Panic on the streets of Glasgow...

Crap! Just woken up to find Scotland are searching for a new boss again!

Are we really going to be able to find another decent coach - we've lost two great coaches after an incredibly successful period that unfortunately also lasted about 10 minutes.

Flippity-flippity-flip.

We're probably due another Berti Vogts in charge.

L.

South Africa or bust

So we've been stuck in the sole 5 team group this time, which means only four home matches in the group stage - gutted. In terms of the draw itself, it would have been nice if we got Andorra or someone else that we could get a cricket score against. Skopje and Reykjavik will not be the absolute easiest places to win away either, though Iceland are going through a real bad patch in terms of their team. Remember only the winner automatically qualifies, and to be honest I think both the Dutch and Norway will be looking at this group and thinking "bugger". The Norwegians are an ageing side who came only third in a Euro 2008 group with Greece and Turkey, while as usual the Netherlands are a law unto themselves, and always perfectly capable of dropping points in qualifying while their players fight and argue with each other. Whatever happens, surely we won't get beat 6-0 this time?

In fact if you look at the other groups, I think we got as good a draw as anyone. Consider the worst case scenario, which would have been Italy, us, Denmark, Slovakia and Austria. I'll take this, thank you very much.

And to be honest, I'd rather have Amsterdam and Oslo right now than Zagreb and Kiev, which is what our beloved neighbours are looking at...

L.

And the next holder of the poisoned chalice will be...

I'm sorry, did I say "poisoned chalice"? I meant "England manager's job".

Following the events of Wednesday night, which of course I predicted with about as much accuracy as an Alistair Darling economic forecast, Steve McClaren was inevitably removed from his post - though it's amazing how 2 million pounds can stop you from doing the honourable thing and resigning. The enthusiasm for replacing him has, of course, been overwhelming, about as popular as being offered the job as official Texas electric chair tester. It's quite like when Scotland tried to find a replacement for Craig Brown - it just happens to be a time where there are not many suitable candidates who happen to be unemployed, or who are looking for a way out of their current job (give Sam Allardyce a couple of months and he might fit the bill, mind).

So at the time of writing, out are Mark Hughes, Martin O'Neill, Jose Mourinho, Allardyce and Marcello Lippi. Alan Curbishley, a candidate previously, has been at West Ham less than a year. Fabio Capello is the only obvious big name who has put himself forward. He has no international management experience, but then neither did Sven, or Steve McC, or, well, pretty much anyone else who has had the England job. So big deal. Goodness knows he has a good CV, too, having won titles with Milan, Roma, Juventus and Real Madrid. And he might offer exactly what England need - a bit of solidity and tactical nuance. He's also used to setting out his side with only one striker, which is just as well when England don't really have many to pick from. But will the public be able to cope with a side that win 1-0 all the time? Good question, that.

Oh, and he's foreign. Might be a wee bit of a sticking point. But who's the outstanding English candidate? Harry Redknapp? There you go. So even though Sven is still fresh in the memory, it looks like it's going to have to be someone from outside these fair isles who takes the post. So Capello is the favourite, and unless the FA can wait till Big Phil Scolari becomes available in July, or tempt Guus Hiddink to abandon Russia a month after signing a new contract, it seems he's in a league of his own.

At least they haven't looked North yet, though. But surely Alex McLeish would never be considered, nor would he be tempted. I hope...

L.

Review of comments below

Shall we just ignore absolutely everything I wrote earlier this evening. Thank you.

Even for the neutral, the most exciting game of the season, I think. Still, if we're not there, I don't think anyone can suggest England should be?

L.

Could a McClaren get in pole position?

Who's going to win Euro 2008 then?

England.

Well, maybe.

Apart from gubbing Russia at home, they've been mediocre at best throughout qualifying, and, assuming they do the business tonight (if they don't then this post will be edited pretty damn sharpish), they will have qualified mainly through Russia and Israel blowing each other's chances.

Since when has qualifying form mattered, though?

Germany made the 2002 World Cup Final despite a pretty naff qualifying campaign. Brazil won it after one of their worst campaigns ever. Holland were Euro 2004 semi finalists despite being so poor beforehand that they had to beat us to get there. Meanwhile, France messed up at Euro 2004 and Portugal at the 2002 World Cup after being among the favourites after waltzing through qualifying.

