Football fans are a fickle bunch.
Should Scotland beat Slovenia in their final Russia 2018 qualifier tomorrow evening and secure that elusive play-off spot, there will be heartfelt calls from elated supporters for Gordon Strachan to stay on as manager.
However, lose or even draw in the Stozice Stadium and miss out on the finals of a major tournament for the tenth time in succession and disillusioned Tartan Army footsoldiers will, despite the unexpected resurgence his side has enjoyed this year, almost certainly demand that Strachan be sacked without a moment’s delay.
Either way, it is unlikely there will be any sort of sober assessment of how he has fared in what has been, even by the standards of the national team, a remarkable campaign.
So, before the final Group F match kicks off, before the country is overcome with euphoria or gripped by thoughts of recrimination, this is an opportune time to express the desire that Strachan remain for another two years at least.
On these very pages last week the view was expressed that the 60-year-old must secure the runners-up position to survive in a job he took on nearly five years ago now.
The events of the past week, though, have put his position in a different perspective.
Could another manager have coped with the sudden loss of his two most influential players – Stuart Armstrong and Scott Brown – so assuredly and engineered a victory in such an important fixture in the full glare of an expectant public?
Could any other coach have refused to bow to the pressure to select promising youngsters John McGinn and Callum McGregor and have fielded Barry Bannan and Darren Fletcher, two players who nobody was pushing to have included, instead and ultimately be proved right?
Who else would have had the nerve to throw on Chris Martin, whose arrival on the field in similar circumstances was booed in the home game against Slovenia back in March, and be vindicated?
Would another man have pitched Ikechi Anya, a winger who hadn’t played a club game for Derby County in nearly a month, in to the fray late on and then watched as he set up the winner?
There have undoubtedly been mistakes made by Strachan. The 1-1 draw with Lithuania in Glasgow a year ago tomorrow and the subsequent 3-0 drubbing by Slovakia in Trnava were both dire and avoidable results and may still end up costing Scotland dear.
But let’s just for a minute accentuate the positive here. This country has only managed to win three World Cup qualifiers in a row on four occasions – in the successful 1974, 1978, 1990 and 1998 campaigns.
They have done so while fielding Christophe Berra and Charlie Mulgrew, two centre backs who ply their trade at Hearts, who are in seventh spot in the Ladbrokes Premiership, and Blackburn Rovers, who are sixth place in the Sky Bet League One. They have kept three clean sheets in a row in the process.
If Darren Fletcher and his team mates prevail tomorrow they will make history by becoming the first group of players wearing dark blue to go four matches in this competition without suffering a draw or a defeat. Should the individual responsible really be discarded if they fail in the two matches which follow?
There is a tendency in football to dispense with the services of the man who occupies the dugout if a club or team come up short of their goal regardless of the obvious progress which has been made. Scotland shouldn’t make the same mistake in this instance.
There would undoubtedly be a string of candidates who would put themselves forward were Strachan to stand down – and there is little chance of the SFA, who remember the ill-fated reigns of Berti Vogts, George Burley and Craig Levein, sacking him – and many of them would probably do a decent job.
But would any candidate command the respect of the players and have as good a chance of clinching a place in Euro 2020? It is hard to think of any either in this country or abroad.
It may not be a popular view, and it might be sacrilegious to suggest so tomorrow night after the Slovenia game, but Gordon Strachan must stay.
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