Levein Must Go

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I've stood up for Craig Levein for a while now but no more. Today Ian Black, after about 200 appearances for Hearts and Inverness without a Scotland call-up (in the SPL) has been called up for Scotland after 1 game with The Rangers in Division 3. Lee Wallace hasn't been called up and he's arguably our best FB.

I understand their are injuries, but there have been injuries before and where was Black? I'm not sticking up for him; he's a thug but because he plays for The Rangers he gets a call-up. I'm all for picking players that aren't in the SPL and are in the English leagues, as long as they don't play below Championship level (unless you're Jordan Rhodes ), but frankly this is ridiculous. It's not about the player, it's about the club he plays for.

So long Craig, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

http://sport.stv.tv/football/140954-ross-mccormack-and-ian-black-added-to-scotland-squad-after-four-ruled-out/

Don't give it all the "kicking while we are down" pish. They deserve everything they get and imo have got off lightly. Anyway they are in the past now. Dead.

Scotland finished 2 points behind the czechs. Yeah, there is a lot of what ifs after but if we had went out to win that game then we might have actually won it! (We will never know). Levein f'd up big time and he knew it, it shows a complete lack of confidence in your players: Imagine being sat in the dressing room, " Guys, tonight you're not actually going to play football, just try and hoof it away anytime you get a touch" Footballers play football to try to win and it was hardly Brazil we were playing. It was the Czechs.

How does the Rangers debacle mean we won't qualify?

Levine is /was starting to build a decent team.
I had quite a bit of confidence in him.

He makes a statement that players such as Lee Wallace will have to play at a higher standard to be considered for the Scotland team.
Ian Black signs for The Rangers and is selected.
I have a problem with that.
Levine was foolish to pick him. Poor managerial judgment.

Levein just doesn't get it, he shouldn't have picked Black, its that simple, after what he said about Wallace picking Black was mindless, if nothing else other than the fact the boy is nowhere near the standard he set himmself last season, he's not long back after a groin op and was utterly useless in the three games this seasoin he had played, that being said he was picked, so surely at 3-1 up in the last 3 minutes you don't put him on, there was no point

My theory is that Levein knows b lack isn't likely to win another cap so gave him 1 while he had the opportunity

Miller starting again tonight. Levein out.

Its a stubborn decision, even if Miller got 1 or 2 tonight I wouldn't think this is the right move, still its a bit more encouraging that Maloney, Forrest and Mackie are going to start, I'd rather have Rhodes and McCormack in for Mackie and Miller but at least its some positive changes

Horrible Horrible Horrible

Craig Levein wrote:If we had won this game, we would have been joint top

Wise words eh...

If my aunty had balls she'd be my uncle.

Fight is on for 4th place. Which is about Scotland's level.

We'll do well to finish above Wales

I think it would be better to get someone in now and let them build on these competitive games for next time, Levein isn't going to be taking us forward as a footballing nation so why is he still here, he should have been sacked when he sent the side out with no strikers, what a Frak embarrasment.' There's still 27 points to play for, there's still 24 points to play for, there's still 21 points to play for, aw well am proud of the lads th3ey tried there best' Frak off.

It's not as if they'd be sacrificing qualification by changing manager as they had more chance of crapping in the queens handbag than getting 2nd place.

Still not sure there is anyone who could do much with that lot. SCotland overachieved when they qualified in the past. They are now a third or fourth tier nation, so people ought to be a bit more realistic and adjust their expectations accordingly.

Sport without hope or expectation becomes pointless, I don't know anyone who thinks we should be confidently qualifying, however we should be giving it our best shot and we'll never do that under Craig Levein, the team is a reflection of the manager and that's why we're a scared, negative side with no imagination or charisma

Gordon Strachan is 100 times the coach Levein ever could be, he's managed and succeeded in qualifying from the group stages of the Champions League (Twice) he also knows how to deal with the pressure of expectation of winning games

Levein has a worst record than Burley and Vogts, he has a far superior team to select from than either of those guys

Scotland is not a good team, Scotland is not a bad team, they're just very, very average. Of course a team like Scotland has to overachieve to qualify for the major tournaments, unless they improve substantially (which isn't happening anytime soon). Even the U21's couldn't beat the mighty Austria to qualify for the U21 Euro's, albeit they were away from "home".

Still, Levein is on another planet. Levein Out.