So England have sucked so far. But they have 7 months to get to a point where they no longer suck. 7 months for their best players to find form, and for McClaren to finally find a system that works. The press appears to have an obsession with England's reliance on 4-4-2, but I challenge you to come up with a formation that would suit them better. 3-5-2 keeps being mentioned, but out of all the semi-decent international sides only Russia seem to use it, and to be honest they're not all that good at it, despite having a couple of natural wing-backs and beating England. Everyone else plays four at the back, and I suspect that this may be because it is the best option. Meanwhile, the lack of a target man of quality (Peter Crouch does not come under this heading) eliminates 4-3-3, I think. And what about 4-2-3-1? Well, with Rooney playing just off Owen, England practically play this already. Instead he needs a bit of luck with injuries at the back, and a bit of balance in midfield.

In short, this means he needs Owen Hargreaves back. The former Bayern Munich midfielder has been badly missed as England discovered that Lampard and Gerrard really can't play together and that just because Lampard makes Gareth Barry look good doesn't mean that Barry actually is good. With Joe Cole and Wright-Phillips increasingly making the wide midfield areas their own (surely David Beckham will never be an England regular again now that he plays in Mickey Mouse League Soccer) and a defence that remains on paper the best in the world after maybe Italy's, McClaren would then find himself one piece short of a complete Euro 2008-winning jigsaw. A fit, on-form Michael Owen.

If that turns out to be the case, McClaren could be caviar on the back of The Sun, instead of the root vegetable the world seems to think he is inexorably headed for.

L.

The future's bright, the future's tartan

Saturday was typical in the life of a Scotland football fan. As soon as you even start to get optimistic or hopeful about anything, the football world turns round and bites you quite hard on the rear end. However, there are two differences, I think, between this campaign and previous ones; firstly, Scots managed to put off even thinking we could make it until the very last moment - even after beating France twice feet remained as close to the ground as those of an elephant on Jupiter.

Secondly, and rather more importantly, we actually appear to have a young team which is still a few years from it's best.

Euro 2008 was the last chance, surely, for David Weir and Christian Dailly to play in a second major finals for Scotland, and for Graham Alexander to play in his first. But the rest of the squad seems some distance yet from retirement age. Only Paul Hartley is beyond 31, and he is now competing in an area where Darren Fletcher and Scott Brown look like first choice picks, and where captain Barry Ferguson has shocked us all by actually playing well in the dark blue for more than one match every three years.

In attack, the campaign saw James McFadden emerge with talismanic status. He could yet be our David Healy, twice the player when representing his country, and his ability to score and create goals, and his refusal to be overawed by playing against even the best is simply inspiring. Kenny Miller is still a man for the big occasion, and in Kris Boyd we finally have a striker who looks like he can put diddy teams (if there is still such a thing at international level) to the sword with his predatory instincts.

But note the one thing our squad's three veterans have in common; they're all defenders. And that's where Scotland are still a distance behind most of the sides that did qualify. The exceptions are, of course, Craig Gordon, now the best British goalkeeper without a doubt, and - a year ago I would never believe for a second that I would say this - Alan Hutton, who is has simply come forward leaps and bounds. He has everything you want from a full-back - he's strong, fast, good in the tackle, good in the air, yet also comfortable with the ball at his feet and running at players. If only we had another Hutton on the opposite flank, but Gary Naysmith is some way away from his best form, and Jay McEveley, though young, is not quite up to the standard yet. And centre-half is the biggest conundrum of the lot. David Weir's long term replacement needs to be much more mobile, for, while Stephen McManus is as strong as a lion, he has the turning circle of a panda. And pacy forwards remain our achilles heel. Who's the answer? Gary Caldwell has been tried and found wanting, while club mate John Kennedy is simply a clone of McManus. The big hope has to be that Andy Webster finally overcomes his injury woes.

Whoever heard of a Scotland fan being optimistic after a defeat? Stranger things have happened, I suppose.

L.

Glorious failure - again

A rare experience for me today - being disappointed that I wasn't wrong about something.

Still, what a lot of great memories to take from this campaign; it's just a pity that it'll be almost a year before another meaningful Scotland game. And it was absolutely fantastic that so many fans stayed to wait for a lap of honour after yesterday's match, despite the result. So the Tartan Army do have a sense of reality, after all. The players deserved it, too.

So it'll be at least another two years before a Scotland side is at a major tournament. We've waited 10 years already, though, and it'll make the 2010 world cup all the sweeter. Particularly when we win it.

I can dream, can't I?

L.

One foot is still in the real world...

