The manager is not for turning

Football Writer

Sunday 2 September 2012

A new cam-paign but same old ambitions, and as Craig Levein acknow-ledged with admirable candour, it will be the same end result should Scotland fail to land a ticket to the Fifa 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil.

Jordan Rhodes has impressed Craig Levein but the Scotland manager insists he will be sticking with the tried and tested Kenny Miller for the upcoming World Cup qualifiersPhotograph: SNS

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Alison McConnell

"Acceptable isn't a word that's used in Scottish football," he said. "It'll either be success or failure. It'll be judged on one of two things – qualifying or not qualifying. Whether that's fair is a different debate altogether. I accept that. I don't have any qualms about it. I look at the group of players we have, and from where we have come from to where we are now, we're much better. Whether we're good enough to qualify, that's the big question that everybody's wondering. I think we're capable."

As Scotland stand on the cusp of their campaign with a Hampden double-header against Serbia and Macedonia, there will be no dramatic shake-up within the ranks and it will be a familiar face that spearheads the drive for Brazil.Despite the debate over Jordan Rhodes after his 36 League One goals for Huddersfield last term and his £8 million move to Blackburn Rovers, it will be veteran forward Kenny Miller who remains uppermost in Levein's mind. Rhodes did enough with his goal in the recent victory in the Easter Road friendly against Australia to plant a seed in Levein's mind, but it is one that has yet to take root in the manager's first-team plans.Qualifying from the group would make Levein's team the first Scotland side to do so since Craig Brown lead the team to France in 1998 and they kick-off their qualifying campaign on Saturday against Serbia and the following Tuesday against Montenegro. A winning start is vital since anything other outcome would increase the magnitude of what is already an arduous challenge. And it is the Hampden roar and huge expectation levels of the home crowd that are partly responsible for the fact that Levein will go with the tried and tested."Don't think I haven't thought about it," said Levein when asked whether he would gamble on starting with the 22-year-old Rhodes. "But part of it is experience. He has played one game at Easter Road in front of 15,000 and against a team which we had very much on the back foot. Serbia will be a stronger team than Australia and I also think the size of the crowd and the occasion will be a little different. He is not 100 miles away. It is not 100% Kenny is playing and Jordan isn't, because I have put a lot of thought into it. I'm not declaring anything. Kenny is still my No 1 striker, but we'll see what happens."Scottish football is littered with stories of those from whom great things were expected yet who ultimately failed to deliver, but Rhodes is expected to make it and though he may not begin the campaign as the first-choice striker, there is a fair chance he may end it with that accolade."He is still a young boy, but his record is difficult to argue with," said Levein. "I know people might want to point out that it's at a lower division, but the goals are still the same size and the type of goals that he scores requires one skill-set – and that is getting to the ball quicker than anyone else in the box. "That doesn't involve being physically stronger than anyone else or being physically quicker than anyone else or being bigger or taller – it involves having the kind of brain that takes you to the right spot. That in itself gives him an advantage over defenders, no matter what level he is playing at. He is a pure finisher. If you look at his goals, it is incredible how many he scores with one-touch finishes."Comparisons are often unfair and while Levein likened Rhodes to Hearts' goalscoring legend John Robertson, he is conscious of the fact that there is already a steady weight of expectation building up around Rhodes. "It's his own fault," he joked. "I was worried about the jump into international football before the last game [against Australia] but I watched him 15 times last season and that game was typical of what he does. He got on the end of a ball into the box and he scored. He is either the luckiest guy I've ever seen to keep doing it again and again or he is just naturally a pure-bred poacher. "I wasn't 100% certain that Jordan was ready, but then I thought that unless I played him I wouldn't find out. Before that game if you'd have asked me who was starting the game against Serbia then I'd have said Kenny, but now I have something to think about. "As I say, I'll make my mind up on a huge amount of different things, including the training leading up to the game."One solution would be to play the pair together, but Levein will not deviate from his system of playing with one leading forward player. "The system fits a lot of the players," he said. "If I had been at a club I probably would have had another system or changed it, but the amount of time we get isn't conducive to spending a long time on the training ground working on something different. "Playing two up front, for me, requires two types of strikers. You then leave your midfield open, so you need a different type of midfield player. What we're doing now is fine, we're all comfortable with it. It suits the players and allows us to play wingers with a little less onus on them to defend. I'm loath to go into the start of a campaign and mess about with things."Just how far this squad have come in recent seasons is about to be revealed.

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The manager is not for turning

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