, but that doesn’t mean that he’d given up.

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