Gordon Strachan's Scotland tenure has been largely a success...but with few players from the domestic league |
Earlier this week,
Gordon Strachan named his Scotland squad for the Qatar and Republic
of Ireland games this June. While I share most right-thinking supporters’ outrage at the Scottish FA’s decision to
arrange an international friendly game with Qatar in the first place, I shall for the moment set aside any underlying concerns over human
rights issues and abuse of workers, and instead advocate for the poor Scots currently plying their trade as professional footballers in
this country to be given the chance to represent their national team.
(Never let it be said that this writer does not have his priorities
in order…)
Only seven of the twenty-six players called up play in Scotland. Much was made in the media of
Dundee goalkeeper Scott Bain getting his first call-up to the
Scotland squad, and it is a call-up that is fully deserved based on
the performances I have seen from him this season (admittedly, these
have predominantly been performances that have been frustrating
Aberdeen all season, but great performances nonetheless…). However, it’s
questionable whether he will actually get to participate in
either of the forthcoming matches.
Dundee's Scott Bain was called up for the first time...but will be third string keeper |
Strachan has called up
other goalies from our domestic league – see Partick Thistle’s
Scott Fox and Kilmarnock’s Craig Samson - who remain on the same
number of international caps as I do. Hell, even Jamie Langfield has
been called up in the past, so it can hardly be
that privileged a position. Regular Scotland squad bridesmaid Mark
Reynolds was the only other uncapped player in the squad, with Celtic
regulars Craig Gordon, Charlie Mulgrew, Scott Brown, James Forrest
and Leigh Griffiths making up the SPFL contingent. But what about
ICT’s Graeme Shinnie? Aberdeen’s Ryan Jack? Celtic’s (and,
erstwhile, Dundee United’s) Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart
Armstrong?
In the nineteen Scotland
internationals that have been played since the beginning of 2013,
Strachan has awarded just thirty-eight caps to player who were, at that time, plying
their trade in Scotland. By far the majority of those (twenty-six) have
been awarded to just two players – Scotland skipper Brown (fourteen) and
Mulgrew (twelve). Another three Celtic players have been capped by
Strachan so far - Forrest and Gordon, who have two caps apiece; and
Kris Commons, who came off the bench for the last 15 minutes of
Strachan’s first game in charge at Pittodrie against Estonia before
retiring from international football.
Outwith Celtic, only 7
(SEVEN!) Scotland caps have been awarded to players at Scottish clubs in those nineteen games,
a shockingly low number. As you may have noticed, I have so far been
avoiding saying ‘SPFL Premiership’ – is that because Lee
Wallace is one of the seven, you ask? Worse - he’s two of the seven; two substitute appearances while he was playing for Rangers in
the Scottish third tier. How depressing.
Strachan was happy to call up Lee Wallace when he was plying his trade in Scotland's fourth tier |
To put the above into
context, the number of caps Gordon Strachan has given to SPFL players
is less than the number of caps he’s given to players at English
Championship side Brighton & Hove Albion – indeed, as many caps
as former Kilmarnock defender and current Seagulls skipper Gordon
Greer has managed to obtain all by himself. When explaining to the
media why Greer came in for the injured Grant Hanley to make his
first competitive start in the 2-2 draw in Poland, Strachan's assistant Mark McGhee explained “I see Gordon a lot as I live in Brighton and
I see a bit of Brighton and they defend with composure. We knew we’d
require that when we played in Poland.” Some Dons fans were delighted to learn that the club are playing Brighton for Jamie Langfield's testimonial - it might get the Scotland coaches to watch an
Aberdeen game for a change. Sadly, that would only be
likely if the match was going to be played at Falmer Stadium rather
than Pittodrie.
Is it right that Brighton veteran Gordon Greer is considered a better option than Aberdeen's Mark Reynolds? |
On that particular
night, manager Gordon Strachan had Greer, Christophe Berra of Ipswich
and Aberdeen’s Mark Reynolds as possible replacements. So far was
Reynolds from the Scotland manager’s reckoning that, in spite of
Hanley having to be withdrawn from the Scotland squad the day before
the game, he couldn’t even find a place on the bloated twelve-man bench. During
the last set of international fixtures, and in spite of Strachan
promising that all squad members would get a run out in one of the
two matches, Reynolds still sat on the bench for the entire friendly
match against Northern Ireland, and in the stand against Gibraltar.
It wouldn’t have been
hard for the Scotland management to notice how Reynolds was playing
had anyone cared to check on his performances. Indeed, prior to
getting a rest last weekend, he’d played in every minute of every league
game for Aberdeen over the last two seasons. Indeed, if you watch
Aberdeen then you literally can’t miss him. On the other hand, if
McGhee can watch Brighton he can then get home for his tea.
Let’s be honest,
Gordon Strachan has done a good job as the manager of the Scottish
national football team to date, and it’s hard to argue
with his results. But there are a lot of people who obviously don’t
rate the SPFL – not least those who are supposedly responsible for
organising the game in Scotland and promoting it to the wider world –
and are happy to denigrate Scottish football, implying that the
standard of football is not good enough. Yet, it hasn’t seemed to
deter the national team coaches of Belgium (Jason Denayer), the Netherlands (Virgil
van Dyk), England (Fraser Forster), Slovakia (Filip Kiss), Wales
(Kyle Letheren and Adam Matthews), Greece (Georgios Samaras) and
Ghana (Wakaso Mubarak) from calling up players from the SPFL; these nations are currently ranked ahead of us by FIFA. Even our imminent World Cup qualifying
opponents, the Republic of Ireland, have called up the SPFL Premiership’s top goal scorer in Adam Rooney.
Before his international debut, Matt Ritchie had never even been to Scotland |
I would argue that
there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the standard of Scottish
football that should deter the national manager from selecting
players from its ranks when they are patently good enough to do so. Furthermore, it is important to foster the link between the Scotland
national team and its supporters, many of whom live in Scotland and
support Scottish football teams. While I bear no particular ill will
to Scotland’s most recent debutant, Bournemouth’s Matt Ritchie -
or indeed to Strachan for seeking to improve the resources he has at
his disposal – it can feel disenfranchising to hear a player who
has been selected to play for the national team admit that he thinks
of himself as English rather than Scottish, or that he hadn’t
visited Scotland until the day he arrived for his international
debut.
Maybe none of the above
matters. If Gordon Strachan gets us to our first major competition
in 20 years and never plays another SPFL player in the process, he’ll
still get the full backing of the SFA and the undying admiration and
appreciation of a Tartan Army that has been starved of tangible
achievements for almost a generation. But it wouldn’t hurt to play
Mark Reynolds just once, would it?
Martin Ingram (MI) is our Aberdeen Correspondent. Legend has it that he is the tallest man in the Red Army. He writes regularly for Aberdeen fanzine The Red Final.
Excellent but thoroughly depressing article, although Strachan is by no means the instigator of this geographical bias. If you weren't playing for the OF or in England, decent Scottish players always faced an uphill struggle to get a cap. The idea that the English Championship is a level higher than the SPL is also bollocks. But you can be sure that Jonny Russell or Craig Forsyth, amongst others, would be nowhere near the squad if they were still playing in Scotland.
ReplyDeleteGood article, though depressing as the previous poster says.
ReplyDeleteI would also add that not picking non-OF Scottish players is counter-productive to league development. Among young players I would like to think a major driver is still achieving international caps, not just money; if they have to move to the English Championship or OF to achieve that then that is what they will do. This leads to a constant drain of talent from other SPFL clubs that might otherwise improve the general standard to a level that Strachan and his cohorts might find acceptable.