BACK when it all began he looked like the cat that got the cream.
George Elder Burley carried himself with the sort of quaint pride often seen in men who come back to Scotland after spending most of their careers somewhere else. He turned up for the cameras wearing a tie covered in Saltires. Something jarred about that.
It was a little too twee, a little too reminiscent of Berti Vogts and his “call me McVogts” soundbite on day one in the job. Sadly it wasn’t the only similarity between them. The pair of them were nice blokes with fairly romantic and idealistic notions about Scotland and its football. They simply didn’t know what was about to hit them.
Burley has always been a dapper fellow but it wasn’t long before the strain started to show as he and Scotland went down together. He began to look grey and haunted, a man whose face betrayed the stress and pressure he was under. Sometimes he stood in his technical area and looked like a manager who didn’t have the answers and who realised that, yet again, players simply weren’t responding to him. At 5.35pm last night the Scottish Football Association pumped out an email to say his worries were over, along with his employment.
Here are the questions thrown up by Burley’s sacking – and it was a sacking, there was no “mutual consent” in that SFA statement – and the issues which now have to be addressed . . .
Burley wasn’t some baffling appointment at the start of last year
How will Burley be remembered?
There isn’t any way to dress this up: Burley was perceived as a lame manager almost from the start. It didn’t take long for the whispers to circulate that he didn’t have the respect of enough of the senior players. Lee McCulloch and Kris Boyd announced that they wouldn’t play for him and there was varying degrees of insubordination and disinterest from some of the others who continued to turn up.
‘Boozegate’ showed what Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor thought of Burley. While he slept in his bed in the Scotland squad hotel at Loch Lomond these two embarked on an enormous bender in the bar downstairs.
The players’ lack of respect crippled his management, but Burley rarely impressed in his public duties in charge of Scotland. He came across as gentle, bland, a bit of a soft touch. He didn’t inspire. It was impossible to escape the suspicion that if he was like that with the media, could he really be all that different with the players in a dressing room?
How bad did it get?
Wales on Saturday was a performance and result which summed up the literally hopeless state Scotland had reached under him. Here was pretty much the strongest team Scotland could have put out, barring a couple, but Burley got nothing from them. In that sense he saved the worst until last but there were plenty of dreary episodes to endure through his 14 matches in charge. Losing to Macedonia, being routed by Norway, going down home and away against the Netherlands: there was nothing which could be remembered with any great affection. Scotland finished third in a mediocre qualifying group.
Kris Commons, James Morrison, Don Cowie and Graham Dorrans will be remembered as Burley “discoveries” at international level. Let’s see how long they last. And then there was Chris Iwelumo, a striker who produced the worst moment of his career just when Burley needed him most. He picked an unknown quantity instead of Boyd and got slapped in the face.
Burley did not command the dressing room and showed no great tactical insight, but when Iwelumo missed that open goal it proved that Scotland had a manager who didn’t even have luck on his side.
Why didn’t it work for him; was it all his fault?
There are players who should hang their heads about the way they have performed for Burley. So much for belting out the national anthem and all the big talk about pulling on the colours with pride: too many found it impossible to disguise how unimpressed they were with the deposed manager. All the fire, commitment and guts they showed for Walter Smith and Alex McLeish: why did all that supposed patriotism evaporate simply because another bloke was in the dug-out?
What did he get right?
Nothing that had any truly positive effect on the performances or results. Ross McCormack and Steven Fletcher got their debuts under him and may go on to have fine Scotland careers. Otherwise the best that could be said was that he preserved his personal dignity throughout it all. He always looked as if he genuinely cared deeply about Scotland.
Was there any case for keeping him?
None, there was no going back after Wales.
Should the men who appointed him go too?
Who called for Sir David Murray to be sacked for the Paul Le Guen fiasco at Rangers? Who will say that John Reid and Peter Lawwell should be fired if Tony Mowbray mucks up at Celtic? The same rules have to apply for George Peat, the SFA president, and Gordon Smith, the chief executive. Burley wasn’t some bizarre, baffling appointment at the start of last year. He was much-of-a-muchness with the other candidates at the time – Mark McGhee, Graeme Souness and the late Tommy Burns – and the only one of them who was a former English manager of the year.
