Any search for ill will towards Alex McLeish within Scottish football would be a tough one. Although unanimous sentiment towards football managers is an impossibility, those who have dealt professionally with the 59-year-old will generally report on a thoroughly decent, charismatic, clued-up individual. McLeish’s knowledge of global football is understated and an exception to the notion that detail is the domain of younger coaches.
McLeish has 77 Scotland caps. When faced with downsizing at Rangers he returned seven trophies – including a domestic treble – and progress to the last 16 of the Champions League. Success with Birmingham preceded as bizarre a managerial move in 2011 as it looks today: to Aston Villa.
Since then McLeish’s career has never really returned to its previous heights, meaning his level of motivation in this, a second stint in charge of Scotland, will not be in short supply. It seems reasonable to infer this may be McLeish’s last managerial hurrah, with the fact he has been handed a contract for a single campaign perhaps significant.
We have been here before, of course. In what proved a matter of mutual convenience – McLeish had not landed an English top-flight job on his exit from Rangers – the former defender was unveiled by the Scottish Football Association in January 2007. There is a lot of phoney morality now attached to what happened as McLeish is accused of “walking out on his country” less than a year later rather than accepting a far more lucrative job in Birmingham but that lingering punter annoyance cannot be ignored. McLeish has to hit the ground running this time, or supporters will not be slow in voicing negativity. Perhaps it was ever thus.
Any cynicism – and there is an abundance of it – regarding the appointment of the successor to Gordon Strachan should not be placed at McLeish’s door. The sentiment is, however, valid; and symptomatic of a dysfunctional Scottish FA.
It came close to being so different, in what is a metaphor for the past two decades. Scotland’s pursuit of Michael O’Neill was widely castigated but perfectly correct. It also had a decent chance of succeeding. The circumstances since O’Neill decided to remain with Northern Ireland – on a contract Scotland could not possibly afford – display the hallmarks of a desperate, panic-stricken governing body that stumbled on McLeish as a willing and available alternative.
Rather than engage in a thorough process of multi-candidate analysis – Scotland do not play a competitive match until September – and bank the £10,000 a week as saved with no manager in place, board members did not fancy further scrutiny as this post lay vacant. These are hardly a set of calm and considered actions befitting members of senior management. Rather, it looked reactive in an effort to halt incessant media criticism. Maybe this is natural when individuals from Cove Rangers and Alloa Athletic hold such sway in the corridors of power.
In no particular order, since O’Neill’s close call, the Scottish FA board has lost its chief executive at a time when his understudy was known to be on a shortlist to host a senior position in another sport – duly accepted – and suffered embarrassing rebuttal from the seven-year-retired Walter Smith.
Any rationale regarding the identification of O’Neill was abandoned as Smith and McLeish appeared like the emergency services on the horizon. Club managers on the Scottish FA’s doorstep – Steve Clarke, Neil Lennon and Derek McInnes – were not even approached for interview. The notion of hiring a younger man, perhaps more in tune with players and in tune with the developments within international football, never got off the ground. A third criterion, of speaking to a range of candidates who had guided small nations to major tournaments, did not transpire either. “Why bother? Alex will do it.”
Through its blind panic the Scottish FA displayed a chronic lack of foresight. It stands accused of not being progressive. In deciding McLeish is the man to return Scotland towards something approaching international relevance, the board is taking a serious gamble by drawing on managerial success from years ago. That is arguably a bigger punt than opting for a less decorated man or – whisper it – a foreigner.
McLeish, who has no immediate boss because the Scottish FA did not apply the logic of appointing chief executive before manager, would be well served to be wary of this farce. It hardly represents a promising start. He should, at least, have encountered enough background chaos in a varied career to shrug most of it off.
That Strachan was shown the door after botching successive qualifying campaigns seemed perfectly sensible at the time. Almost four months on it may be legitimate to ask if his long-time Aberdeen team-mate represents the improvement Scotland crave. McLeish’s job does not look half as tricky as that of his employers when it comes to restoring credibility.