We love a bit of Glorious failure though, the U21s were unbeaten for their 7 games in the group , took 4 points out of 6 off the Dutch yet going into the last game they were 6 points behind Holland and lost the only game in the group that saw them knocked out altogether

Lost one game, took 4 points out of 6 against the best team and still don't qualify

And to make it worse, it was a 90th minute goal that was conceded. Was a draw good enough or did they need the win?

I think they needed to win to qualify as the best runner up and I think they said a draw would have been enough for the Play-Off's

That's it though isn't it. Hope and expectation for Scotland are useless emotions in regards to a team as inept and incompetent as Scotland. It's like a Villa fan hoping to qualify for the champions league ,it's a retarded, hopeless and useless thing to hold on to.

Scotland fans are stupid if they thought they have a chance regardless of who is in charge.

I disagree, remember the Euro 08 group, we had the two 2006 World Cup finalists (France & Italy) in our group and a team who got to the quarter finals (Ukraine) as well as another tough nation, can't quite remember who they where

We were really unfortunate in that group, we could have qualified if we beat Italy at Hampden, that was unthinkable at the start of qualification, we lost 2-1 but it was 1-1 until the last minute, we I felt were well on top then Italy got a ridiculous free kick and subsequently scored from it

I think we jumped from 88 in the World to about 12th which also for me shows up the ridiculous nature of these rankings

As for the Aston Villa analogy, I can see what you mean but Villa need to be consistantly good for 38 games to achieve that, a Nation doesn't, a Nation only has 8/10 games which in my opinion makes aiming for the Play-Off an achievable goal

I was at the Scotland Italy game at Hampden that year, and although the atmosphere was amazing, it was all in forlorn hope than realistic expectation.
We got a lucky off side goal and fortunate to hold on to 1-1 for so long.
The other teams were Georgia, Lithuania and the Faroes. Not exactly "tough"

I would't want to see Scotland in a tournament anyway until they started showing some passion, we will not win games on skill, what happened to when we used to get stuck into teams.

Steven Naismith got stuck into the Serbs when he assaulted that guy for no reason.

super_realist wrote:I was at the Scotland Italy game at Hampden that year, and although the atmosphere was amazing, it was all in forlorn hope than realistic expectation.
We got a lucky off side goal and fortunate to hold on to 1-1 for so long.
The other teams were Georgia, Lithuania and the Faroes. Not exactly "tough"

You may disagree but it was more than forlorn hope for the Italy game, we definitely went into the game believing we could get a result, was Ferguson offside? I can't remember, I remember it was tight but wasn't sure if it was offside, still by that time we were clearly the better team, we started terribly and Toni scored a good goal, it knocked us though and the first half Italy were the better side, in the second half we chased the game and the better team was clearly Scotland

We beat France home and away, we gave the Ukraine a bit of a doing at Hampden, that was probably our best performance, to say we went to Hampden to face Italy that day was forlorn hope in my opinion is wrong

Georgia were the other team I was thinking about, they might not be giants of the game but they've always been a technically sound side and as has been proven all our life times those teams always make it touch for us

The point I'm making though is that the gap in these small groups aren't anywhere near as big as some think and the gap from Scotland and the better teams in our group isn't that grand, infact if we had a decent manager I'd be fully confident we'd have won both games this week, our play however reflects our manager, and thats a team who would rather not lose than attempt to win

The only reason we didn't qualify for Euro 2008 was purely down to the Georgia away game, we were diabolical then dominated against Italy and managed to lose. Horrible stuff, especially after winning 8 out of the first 10 games which was bloody fantastic.

the-gaffer, i agree with you. We haven't finished lower than third in any group since France 98, so although we are no great shakes we are never far away in the final reckoning.

Alex McLeish isn't doing much these days.............................................................

The Special Juan wrote:Alex McLeish isn't doing much these days.............................................................

For a good reason!

Crimey wrote:

The Special Juan wrote:Alex McLeish isn't doing much these days.............................................................

For a good reason!

Did a good job for Scotland. He'd get a few players out of exile as well.

He was noted for playing negatively with both Aston Villa and Birmingham, so no point replacing Levein with somebody who has the same criticism laid at his door.

Won 70% of games McLeish was in charge for.

Albeit he looks like a swollen David Caruso.

Crimey wrote:He was noted for playing negatively with both Aston Villa and Birmingham, so no point replacing Levein with somebody who has the same criticism laid at his door.

