Scotland to raise your management profile

So it happened. I think when I first heard his "anything can happen" spiel I knew it was inevitable. The Scotland Manager (left) Alex McLeish has resigned.

He has moved to Real Madrid AC Milan Manchester United Birmingham!! Now I lived in Birmingham and feel the place gets a hard deal from people who haven't been there, but is McLeish for real?

Are we now at the point where someone who i would have regarded as a REAL Scottish manager - and I remember him from his playing days - is happy to dump the team after 10 months in charge??

Indeed Alex :"To be manager of your home nation is a very proud day indeed for Alex McLeish, my family and friends". *

[* footnote : Unless more money comes my way]

Walter Smith did something similar before, but although i don't think it was the right thing to do, moving to Rangers is probably the only thing that would have made his leave his post. But Alex McLeish - a Scotland "great" has left after 10 months.... and i know how short a time that is as my daugter is only 11 months old.

He has basically used the National team to springboard to a higher paid job. Don't tell me this isn't about money - i mean he must be really badly off after managing Rangers. Come on Alex - you could have been a huge figure in this country by guiding team to the next World Cup in South Africa... he even managed to screw us just a little bit more by even attending the DRAW in South Africa!

It pisses me of that these guys are always talking about player loyalty and yet this is the most obvious case of UNLOYALTY i have seen in years. 10 months. I could understand it if were were an awful team but we have progressed pretty well in recent years - which bring me to my next point....

If anything positive comes from this, it is that we will now see that we have a team pretty much independent of manager. Smith and McLeish did a good job obviously but (and I wish i had recorded this) I said a number of years back that we would have a decent team as you could see the young players coming through the ranks at club level. This was during the Berti era. It came as no shock to me that we started getting results. Vogts was a terrible man motivator which is what you got from the Scottish lads, but it's important to remember that it was under him that this young team came together.

My view is that we simply need someone passionate and let the team run itself. I have a 4 year old and once he realized he could read the alphabet he started making up all kinds of words - only every so often does he need to come to me for help.

And don't kid ourselves we run on passion - sure we have passion, but the second half against the Italians shows us we have no skill shortage either!