 Monday, 11th Oct 2010 23:57 by Clive Whittingham Jamie Mackie was understandably thrilled to make his Scotland debut on Friday night but the nature of his team’s performance and the result means the knives are out north of the border and QPR’s top scorer needs to watch his back. Scapegoat required, apply withinYou could have been forgiven for thinking Paul Hart had taken the Scotland job as they faced the Czech Republic on Friday night. Not since the worst manager in QPR history sent on two full backs and a holding midfielder to join a team that already included two full backs, three centre halves and two other holding midfielders against Bristol City at Loftus Road last Boxing Day can I recall a manager being quite so needlessly negative as Craig Levein was in that game.
The highlights made for grim viewing, and thankfully that’s all I saw of the debacle as the sport department are in charge of the Sky box at my work and they wanted to watch Northern Ireland on Friday so that’s what I had to watch too. That’s no bad thing, I probably would have picked their game with Italy anyway, although the addition of Jamie Mackie to the Scotland line up has fired an interest in me far beyond that which should be commanded by a League Two outfit masquerading as an international team.
I’ve got half an idea that Northern Ireland may actually be half the problem for the Scots at the moment. Scottish football fans are peering across the Irish Sea at Nigel Worthington and his team that, on paper, isn’t fit to hold a candle to the Scottish one and watching it consistently produce results far beyond its means through a mixture of flashes of brilliance and good old fashioned passion and hard work. It’s a shame David Healy cannot get a game anywhere really because I’d say they’re only an in form striker away from really pushing for qualification in a group that contains a tired looking Italian side. With Lee Camp set to join the fold and Kyle Lafferty surely pushing for selection from the start the future looks a lot brighter than it really should when you consider population, finances, domestic league, pool of players, history, or any other measurement you’d care to judge Northern Ireland by.
I look down the Scotland squad and struggle to pick a name that Northern Ireland wouldn’t gladly have in their own squad and yet Worthington is sending his teams out to win games. Even when I saw them in a backs to the wall effort against Slovenia a month ago, it was backs to the wall with a cutting edge at the other end and they won 1-0. If Scotland had gone in the Czech half at any point on Friday night what exactly would they have done? Fortunately they didn’t, so this problem never really came up.
I expected Scotland boss Craig Levein to respond to the criticism of his 4-6-0 formation by telling the media that they didn’t know anything about football, and it wasn’t in fact a 4-6-0 formation, but a 4-3-3 cunningly disguised. I was half right, he did tell the press they knew nothing about it but he defended his right to field a flat back ten with no striker saying his job is to qualify and this is how he thinks he can do it.
The Czech Republic are a long way from the team they were between 1996 and 2004 when they often made good outside bets to win international tournaments. Their decline has been swift – once a top three side in the FIFA rankings and European Championship finalists, they are now 37th. I place little stock in the FIFA rankings because they are firstly put together by FIFA which is a good enough reason to dismiss any data and secondly because they’re clearly ridiculous (England moved up a place after the World Cup). But a quick glance down the list shows the Czechs one place above the mighty Burkina Faso and far below Slovenia, Slovakia, Gabon (seriously) and the worst Nigerian side in living memory. They are an ideal second ‘big’ side to pull in your group. To go there and blatantly play for a 0-0 would be like Neil Warnock doing the same at Bristol City next Friday night - sure they may be bottom of the league now, but a couple of years ago they made the play offs.
How much worse would it really have been if they’d gone and attacked? Levein says when he put strikers on after the Czech goal they were terribly open – but it’s still zero points for a defeat whichever way you cut it. Scotland are awful. Their national league is a standing joke, they’re producing nothing by way of quality youngsters, and they haven’t been to a tournament in a decade. But with people like Phil Bardsley, Charlie Adam and Steven Fletcher around the squad but not in the team on Friday they do have options to improve things – not world class options by any means, not even very good options you might say, but options all the same. Options worth considering when you’re picking David Weir and Steven Naismith in a 4-6-0 formation.
So, justifiably, the knives are out. Levein did a simply magnificent job at Dundee United before getting the Scotland job on the back of it and earlier succeeded at Hearts as well but his spell in charge of Leicester City was dire and, as is always the way of things, people are looking at that more and more rather than his substantial CV plus points from elsewhere now things aren’t going so well for the Scots. It’s a scapegoat they require, and I’m afraid our young Jamie Mackie may just fit the bill for them.
Allow me to quote from the ScottishFitba blog before the match had even kicked off on Friday night.
”After reading the story in the Sun about Kenny Miller being left out of the Scotland team in favour of Mackie of QPR I thought they were either winding us up or the boss had lost the plot. Don’t get me wrong I am not the greatest fan of Kenny Miller but he has scored ten goals this season, and has consistently led the line well for the national side. Surely this gave him the right to expect a start ahead of the unknown English born Mackie.
I would also have thought Steven Fletcher deserves a shout ahead of Mackie given his record with Burnley and Wolves in the "best league in the world". Surely the game in Sweden or against Liechtenstein was the time to be trying him out, not a must win game in Prague against one of our main rivals for second place.
Once again we have a Scotland manager who says he will pick players on form but then proceeds to do the opposite! Why no space for Charlie Adam or even Chris Iwelumo who has been scoring for Burnley this season.
Notice how Chris Iwelumo “has been scoring” this season but Mackie, who has one more than the Burnley striker in the league and won the Championship Player of the Month for September, is an “unknown, English born” striker. Notice how Iwelumo’s history in international football, which stretches as far as the worst miss of all time against Norway two years ago, is conveniently ignored.