I've got no idea what happened to McLeish down in England but he was always notable for his positive tactics at Motherwell, Hibs, Rangers then Scotland, down in England though he seemed terrified of losing

Levein Oot

the trouble with scotland job is if your half decent an english championship team or even a lower prem team will snap you up. sad days indeed. personally im holding out for SAF taking it as a quiet retirement job. i can hope lol

Come back Walter.

#HEEL wrote:Come back Walter.

I could dig that.

Walter Smith isn't the answer, we're a very different position than we were in 2005 when Wattie first came in, we didn't have the players back then, we do now, we've not got much at CB but we're pretty well off all over the rest of the park. Smith's tactics won't benefit the players we've got now.

Strachan for me is the obvious choice, although I wouldn't be disappointed if McLiesh came back, he done a better job than Smith in my opinion, Smith stedied the ship and McLeish allowed us to play a bit

Here's an article I wrote on why its time Levein leaves.

No doubt off the back of yet another poor result Scotland fans will be calling for the head of the National manager, some feel this is harsh, while others believe it's long overdue, for me I too feel it's long overdue for no other reason than I feel that despite having the best squad of players since 1996 Craig Levein has never shown enough confidence, faith or belief in his group to get him and the Nation the results we're looking for.

No-one is expecting Scotland to win all 10 group games, saying we could win them was an act of naivety as well, no doubt we 'could' win them in the same way that an Aberdeen or a Hearts or even a Dundee Utd 'could' win the SPL before a ball is kicked, however saying so with two big home games looming was asking for trouble, the failure to focus on one game and the importance of it has forever been a problematic trait of Mr Levein.

The writing was on the wall for Craig since his opening competitive fixture, just over two years ago (8/10/10) in the Czech Republic when he to the horror of not only Scottish fans but football fans everywhere started a game without any recognised striker, now before anyone thinks.... "wait a minute Spain do the same on occasion!!!" It should be pointed out that while Spain do use that method, they don't use the tactic as their three advanced midfielder's usually play in the forward positions, that was something we didn't do that night, we went there and played for a 0-0, this despite it being the weakest Czech side we've seen since their independence.

Craig Levein since the start of this current campaign has done all he can to play down the importance of the next competitive game, in the lead up to the Serbia game he told us that it wasn't vital to win the game, we all knew that but why he felt the need to continue to go on about this and possibly allow the players to adopt this mind-set was beyond logical, anyway, he was going to be given the opportunity to be proven correct as his side couldn't score a goal in a game that they really should have won, poor striking options left the Country to ponder what might have been.

Next up was Macedonia, again this was a game we as a public felt we had to win, yet again it was a fixture that the manager and his star pupil Kenny Miller couldn't state quick enough that once again this wasn't a must win game, yeap that's right, the manager and the striker who the fans had basically had enough of decide to come out once again and state quite categorically that Scotland didn't need to win this game.

You really have to question the thought process that went into that logic don't you? - what was the point in fighting tooth and nail to start the group with 2 home games if winning these early fixtures weren't essential? It really does defy all reasoning what so ever to imagine the manager truly believes this, why he choose to tell the public this is equally baffling as no-one bought it one bit, still, again he would be granted the opportunity to prove everyone wrong as his side would not only draw the second tie but struggle in the process.

So after smiling like a Cheshire Cat having 'won' the first battle of the fixture Craig Levein now tells us there was no point anyway since wins at that stage aren't vital, one can only wonder.

Next up is the away fixture in Wales, this is easily Scotland's best opportunity for 3 away points, both teams are similar in strength although Wales have the outstanding player between the two I definitely think Scotland have more quality all over the pitch, once again though the morning of the game the back pages are full of yesterdays Press Conference, in that Press Conference Levein once again states "This isn't a must win game" Jeezo Craig, really? At what point do Scotland games become must win games!?! This attitude absolutely stinks and its spreading like a deadly disease, if you keep telling players/fans/media and anyone else who'll listen that games aren't must win then it's not a surprise when we don't win games, this isn't rocket science, its Football psychology 101.

Anyway, we lost, some can say we were unlucky, we were however given the state of our results prior to this game we've been undone by more than just luck, Bale was threatening to turn the game on its head every single time he was allowed to turn and run at our defence, given it took him until the 80th minute to get his rewards why it wasn't at least attempted to stop him by putting others on him to nulify him you'll have to as Mr Levein, for me I just can't accept why we never attempted to stop him, maybe it would have worked maybe it wouldn't, surely you've got to try something different though when the first option clearly wasn't working.

