Who is to blame?

[Eckybloke]

I blame David Taylor, the chief executive of the SFA in 2002.

It's a bit tenuous, so bear with me.

In 2002, David Taylor appointed Berti Vogts as manager of Scotland.  In terms of shambolic appointments, it set Scotland back a wee bit so Berti leaves and the reigns are passed to Walter Smith.  Wattie does a sterling job, gets us working reasonably well but being a Rangers man as soon as they come calling to fix their own wee crisis he leaps to it.  Enter stage left, Eck.  Eck manages to win 70% of his games in charge of Scotland including wins over France and Ukraine.  That's when he's tempted to Birmingham and the rest they say is history.

Had David Taylor not thought that hiring Berti had been a good idea, I doubt Eck would have been on the radar for Scotland and then Birmingham.  He'd have bumbled along at a lower level.

In all seriousness though, Randy.  All the hope and positivity has been sucked out of the place because there is no coherent footballing policy.  He doesn't have to be hands-on, he doesn't even have to be uber-rich, he just has to have a philosophy and stick to it and I don't think the dourness on display is the answer.

[Risso]

McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.

Time yes, but not money.  We lost a host of key players from a side that still only managed 9th and he had around half that amount to replace them.

That's part of the reason why I blame Lerner.
They seemed utterly convinced that he was the right man for the job, I just couldn't see it myself, but If they were so convinced, they should have backed him with decent transfer funds.

"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."

[Chico Hamilton III]

"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."

we'd have Messi playing in left midfield

[Chris Jameson]

"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."

we'd have Messi playing in left midfield

Nah, he'd be on the bench with Iniesta.

[Monty]

"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."

we'd have Messi playing in left midfield

Nah, he'd be on the bench with Iniesta.

Yeah, too small. Everyone knows you need to be at least 6-foot tall and wide to play football.

[Vanilla]

"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."

we'd have Messi playing in left midfield

I squinted whilst watching Barcelona on telly box the other night, and it looked a little like they are playing in claret and blue. The quick flowing football and the fact they didn't have a useless lump playing up front falling over every ten seconds soon proved otherwise.

[Chris Jameson]

Wonder if Messi and Iniesta regret that the loan deal fell though for them when he was at Rangers. Just imagine what they could have achieved if they had spent a season under Mcleish.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.

Time yes, but not money.  We lost a host of key players from a side that still only managed 9th and he had around half that amount to replace them.

That's part of the reason why I blame Lerner.
They seemed utterly convinced that he was the right man for the job, I just couldn't see it myself, but If they were so convinced, they should have backed him with decent transfer funds.

"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."

One of The General's many Abe Simpson style remarks.

[Brend'Watkins]

Yes, but to be fair he has got our 'fifth' position spot on so far.

[Vanilla]

Wonder if Messi and Iniesta regret that the loan deal fell though for them when he was at Rangers. Just imagine what they could have achieved if they had spent a season under Mcleish.

They'd have been criticised for not tracking back enough and dumped in the reserves.

[Monty]

Wonder if Messi and Iniesta regret that the loan deal fell though for them when he was at Rangers. Just imagine what they could have achieved if they had spent a season under Mcleish.

They'd have been criticised for not tracking back enough and dumped in the reserves.

In fairness they track back more than our players. But they're obviously too small to win the ball (apart from all the time they win the ball), so yeah, they can naff off.

[Vanilla]

Wonder if Messi and Iniesta regret that the loan deal fell though for them when he was at Rangers. Just imagine what they could have achieved if they had spent a season under Mcleish.

They'd have been criticised for not tracking back enough and dumped in the reserves.

In fairness they track back more than our players. But they're obviously too small to win the ball (apart from all the time they win the ball), so yeah, they can naff off.

These naughty boys like to track back, win the ball, but then try to attack with it; that's not on. We all know the strategy is win the ball, hoof it up the pitch towards Heskey's head, then stay where you are and await it's return. 

[ktvillan]

McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.

Time yes, but not money.  We lost a host of key players from a side that still only managed 9th and he had around half that amount to replace them.

I guess it depends on whether you think 9th was about par with a side of our ability last season.  It's a weird one, as although we only clinched 9th on the last day, I'd still say it was under par actually. 

This season we have lost Downing and Ash, true. But we were able to sign a player who Everton and Sunderland both wanted but couldn't afford (N'Zog).  Players like Albrighton, Bannan and Delph are  (or should be)  a further year into development. Ireland -ostracised from the side completely last season- can be as good as just about anything in the division outside of the very elite.  And we signed an upgrade between the sticks.

So based on the players he inherited and the money he had to plug any gaps as he deemed necessary, circa £18 million in that regard is still a decent sum.  More than most of the other managers in the division were able to operate with.

I'd say 9th was probably an underachievment last year since the team was essentially the team that finished 6th the year before minus Milner plus Ireland, with added Bent, Makoun and Walker.  But there were well documentated underlying causes that could justify the drop in places.

Even though we've lost 6 or so of last year's team, and the replacements, apart from Given, haven't performed anywhere near as well or consistently, we should still be way better than 15th.

[Merv]

Absolutely. AM still had the best part of £20m to spend, spending nearly £10m on a player he has failed to use effectively. He's also had the benefit of Bent for 3/4 of the season, and made the decisions to loan out Makoun, cancel the agreement/pass up the option to sign Bradley (I know, Man City game, etc, but bear with me a sec) and, as was reported at the time (maybe inaccurately) it was his decision ultimately not to retain Reo-Coker - so the fact that we've struggled for most of the season in midfield shouldn't be a surprise; bad choices made there.

He also chose to spend £3m of his budget on Hutton; again, it could be argued that that wasn't money wisely spent, perhaps used more effectively elsewhere. Maybe. The point is, no, he hasn't had a huge budget to play with, but he had a reasonable one, and the player that we didn't directly replace was Ashley Young (albeit a big player).

We'll see where we finally end up. But I doubt it will be 9th - I'm pretty sure I predicted 12-16th this season. Is 16th underachieving with this squad? I think so. Very much so.

[john e]

i'm not giving up on Randy just yet,
 he's only made one big mistake, OK it was a massive one with Mcliesh but still he can put it right with a better manager next time round.

i know he also gets  load of stick for letting MON go mad bringing in average players on super star wages, but i feel he was backing his manager then and he has probably learnt his lesson on that one, remember he was new to the game at the time.

anyway i'm still willing to stick with him as long as he sees sense and does the decent thing re AM and then gets the next one right