Ignore the mock outrage from those who wanted Burley sacked at the end of the World Cup in September. No harm was done by giving him one last throw of the dice. Two more defeats in Japan and Wales merely meant that the SFA could embark on the search for a new manager with complete certainty that it had to be done. It is a red herring that they might have landed Gordon Strachan in September; he had no interest in the Scotland job.
What are the lessons For the SFA?
The big one is that you get what you pay for. The SFA pays £300,000-a-year to the Scotland manager. That means no-one will ever leave a big club to come and work at Hampden. All the candidates this time – as they were when Burley got the nod – will have patchy managerial records. Peat and Smith are going to have to swallow hard and bite the bullet, because the next appointment will be another leap of faith just as Burley was. We can’t afford a Fabio Capello.
Where next for Burley?
A return to English club management awaits. He is a natural Championship-level coach. He is only 53 so he’ll pop up again somewhere next year.
Where next for Scotland?
Well, there’s no hurry. There are 10 months until the Euro 2012 qualifiers begin. The SFA took two months between losing Alex McLeish (he left in November as well) and appointing Burley. Deliberations will be just as long this time. The next friendly is at home to the Czech Republic on March 3 and games will be arranged in May and August.
The Euro 2012 draw is made in February, though, and it would be beneficial for the new man to be around by then to have his say on the dates and the order of the games.
Ferguson and McGregor are goners but there is now no obstacle to Boyd returning to Scotland, which is better than nothing for a side which has failed to score in four of the last five matches.
Who will be the next manager?
The SFA don’t know yet, so don’t listen to anyone who claims to know the answer to this one yet. Would Walter Smith fancy one last crack at Scotland if he leaves Rangers next summer? The SFA can afford to wait for him. It’s now-or-never for Jim Jefferies, who is quietly touted but then overlooked every time the job comes up. Craig Levein? The temperature drops a little whenever he and Gordon Smith are in the same room.
Gradually the picture will become clearer as Smith, Levein and any of the other candidates do a Souness and publicly declare whether or not they are interested. The canny ones won’t say anything. Either way, it will run and run. The SFA has washed its hands of Burley and must now prepare for a long soap opera.
BACK when it all began he looked like the cat that got the cream. George Elder Burley carried himself with the sort of quaint pride often seen in men who come back to Scotland after spending most of their careers somewhere else. He turned up for the cameras wearing a tie covered in Saltires. Something jarred about that.
It was a little too twee, a little too reminiscent of Berti Vogts and his “call me McVogts” soundbite on day one in the job. Sadly it wasn’t the only similarity between them. The pair of them were nice blokes with fairly romantic and idealistic notions about Scotland and its football. They simply didn’t know what was about to hit them.
Burley has always been a dapper fellow but it wasn’t long before the strain started to show as he and Scotland went down together. He began to look grey and haunted, a man whose face betrayed the stress and pressure he was under. Sometimes he stood in his technical area and looked like a manager who didn’t have the answers and who realised that, yet again, players simply weren’t responding to him. At 5.35pm last night the Scottish Football Association pumped out an email to say his worries were over, along with his employment.
Here are the questions thrown up by Burley’s sacking – and it was a sacking, there was no “mutual consent” in that SFA statement – and the issues which now have to be addressed . . .
How will Burley be remembered?
There isn’t any way to dress this up: Burley was perceived as a lame manager almost from the start. It didn’t take long for the whispers to circulate that he didn’t have the respect of enough of the senior players. Lee McCulloch and Kris Boyd announced that they wouldn’t play for him and there was varying degrees of insubordination and disinterest from some of the others who continued to turn up.
‘Boozegate’ showed what Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor thought of Burley. While he slept in his bed in the Scotland squad hotel at Loch Lomond these two embarked on an enormous bender in the bar downstairs.
The players’ lack of respect crippled his management, but Burley rarely impressed in his public duties in charge of Scotland. He came across as gentle, bland, a bit of a soft touch. He didn’t inspire. It was impossible to escape the suspicion that if he was like that with the media, could he really be all that different with the players in a dressing room?
How bad did it get?
