You may not be able to glean this from much of what follows, but I have a lot of time and respect for Steven Naismith. With all apologies to the former Hearts gaffer, though, he simply cannot be the next Scotland manager. Can he?
And yet, even as I say that, the disembodied head of Mick McCarthy floats into my mind, reminding me that there is a very real chance, ‘he can’.
So, allow me to rephrase – he shouldn’t be the next Scotland manager. But there Naismith sits, like the elephant who found himself up a tree, still stubbornly atop the list of runners and riders. Odds on, in fact, with bookmakers for the position.
If there is one area where the famous saying about bookies never being wrong is shown to be flawed, mind you, it is the next manager market. Traditionally, such lists, which can be nudged this way or that by someone chucking as little as a score on a candidate, are about as reliable as a hack’s pre-season predictions.
There are a couple of reasons why Naismith is fancied for the role, with the chief one being the lack of credible alternatives. Or Scottish ones, at least. Derek McInnes has taken the Rangers job (so won’t be available until around October, if the Ibrox club stay true to form…), Davie Moyes isn’t going to leave Everton for Scotland at this juncture even before you account for the massive wage cut he would have to take to do so, while John McGlynn may have worked wonders at Falkirk, but it would be a big leap to suggest he can replicate that success at the top level of international football.
Naismith, meanwhile, already seems in with the bricks at the Scottish FA. Speaking last month, when he, erm, publicly ruled himself out of the running for the Scotland manager’s gig, he nevertheless intimated that he had been talking to the Hampden hierarchy, and that he would most likely be continuing in some sort of role on the coaching staff.
“In terms of a full-time role, I don't think that's something that I've considered,” Naismith said.
“It's quite important you get the right person with good managerial experience, but who's also willing to continue making the improvements. For where we're at, I think that's the right way to go with that.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Naismith has though, by all accounts, impressed as a coach during his stint as Steve Clarke’s number two, is liked and respected by the players, and he does have the advantage of knowing what is like to be in their boots with 51 Scotland caps to his name.
Over and above that, his stint as Hearts manager is arguably a little unfairly remembered for the grim circumstances of his sacking, with the Tynecastle club sitting bottom of the Premiership table after a draw and five straight defeats to open their league campaign, an early exit from the League Cup at the hands of Falkirk and being punted out of Europa League qualifying with two losses against Viktoria Plzen.
Less mentioned of course is the fact that he had led the Jambos to a third-placed finish the season before, a more than credible effort in the pre-Jamestown Tynecastle era.
And hey, if the argument was that his overall record as Hearts manager and his reputation as a coach in Clarke’s backroom team should afford him another crack at a role in the Scottish Premiership, I’d be right behind it.
Lord knows, there is a dearth of young, native managerial talent around at the top level these days, and we shouldn’t be discounting coaches who may have suffered a bruising experience already in their fledgling careers, or be snooty about potential candidates for any gig, just because they are Scottish.
Neither though should we be promoting coaches above stations their experience merits just because they are Scottish, and I fear if the SFA do plump for Naismith to succeed Clarke, that is exactly what they would be doing.
Craig Mulholland, the SFA’s new chief football officer, has come in to quite the situation. He has massive decisions to make, with both the main Scotland post and the under-21 gig lying vacant.
To look at it positively though, he has the opportunity to appoint coaches to these positions who will work together to establish an identity for our national side, and then collaborate to bring players through who are familiar with what is required of them. Rather than previously, when Clarke was latterly flitting between formations from campaign to campaign, and Scot Gemmill was doing, well, whatever it was he was doing.
You don’t have to be Scottish though to nail down a strong identity for our national side and implement it. You do though, however, in my view at least, need to be an experienced manager with a strong track record at the level behind you.
If the best available man for that job is Scottish, then all the better. But if he isn’t, then so be it.
Further to that, the appointment of Naismith would be a deeply unpopular one with the Tartan Army, who are desperate for some fresh thinking. They were excited by the prospect, however miniscule, of Ange Postecoglou taking on the job, for example, while stories tipping Naismith for the role over the weekend provoked wearied head-shaking at best and even some anger, feeding into a ‘jobs for the boys’ narrative that would indicate the arrival of Mulholland has changed not very much at all.
For me, it all boils down to this question - if Naismith was any other nationality other than Scottish, would he be within a country mile of being the Scotland manager?
I wouldn’t bet on it.
