WHEN Gordon Strachan’s Scotland reign comes to an end, and it will most likely be quite soon, there is one quote which sums up his time as our national team’s manager.
Only on Monday he said: “I picked the regular bunch because you can trust them.”
This made my head spin and I’m sure many others. Trust them to do what exactly?
Lose three goals to England from what should have been easily defendable cross balls? Be humiliated in Slovakia and do well to get away with a 3-0 defeat? Draw at home to Canada? Need last-minute goals at Hampden to get points from Slovenia and Lithuanian, a game we drew after what was an utterly miserable performance?
A glance through the squad he picked this week confirms at least one thing. Strachan is consistent in his selection. The pity is, so are the performances and results.
We shall get to the jaw-dropping decision not to call up Callum McGregor in a bit. The written press who are out here in Astana asked Brendan Rodgers about his player and the Celtic manager admitted surprise at him being left out, especially when he saw who Strachan did pick. I can see where he’s coming from.
When was the last time Darren Fletcher, and this is with every due respect to a fine man, had a good game for Scotland? Robert Snodgrass scored a hat trick against Malta right at the beginning of the campaign but since then he’s hardly kicked a ball as his move to West Ham United didn’t work out.
Barry Bannan is a fine Championship player with Sheffield Wednesday but, and this is important, that league isn’t particularly good.
Difficult, yes, but its filled with bang-average players. Tom Cairney from Fulham was also selected.
Nobody is a bigger fan of John McGinn than me and he deserved to be in there, if not in the actual team. But with the best will
in the world, the Hibernian midfielder has only just got back to the Premiership after a three-year absence.
There is also Bournemouth’s Ryan Fraser, Matt Philips of West Brom and Matt Ritchie who plays for a Newcastle United team which already looks doomed to relegation back into English football’s second tier. So, ask yourself this. Right now, when you consider form, fitness and the level they are playing at, which one of those mentioned above deserves to be ahead of McGregor?
None is the answer. In case you were wondering. Or to put it another way, if he could, would Rodgers buy any of those deemed better than his man?
Fletcher obviously has great Champions League experience but look at the rest. They have as much as you and I. McGregor has shone on that stage and will do so again this season.
The Celtic man can play several positions as we all know. He would be in harmony as his club team-mates who should make up the majority of the team who start in Lithuania.
Indeed, I would go with Gordon; Whittaker, Mulgrew, Tierney, Robertson; Brown, Armstrong; Forrest, McGregor, AN Other and Griffiths.
True, it’s a wee bit Celticy; there’s no getting away from that. However, these are players that can be trusted – genuinely – because every week they win games, deal with huge pressure and on European nights play against far better players than those in the Championship.
Strachan is not a huge fan of Scottish domestic football but for the life of me I don’t know what else McGregor can do to force his way into the national squad, and one which is hardly bursting with star names. And it’s worth reiterating that the players Strachan has stayed loyal to failed players who finished fourth last time out and would really need to win all their remaining four matches to get into a play-off. It’s not as if they’ve been a roaring success.
It took him far too long to pick Stuart Armstrong and Leigh Griffiths who have been two of his best players over the last couple of matches. In fact, were it not for these two then Strachan would be out of a job by now.
Andy Robertson has also found himself out of the team at times. As if being one of the most consistent left-backs in the Premier League wasn’t good enough. We don’t have that many good players but there are some around. So why not throw them a dark blue jersey and tell them to get on with it.
McGregor has started the season better than Armstrong for goodness sake. Snodgrass hasn’t played at all, there is talk of him going to Sunderland of all clubs and yet he’s in before one of the country’s most versatile talents.
Hopefully Strachan knows what he’s doing because I love my country and am desperate to see us at a World Cup again. But we never seem to give ourselves the best chance of qualification.
As the manager said: “There were a lot that were close but if you look at that midfield there are a lot of good players in there who have done well for us and you can rely on.”
I only pray he is seeing something I am not.
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