Scotland manager Craig Levein remains defiant on World Cup qualification hopes despite jeers from home support

Published on Sunday 9 September 2012 23:54

Whichever way Craig Levein chooses to look at it – and he found few nodding their head in sage agreement with his take on things on Saturday evening – it cannot be denied that there is now a serious disconnect between the Scotland manager and the Tartan Army.

So much now rests on tomorrow night at Hampden Park, when Scotland attempt to ensure the minimum requirement of four points is secured from an opening World Cup qualifying double-header against Serbia and Macedonia.

Those who remained in a stadium that was a few thousand short of being full at kick-off time delivered their verdict at the end, following Saturday’s unsatisfying 0-0 draw with Serbia. It can’t have been pleasant for Levein to hear the jeers but he shrugged off the criticism afterwards. Indeed, he sounded his customary bullish self as he pointed out to his detractors that he had “been doing this for a long time”, and is in the best position to judge what is best for the team.

“I have to use my experience,” he explained. “If every time a group of fans start shouting and I put a player on because they want him on then you are as well not having a manager, and let the supporters pick the team.” The matter at hand was the one dominating discussion in bars across the land. Why had Levein waited until the 81st minute to send on Jordan Rhodes for a toiling Kenny Miller? By this time the need for a goal had become desperate and there was a very discernible mood of insurrection in the stands. For some, it was another example of Levein’s obstinacy, and though he later acknowledged that he might have made the double switch of Rhodes and James Mackie for Miller and James Morrison “a bit earlier”, he also delivered a robust defence of the decisions made on the day.

Although Rhodes scored on his full debut for Scotland in last month’s friendly win over Australia, Levein made the point that he “was untried and untested at international level”, whereas Miller’s selfless contribution meant “he got us up the pitch”. Much was made of Miller missing two goalscoring opportunities although, to be fair to the Vancouver Whitecaps striker, only one of them, when he failed to connect at all with a header following Morrison’s lob, deserved to be labelled as a poor effort.

“Excellent,” was how Levein rated Miller. “He worked his socks off for the team. Would I class the two of them [Miller and Rhodes] as the same player just now? No, I don’t think they are.

“I do feel that we go from nothing to extremes, and now he [Rhodes] is the best player that ever played. Jordan is a young lad. He is learning his way in the game. I will make my judgment based on what I see in training and who we are playing and all these sorts of things.”

“Jordan has come on the scene and scored a lot of goals and in the minds of the supporters Jordan equals goals. But that does not always work.

“What Jordan can do is have an impact on the game,” Levein added, although some supporters would contend that the manager did not give him a chance to do so on Saturday, when he was handed little over nine minutes to make his presence felt. He did almost snaffle up a chance after James Forrest’s shot had been blocked by Vladimir Stojkovic, but the ball fell a couple of feet too far away from him.

“It might be that Tuesday is the game when he has an impact,” said Levein, although judging by his enthusiasm for what Rhodes’ fellow substitute Mackie brought to the team when he came on, it could be that the Queens Park Rangers player is first in the queue for a promotion against Macedonia tomorrow evening. In other team news, man of the match Paul Dixon is set to keep his place at left back after Levein all but wrote-off the chance of any one of the injured full-back trio of Charlie Mulgrew, Danny Fox and Russell Martin becoming available again.

“I thought Mackie was excellent,” said Levein. “If you want to talk about who impacted on the game, well there was one player who impacted on the game most. I have to look at that and see that in the cold light of day. I know what he can do and I know what Jordan can do. I have to look and see what is the right thing for the team.”

Levein suggested that it is in fans’ DNA to over-react. In contrast, it is his job to take a more dispassionate view. “We wanted to win,” he said. “It is a football match, of course we wanted to win. But it did not go our way. Not through anything that I can look at and go: it’s a disaster.”

Even a loss on Saturday would not have been “a really sore one”, he contended. Yet, Levein added, “out there”, meaning in the stands and in the eyes of the footballing public, “it would have been the worst possible result, Armageddon.

“But I do not see it that way,” he continued. “It’s how many points we get at the end of the campaign which will decide. I know I have to stand here after every match and talk about the match [just gone]. But for me it is about how many points we get in total. We have not put ourselves in a hugely difficult position, we haven’t.”

Dismayingly for those who feel that just three wins in nine competitive matches under Levein is evidence of the limitations of his favoured system, the manager offered nothing at the weekend to suggest he was considering ditching the now seemingly bolted-on 4-1-4-1 formation. Switching to two up front in the final minutes saw Scotland look more dangerous, although it also helped allow Serbia to break through the home defence, something Levein will have noted. “Whenever you are in a match, and it is late in the game and you want to get a victory, it is an option,” said Levein of 4-4-2. “But, particularly at the start of the match, if you are a player short in midfield, you can get the run around.

“What for me is more important than having two strikers is having guys on the pitch who can score goals,” he added. “Along that four behind Kenny, we had [Steven] Naismith who is a goalscorer, Charlie [Adam] is a creative player, [James] Morrison is a goalscorer and a creative player and [Robert] Snodgrass is a creative player and a goalscorer.”

As highly as Levein clearly rates these players, the games that need to be won are still not being won. This is the latest in a series of setbacks stretching back to the opening match of the last qualifying campaign, when the manager viewed a score-less draw in Lithuania as being a satisfactory start. Subsequent events proved that not to be the case. The fear is that an inhibited Scotland side have again fallen fatally short at the first hurdle.

Taken from the Scotsman