Sorry, chaps, but I'd like to inject the entire country with a stat dose of a drug that nobody wants to think or talk about at the moment - realism. (how many of you thought I was going to say marijuana?)

Tomorrow we are playing the World Champions. We have to beat them to qualify. A draw, while a pretty darn decent result, is almost certainly going to lead to our absence from another major tournament. And yet the press and punters seem to think that it is somehow our destiny.

The reasons? Our phenomenal record at home in these qualifiers seems to be the main one. Granted, we have won 5 out of 5, but those included a pub team from the Faroe Islands (it can't have been the same side that gave us a tricky game in June), wins over Georgia and Lithuania which required late goals to get us out of jail, a win over the French which, glorious as it was, is one of the most unfair results in history, and one rather good performance against Ukraine. In a parallel universe, a Scotland side ended up with 2 wins, 2 draws and a defeat instead, and are playing a dead rubber against a side who have already qualified.

Besides, are we not asking a bit much of these guys? The achievement of getting so close to qualifying in this group is more than enough. We will now, at least, be in the second seeding pot for the World Cup qualifiers - note that if we win and England lose to Croatia we might even be seeded above them. That's how far we've come. So if (or when) Saturday comes and goes as a big anticlimax, I at least am going to look back and think of how much excitement and fun I;ve had during these qualifiers as a Scotland fan, and try not to malign the fact that another example of "glorious failure" seems upon us.

Besides, can you imagine a major finals without Italy? I'm not 100% certain I want to, either.

L.

Kris Boyd: is there a place for a predator on the pitch anymore?

According to soccerbase.com, Rangers and Scotland striker Kris Boyd is 24 years old. He has made 63 starts and 15 substitute appearances for the Gers, scoring 53 goals in total, at a rate of 0.68 goals a game. So in every 3 games he has played, he has scored 2 goals. However, he has not made a single appearance in any of Rangers' four Champions' League group games.

In a Scotland shirt, Boyd scored twice on his debut against Bulgaria. He currently has twelve caps, eight of those as a starter. He has scored 7 goals. However, he did not play in either match against France or the home game with Ukraine, and only came off the bench late on in Tblisi, Bari and Kiev. I would bet my shirt that he will only be a sub in Saturday's crunch game with Italy.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a game of football won by the team that scores the most goals? And so why, in the big, difficult games where goals will be hardest to come by, is Boyd persona non grata?

Walter Smith, in the lead up to the clash with Barcelona at Ibrox, explained his view - Boyd can't play effectively without a partner, and in these sort of matches Rangers want to flood the midfield and play with only one forward - so far, it has been Daniel Cousin. Presumably Alex McLeish takes the same viewpoint, having gone with Kenny Miller in the last two games, and James McFadden playing in the hole.

Are they right?

There is certainly a widely held theory that Kris Boyd can't play up front on his own. It's said he doesn't press defenders enough, that he doesn't hold up the ball effectively, even that he isn't necessarily quick enough. In the case of the latter argument, Boyd may not be able to match Obafemi Martins over 100 metres, but his acceleration over the first 10m makes that pretty irrelevant - it's all he needs to get the jump on a centre-back. He certainly doesn't press defenders enough, but if you're a lone striker, how effective is doing that? If you're up top on your own against a flat back four who are even just a bit comfortable on the ball (as in the Champions' League, not the SPL!) they just pass it round you anyway. Running around for 75 minutes in the headless chicken, Kenny Miller style looks good and pleases the fans, but you end up having to substitute them because they're too knackered, and the likes of Cannavaro are hardly going to let the ball be nicked from them easily.

So, as far as I can see it, the problem is holding up the ball. And there I can see why Wallie and Eck don't have faith in Kris. It's because he's about as good at keeping the ball at his feet as Pakistan is at inroducing democracy.

In terms of stats, Boyd is the same height as Cousin. He also weighs the same. My personal opinion is that he's also as good in the air as the former Lens forward. But you can see that Cousin just has that little more guile about him, the ability to keep a cool head when there's a huge centre-half right up his a***, that one or two clever little shimmies and touches that enable possession to be kept until the midfield chug their way up the pitch to support him (and with Ferguson, Adam and McCulloch there, "chug" is the right word). Boyd just doesn't have that composure. That means he keeps trying to get rid of it quickly, meaning it either ends up going back to the other team or, even worse, to DaMarcus Beasley. (I'm going to get such a slagging for that bit, but he had an absolute 'mare at Camp Nou)

Then, after a couple of things don't go his way, Boyd sulks like an eight year old school girl. The pouting lip comes out and he doesn't even go looking for the ball anymore. I keep expecting to see him chewing his pigtails out of the corner of my eye. And that means that there's nobody to boot the ball up towards to relieve the pressure.