Wales on Saturday was a performance and result which summed up the literally hopeless state Scotland had reached under him. Here was pretty much the strongest team Scotland could have put out, barring a couple, but Burley got nothing from them. In that sense he saved the worst until last but there were plenty of dreary episodes to endure through his 14 matches in charge. Losing to Macedonia, being routed by Norway, going down home and away against the Netherlands: there was nothing which could be remembered with any great affection. Scotland finished third in a mediocre qualifying group.
Kris Commons, James Morrison, Don Cowie and Graham Dorrans will be remembered as Burley “discoveries” at international level. Let’s see how long they last. And then there was Chris Iwelumo, a striker who produced the worst moment of his career just when Burley needed him most. He picked an unknown quantity instead of Boyd and got slapped in the face.
Burley did not command the dressing room and showed no great tactical insight, but when Iwelumo missed that open goal it proved that Scotland had a manager who didn’t even have luck on his side.
Why didn’t it work for him; was it all his fault?
There are players who should hang their heads about the way they have performed for Burley. So much for belting out the national anthem and all the big talk about pulling on the colours with pride: too many found it impossible to disguise how unimpressed they were with the deposed manager. All the fire, commitment and guts they showed for Walter Smith and Alex McLeish: why did all that supposed patriotism evaporate simply because another bloke was in the dug-out?
What did he get right?
Nothing that had any truly positive effect on the performances or results. Ross McCormack and Steven Fletcher got their debuts under him and may go on to have fine Scotland careers. Otherwise the best that could be said was that he preserved his personal dignity throughout it all. He always looked as if he genuinely cared deeply about Scotland.
Was there any case for keeping him?
None, there was no going back after Wales.
Should the men who appointed him go too?
Who called for Sir David Murray to be sacked for the Paul Le Guen fiasco at Rangers? Who will say that John Reid and Peter Lawwell should be fired if Tony Mowbray mucks up at Celtic? The same rules have to apply for George Peat, the SFA president, and Gordon Smith, the chief executive. Burley wasn’t some bizarre, baffling appointment at the start of last year. He was much-of-a-muchness with the other candidates at the time – Mark McGhee, Graeme Souness and the late Tommy Burns – and the only one of them who was a former English manager of the year.
Ignore the mock outrage from those who wanted Burley sacked at the end of the World Cup in September. No harm was done by giving him one last throw of the dice. Two more defeats in Japan and Wales merely meant that the SFA could embark on the search for a new manager with complete certainty that it had to be done. It is a red herring that they might have landed Gordon Strachan in September; he had no interest in the Scotland job.
What are the lessons For the SFA?
The big one is that you get what you pay for. The SFA pays £300,000-a-year to the Scotland manager. That means no-one will ever leave a big club to come and work at Hampden. All the candidates this time – as they were when Burley got the nod – will have patchy managerial records. Peat and Smith are going to have to swallow hard and bite the bullet, because the next appointment will be another leap of faith just as Burley was. We can’t afford a Fabio Capello.
Where next for Burley?
A return to English club management awaits. He is a natural Championship-level coach. He is only 53 so he’ll pop up again somewhere next year.
Where next for Scotland?
Well, there’s no hurry. There are 10 months until the Euro 2012 qualifiers begin. The SFA took two months between losing Alex McLeish (he left in November as well) and appointing Burley. Deliberations will be just as long this time. The next friendly is at home to the Czech Republic on March 3 and games will be arranged in May and August.
The Euro 2012 draw is made in February, though, and it would be beneficial for the new man to be around by then to have his say on the dates and the order of the games.
Ferguson and McGregor are goners but there is now no obstacle to Boyd returning to Scotland, which is better than nothing for a side which has failed to score in four of the last five matches.
Who will be the next manager?
The SFA don’t know yet, so don’t listen to anyone who claims to know the answer to this one yet. Would Walter Smith fancy one last crack at Scotland if he leaves Rangers next summer? The SFA can afford to wait for him. It’s now-or-never for Jim Jefferies, who is quietly touted but then overlooked every time the job comes up. Craig Levein? The temperature drops a little whenever he and Gordon Smith are in the same room.
Gradually the picture will become clearer as Smith, Levein and any of the other candidates do a Souness and publicly declare whether or not they are interested. The canny ones won’t say anything. Either way, it will run and run. The SFA has washed its hands of Burley and must now prepare for a long soap opera.