In fairness I’d have picked Iwelumo, Fletcher and Charlie Adam on Friday night, but I’d have picked Mackie as well and to start slating his selection before he’s even kicked a ball because he’s replacing Kenny Miller (one goal in 13 internationals over the last three and a half seasons apparently counts as “leading the line well”) smacks of anti-English sentiment in the face of the facts. The Daily Record had a pop along similar lines too.
The problem Mackie has, as I see it, is that Craig Levein picked him on Friday night not to provide a goal threat, but to be a work horse. The most eye catching part of Mackie’s game at QPR this season has not been the goals, but the never say die, never give up attitude he has shown. He plunders goals rather than creates them, he snaps at players’ ankles and he covers every blade of grass on the pitch. At the end of every game I half expect him to take off on laps of the field such is his energy and boundless enthusiasm.
Levein, and I’m only guessing here based on the area of the pitch he actually played Mackie in, saw that and thought he’d be absolutely ideal for the negative game plan he had on Friday night rather than looking at his goals and thinking that he might actually threaten the Czechs. By all accounts and having watched the highlights Mackie did the job he was sent out to do to the best of his ability in a difficult situation. But the Scots see an English born striker, that they presume has been brought in because he’s scored eight goals for QPR this season, posing no goal threat in a listless performance while Kenny Miller (ten goals in the SPL this season, which let’s be honest equates to about one and a half in a proper football division) sits on the bench and they criticise.
Mackie has scored goals this season in a good QPR team. He didn’t score many goals in a very poor Plymouth team. His work rate and performance level remained the same throughout but the number of chances created differed. He’s also been brought in by Neil Warnock with a position specifically in mind for him. His role at QPR suits him perfectly and he’s revelling in it. He’ll work his socks off whatever job he’s asked to do in a rank Scotland side, but will he score goals? I’m not convinced he will, and I’m certainly not convinced the long suffering Scotland fans are in the mood to praise and Englishman for his high work rate in defeat.
Playing for Scotland will be a fantastic experience for Jamie, particularly if he plays against Spain, but I just hope he comes back to us fit and with his confidence fully intact because the set up in that national side at the moment is not conducive to either.
Speaking of youngsters coming through…Having slammed the Scottish set up for its dearth of promising youngsters coming through I really ought to mind the double glazing in my glass house. QPR’s youth system has produced only Angelo Balanta and Antonio German since Ray Jones broke through four years ago and is a regular source of conjecture on LFW.
German is a likeable lad with a fine attitude and his performance at home to Doncaster last season will live long in the memory. But German, like Romone Rose who we have seen fleeting glimpses of, seems to struggle with even the very basic elements of the game like controlling the football. I have liked the look of Josh Parker very much from what I’ve seen so far simply because he does seem to be able to kill the ball with his first touch and I hope to see more of him in the coming months.
Balanta is an enigma. Ask any QPR fan and they’ll say he’s going to be the next big thing. Whenever things aren’t going so well it’s Balanta’s name that comes up. People constantly ask why Balanta can’t get a game as if he’s some new Les Ferdinand being cruelly held back by clueless managers. I welcomed the chance to sit and watch him play for MK Dons against Charlton last week and I thought he still looked very, very raw indeed. His touch is good, which is more than can be said for most of the players that graduate from our youth set up, but his cowardice in the tackle is almost on a par with Scott Sinclair and there was next to no end product from him for the hour or so he was on the pitch last week. In fairness he is just coming back from injury and scored a fine goal last weekend so I’ll make an effort to see him again this season and reserve full judgement. One thing I do know is that the one thing all the managers Flavio Briatore employed had in common was – none of them picked Balanta regularly.
One of the things I’m really hoping Neil Warnock can do for QPR is get a good youth set up producing some talent for our first team. In Wilfried Zaha Palace had a player they’ve grown themselves playing against us last week far superior on the evidence of that performance to anything we’ve produced since Ray Jones. They had Clyne, Djilali, Dorman, Cadogan and Marrow in there as well and while the performances were mixed, that ability to fish half a first team out of the Under 18s at a time of injury crisis and compete is one that sadly eludes us.
Palace have an academy set up of course, as do Reading, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, West Ham and numerous other clubs in our catchment area. According to the Palace programme their youth team won 2-0 at West Ham in the last week of September, played Fulham last weekend and have Chelsea next week. The QPR equivalent are playing Aldershot, Wycombe and Luton this month. With no reserve league either it’s impossible to even consider that we can first attract players ahead of even the likes of Palace, and then challenge and develop them into players ready for the first team while this is the case. You simply cannot go from playing Barnet youth on a park pitch to facing even the likes of Scunthorpe and Preston in our league.
It’s wonderful to see us this week signing up Mo Shariff and Brune Andrade onto long term deals and to hear Neil Warnock talking enthusiastically about bringing the best young players through into the first team. But our youth set up desperately needs attention and investment if we are to produce players, compete with neighbouring clubs for the best young talent, and provide that first team back up that ran us so close at Selhurst Park last week.
A fantastic week in prospectFinally I thought I’d add that I can scarcely remember looking forward to six days of football as much as I am this coming week. Norwich at home on Saturday is sure to be an attractive football match between two sides going for the win at a packed Loftus Road. Swansea on the Tuesday strikes me as our most difficult game of the season so far against another good footballing side, then Bristol City live on Sky is a chance to both show the nation what all the fuss has been about and stick the boot into a opponents where no love has been lost in the last few seasons. All four teams are what I would call footballing sides, who will try and win the three games rather than playing for a point and I think we’re in for an absolutely cracking return to the league programme.
LoftforWords will be there every step of the way, starting with travel guides for the faithful QPR fans planning on heading up and down the M4 to the two away games which should be online tomorrow night and including in depth previews, reports and post match analysis during the next ten days or so. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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