Now we're onto Belgium, the best side in our group, serious dark horses for the whole tournament in 2 years time, the hardest fixture we can get and what does Levein say? "This IS a must win game", yeap that's correct, you heard right, the first two games at Hampden, fixtures we championed about out-politicking our rivals in getting weren't must win, the only away game we could realistically consider 3 points as achievable also wasn't a must win yet a game away to the group favourites is must win.

This for me sums Craig Levein up, he's got far to many answers for the questions yet his answers don't help us only give us more questions.

I don't know why I'm surprised, his man-management skills appear to be non-existent too, the fall out with Steven Fletcher was idiotic, no-one will probably ever know who was truly right or wrong but Levein before the start of our first round of fixtures was quite force-full with his view point that Steven Fletcher would never play for Scotland again, by the time the second round of games came around Levein had already recalled him to the squad and was the guy who went to Fletcher, some turn around in events, it is for the benefit of the team but the team needed it months before-hand, it all comes across as too little too late, then we have Kris Commons, whether these two had a falling out or not again no-one truly knows, it wasn't high profile like Steven Fletcher but it was enough to keep him out despite being the inform player in Scotland, Levein choose to tell Commons that he's still in his plans but there is eight players, yes 8 players in front of him, that's an amazing thing to say to any footballer, hardly a confidence builder is our Craig, again by the time the second round of games come along, two of those eight players in front of Commons, Naismith and Snodgrass find themselves unavailable so Commons becomes a late draft into the squad, out of the blue he then starts, this again just doesn't add up, first he's 9th choice, then he's not in the squad, two drop out, he's in then he jumps to the front of the cue, it's all a bit bi-polar-esque for me.

From the outside looking in Craig appears to want to be known as this great thinker of the game, a manager no-one can second guess, a tactical mastermind, an old wizard, however I don't buy it and never have and the public don't buy it either and I sincerely suspect the players too don't buy it, how could they really?

Win lose or draw he says he won't walk away, no doubts about it, he won't, why would he? - it's the biggest and best job he'll ever have, why should he walk away, however you can fool some of the people all of the time and can fool all of the people some of the time, you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Despite talk of progress from Levein we can easily see differently, is the team better? Yes, are the results? Absolutely not, they're worse, the simple fact of the matter is that in 11 competitive games Scotland have won 3 of those, two of those coming against that Footballing Super-power Liechtenstein, one of which had to be won in the 8th minute of injury time.

We haven't went forward, it's impossible to go forward when the man charged with taking us forward is naturally cautious and would rather not lose than try and win a game.

Win lose or draw in Belgium the time has come to say goodbye to Craig Levein, the job is far to big for him, no-one believes he can succeed, the fans, the players, the press and I doubt even himself if he allows himself to be truly honest with himself.

Levein out for sure. The guy is a total clown, he'll be gone on Tuesday anyway along with our rio hopes. I'd still go for smith before strachan and mcloesh thou. Ok his 1 attacker formation is pretty predictable but he would get the team playing like Scotland should, spirit, drive , determination. He's also IMO the most likely to stay in the job, ok he quit once before but that was to answer an sos, he won't do that again. Mcleish would leave, strachan I'm not so sure.

Walter Smith is good at what he does, but I don't want to sit through nothing but dogged determination from our team, we've got the best squad since Euro 96 and we're not using them well enough, he'd motivate the team no doubt but he'd not get the best out of our players because his style and system isn't suited to what we have available.

You have to pick the best man for the job, not the man you think won't leave, we can't fear the future, at the end of the day we want our manager to have offers, that'll mean he's doing a good job

Levein must go now. Defeated in Belgium, defeated in wales, no wins in four games, and no chance of qualifying. Out, and now.

Maybe they could follow Irelands example of hiring a world class manager who gets Scotland to a major tournament and then spend most of their time complaining about him and wanting him sacked?

To be honest this campaign is only a lost cause if we all collectively believe its a lost cause. If we beat Wales & Belgium at home then get away wins with the teams we drew with at Hampden then we are RIGHT back in it.

Changing a manager halfway through a campaign is sheer lunacy, it smacks of desperation and indeed an admission of defeat.

Yes Levein has made mistakes (what manager hasn't). It's actually just as important to learn from your mistakes than to not make them. What was telling last night is that he hasn't yet lost the dressing room, Fletcher & McGregor when interviewed defended him to the hilt in the face of quite sly goading by the interviewer.

