It is hugely ironic that a man so obsessed with defending can offer no defence of his own. On Friday evening, Craig Levein sunk Scottish football to new depths with his incredible 4-6-0 formation in Prague in a match which saw Scotland lose the game 1-0 and suffer a major blow to their hopes of qualifying for Euro 2012.
Let us put this into perspective – Scotland were not playing the Czech squads of the Euro 1996 final or Euro 2004 semi finals, featuring the likes of Pavel Nedved, Milan Baros, Karol Poborsky and Vladimir Smicer. They were playing a team who finished 5th in their qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup, who were on their 4th manager since their shock exit to Turkey at Euro 2008 and who (despite playing at home) were outnumbered by Scottish supporters. Their last match was a home defeat by Lithuania and their stock in world football has never been lower.
Yet astonishingly, Levein opted to play without a single striker and instead play exclusively for a 0-0 draw. This is despite main forward Kenny Miller being in the form of his life and despite fielding a midfield almost exclusively of players who ply their trade in the English Premier League. Had Scotland approached the game in the correct manner, a victory was very much there for the taking and three points could have taken us a huge step closer to Euro 2012.
Sure, Levein was without a number of players he’d have loved to have called upon such as James McFadden, Scott Brown and Lee McCulloch. But the quality was still there – Darren Fletcher is a key man in the Manchester United squad, James Morrison a regular for high flying West Brom and Graeme Dorrans the subject of a
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