By bye Eck

[jwok]

Alex McLeish has been shown the door. No great surprise. But if Steve Clarke can't be persuaded is there anyone better?

[Handsome_Devil]

Is there anyone better in the world? No doubt. Is there any reason to suspect the SFA could identify them? None.

McLeish was clearly struggling and as such I've no real objection to firing him but if anyone thinks any single managerial change will turn us round in the long-term they are sadly mistaken.

Serbia's current improvement and a home draw in the Euro play-offs if we beat Finland will have more of an impact on our Euro 2020 chances than the next appointment.

[texaco cup]

Well his pay off will at least pay his over due tax bill, probably main reason he got the job. The “old school” looking out for one of their own. Time to get rid of the SFA old school tie brigade and appoint a young manager with bright new ideas and give him 2-3 years to put his stamp on the team

[wellin]

The rest of "the old school" should follow him out the door. Useless, the lot of them. Here's my pick to replace Eck....Slaven Bilic.....Did a good job wlth his National team,

[Handsome_Devil]

Having idly thought about this over the afternoon, I think we might do a bit better than normal in the appointment. Bilic, or someone of that ilk, would be perfect. Pal Dardai would be another very feasible candidate.

It still comes down to the SFA though and they need to say that the only thing that matters is winning the two play-off games next March. There's no need to develop youngsters, there's no need to know Scottish football, there's no need for a vision of the future. We need someone who has international experience, can sift through what we've got in the next 11 months, and then organise and motivate 11 guys to beat Finland and whoever comes next. That's it. Fail and we can look for the next long-term solution, succeed and pocket a massive bonus and a contract extension to July 2020. At that point, whatever happens, we say thanks and goodbye and make a long-term appointment.

This goes against virtually everything I've wanted in a Scotland manager for years but we're in a situation which is probably once in a lifetime. It's certainly once in several generations. We should be sticking every single penny we've got on the best coach we can get on a contract to April 1, 2020. After that we'll deal with whatever happens easily enough.

[Wellup4it]

The “old school” looking out for one of their own. Time to get rid of the SFA old school tie brigade....

Stage 1 is to get rid of the old school brigade at the SFA. Until that happens nothing much will improve.