If you’d asked me what the chances were of George Burley being kept on after the debacle in Norway, I’d have said they were negligible. But 180 minutes of football later (some of it good and most of it acceptable), he has turned it around – for now.
In reality it’s not that much to go on. Whatever way you want to look at 4 points collected from 6 games against the Netherlands, Norway and Macedonia, it is not good. Never mind the genuinely world class Dutch, does the Scottish team of today have any right to be collecting points in places like Skopje and Oslo? Haven’t they got players every bit as good as ours? The Macedonian forward Goran Pandev would walk into the Scotland team right now. The rest also showed that they know how to pass and move and control the ball during the first half a Hampden. Would George Burley currently say no to John Carew up front? Or John Arne Riise (like Pandev, currently playing his football in Serie A) as left wing back?
Big Joe in the days when Scottish strikers were genuinely feared. And who is that grinning in the background?
The Norwegians have just about as many playing regularly in the English Premier as Scotland does. As the final group placings suggest, there is nothing to choose between the sides. Scotland might have done slightly better against the others but the Norwegians crucially took four points when the two clashed.
Much has been made of that miss by Chris Iwelumo at Hampden and Kenny Miller got some stick last week, but the crux of the matter is that the quality of striker Scotland have available isn’t good enough at this level. Steven Fletcher has done okay for Scotland and contributes to the team but he is not a prolific striker. This is borne out by the fact that he is yet to score in the EPL. Ross McCormack looks promising and is unfortunately injured at the moment. He could have a significant part to play in the next campaign but again is he going to score that many goals? The Cardiff player looks to me to be more the supporting type forward just like S. Fletcher or McFadden. Garry O’Connor is on the fringes at Birmingham and isn’t looking a great danger at that level. His old teammate Derek Riordan is consistently finding the net for Hibs and should be looked at again for the next campaign but there are always question marks over his fitness and work rate. The only out and out striker of any note who has scored a few at this level is Kris Boyd and he doesn’t want to play (at least under the current manager).
In the absence of a Denis Law, Kenny Dalglish or Andy Gray (incredible that the latter only got 20 caps), it’s a pity that Burley can’t go out and pick up a “naturalised Scot”, just like Portugal have done after struggling to score in this campaign. The Brazilian, Liédson has been banging in the goals for Sporting Lisbon for a few seasons and the Portuguese have now turned to him as they are perfectly entitled to do. But as far as I’m aware, even a change of heart by the SFA over naturalised players would throw up little more than Nacho Novo who can't get a game ahead of Kenny Miller at Rangers.
Scotland are not overly endowed with real international class players these days as we all know. But even one notable striker could make the difference between failure and qualification. This is one of the major challenges facing George Burley. Some wanted Gordon Strachan, Craig Levein or Graeme Souness to come in but they wouldn’t be able to conjure up superstars out of thin air either. There’s always the possibility of bringing in Joe Jordan as player manager if the answer isn’t found soon.