Of course, plenty of teams out there get away with having a striker who does nothing unless the ball is in the box. David Trezeguet. Pauleta. Hernan Crespo. Heck, the best example is probably Italy's very own Luca Toni. But there's an important difference between these guys and Boyd. They all play for top class sides who have a top class midfield, who can pass the ball out of defence and get players forward quickly. Therefore there's no need for the ball to be held up by a target man. Boyd doesn't quite have that luxury. But his deficiencies seem to be less to do with his ability and more to do with his attitude. He can, and must, improve this aspect of things to be an automatic pick, and to make himself the player he can be.

But the Kris Boyd of November 2007 will, at least initially, sit in the dugout on Saturday at Hampden. And Alex McLeish is probably correct in doing that. But when we get that one glorious opportunity on Saturday, the one the underdog always gets, when the ball flashes across the penalty area, about ten yards from goal with only the goalie to beat, which of Scotland's centre forwards would you rather have on the end of it?

L.

Anti-football: will "killing the game" kill the game?

Due to the wonderful world of night shift, I missed Rangers' backs-to-the-wall effort that earned them a valuable point at Ibrox against Barcelona in the Champions' League. In the aftermath of another smashing result for a Scottish team on the European stage, it also earned them the wrath of little Leo Messi (which is probably akin to being savaged by a pigeon), who, after finding a swarm of blue shirts surrounding him from the first second, branded Walter Smith's tactics as "anti-football", effectively accusing them of playing pretty much for a goalless draw, interested in nothing but stopping the other team from scoring. Any football fan can think of many a game such as this. Inevitably, if this gameplan succeeds, it tends to make for a rather drab spectacle - who can ever remember a 0-0 draw described as a classic?

To see the threat posed by "anti-football", one needs only look back to the 2004 European Championships. Four years earlier saw undeniably the best international football tournament of our generation - Spain's incredible 4-3 win over Yugoslavia, the attacking abandon of Portugal, and, almost unheard of, a magnificent final, where a Zidane-inspired France came from behind to defeat Italy in extra time. Four years later? One word. Greece. Only once in the tournament did they score more than one goal in a game. Six matches, seven goals scored, four conceded. They packed the midfield and kept nicking goals on set plays, defeating the far more entertaining and offensive French, Portuguese (twice) and Czechs in the process. If it were ever possible to win a football match by boring your opponent to death, this was it.

Guiltily, however, I in turn recall a certain event in Paris about two months ago, where a team went away from home, shut up shop, and nicked an incredible upset win through a stunning goal from distance. I jumped up and down in absolute ecstasy, and on this blog itself I hailed the game-winning tactics of Alex McLeish as Scotland stifled the French at almost every turn.

As the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it.

But is there another way for the underdog to win? Back at the World Cups of 1990 and 1994 respectively, the unheralded, unfancied Cameroon and Bulgaria waltzed deep into the knockout stages while playing open, attacking football. But that was then, and this is now. Every weekend at domestic level, teams travel to Ibrox, Celtic Park, the Emirates, Old Trafford, the Bernabeu, Camp Nou etc. and, to quote Jose Mourinho "park the team bus in front of the goal." Mostly, thankfully, it doesn't work; the top teams fashion a goal somewhere, and often get more when the visitors are forced to chase the game and allow it to open up. But occasionally it does work, and the minnows nick a point or even a McFadden-esque 1-0 win.

Once in a blue moon, though, a side plays away against one of the big guns, plays two strikers and goes for it. Do they ever get a result? I can't remember any obvious ones, and certainly in my experience that tactic will ultimately be less successful than just packing the defence and midfield and trying to hold on for grim death. So we get more and more games with fewer chances and fewer goals.

Inevitably, at the Nou Camp on Wednesday night, Rangers will once again deploy a defensive midfielder, play with a lone striker, and try deperately to hold out against Barcelona. If they somehow manage it again, then I'll be the first to say "well done, that's a tremendous result." But there's a rather large part of me which would rather see Rangers go 4-4-2, try and play a bit, and ultimately lose 4-1 or something, because then we would see some of the world's best doing what they do best; entertaining.

And in the long-term, we must never lose sight of the fact that football is ultimately about entertainment, not results.

L.