Can we not just save the doom and gloom until its actually mathematically impossible to qualify. That time may come soon, it may not come at all but if press, media, fans et all are continually on Leveins back then it's likely to come sooner rather than later.

Fletcher also didn't want Berti Vogts or George Burley to go, you can't just go on what they say

You say you have to learn from your mistakes yet Craig Levein has been making the same mistakes since day one, the group is gone, it's not about qualifying now, its about giving a real manager an opportunity to put his plans in order for the next qualification.

I can fully understand people still believing, but to still back Levein is what's truly lunacy

Firmly believe you have to back whoever is in charge when they are in charge, dissent from anywhere starts nipping away at authority/confidence. Fair enough when he goes, have all the bloodletting you want. Maybe his mistake level is growing to the point of being unacceptable, the thing is, with the resources available I don't see anybody (Smith & Strachan included doing that much better). Scottish football is in a ridiculously sad decline and it'll take an awful lot more than removing Levein to start turning it around. International footie shouldn't be expected be be an 'instant results business tho sadly it is.

I think if we're no careful we'll end up like the English in terms of the shameful way they treat their managers. I envy their whole setup and the ability they have to pay for the best there is (their opinion on that and the conflicts/turmoil they have with non-English encumbants is highly amusing tho). What I don't envy about the English tho is how their "know it all" press and fans all seem to know better than the manager how to run the team. For all the aspects of the English setup that we could do with adopting, that attitude is probably about the last one we need.

I just don't agree with that at all to be honest, you can't just blindly back a manager just because he is the manager, it's a results driven business and he has failed spectacularly, if you continue to back him all it does is deny the obvious facts, the fans are desperate to back the team but it's almost impossible with the dull negative attitude of the know it all manager. He drains every last bit of positivity and hope from you.

His tactics are God awful, his team selections are worse, his man-management skills leave a lot to be desired and to top it all off he can't even fall back on results, the only two teams he's managed to beat competitively were Liechtenstein and Lithuania, he's a hopeless manager who simply can't inspire players, fans or the media into truly believing.

I also think it's fanciful just to resign ourselves to failure simply because Scottish Football isn't at it's best, that's weak in my opinion and doesn't tell anywhere near the truth of the story. Scottish Football could be stronger and better, we all know that, but Celtic have proven over the last year that they've really matured in Europe (let's not think about Barca) and four of their team qualify to play for Scotland in Brown, Forrest, Commons and Mulgrew, yet only Brown is deemed good enough to start regularly, the rest of the team apart from McGregor come from the Premiership, the so called best league in the World, so the quality is in the squad to do better, the problem is the guy picking the team would rather pick players he personally likes instead of players he professionally respects.

No-one is saying a change of manager would get Scotland qualification, however I and many believe that a better manager than the guy currently in charge would get far more out of the players at his disposal, there is no quick fix but it's abundently clear that under Levein there will be no fix at all

Well he's finally gone. Don't like crowing about anyone losing there job but this is a year too late.

Levein is officially OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT

Well...the naysayers have won the day...fair enough. I just don't think chopping and changing managers mid campaign is a good thing but what's done is done.

The SFA to be honest are a shambles,
1. They take 3 weeks to make what was a simple should he stay or should he go
2. They're not terminating his contract they're honouring it (so paying a man they consider a failure - that money could be going into grass roots development)
3. They've got rid of one man and have no idea what sort of criteria they want in his successor

Then....they have the audacity to say we aren't bottom of the group material.... well if our administrators are the yardstick....oh yes we flppin well are.

If it took them 3 weeks to deduce that they had to go with the overwhelming flow (personally I would have waited for the results of the Wales & Belgium home games but i can see thats clearly a minority view) how long is it going to take them to come to the conclusion that Strachan is the only realistic candidate as a replacement. More worryingly will they actually have the ambition to do what it takes to secure his services??

#GuardiolaIn #JustSayin'

The Special Juan wrote:#GuardiolaIn #JustSayin'

Like it!! D'you know what though, even if by some peculiar miracle he traced some Scottish bloodline and decided he wanted the job...the beaks at Park Gardens would find a way of messing it up

JAS wrote:

The Special Juan wrote:#GuardiolaIn #JustSayin'

Like it!! D'you know what though, even if by some peculiar miracle he traced some Scottish bloodline and decided he wanted the job...the beaks at Park Gardens would find a way of messing it up

As if they would ever screw anything up.......................................