If the best managers are lucky managers, then George Burley was doomed from the start

Published on Monday 16 November 2009 21:55

THE best managers, they say, are the ones blessed with good fortune. In this respect George Burley never stood a chance.

As he reflects on a ride that was less rollercoaster and more kamikaze dive, the now former Scotland manager will have every right to feel he did not enjoy the rub of the green.

Who could forget his unveiling at Hampden when the fanfare of his arrival was drowned out by the sound of SFA chief executive Gordon Smith verbally jousting with the press pack over the clumsy nature of the selection process to find a new national manager?

If his employers had soured this occasion, then Burley would go on to prove he was adept at creating his own bad press. On the face of it, there was nothing wrong with appointing an experienced coach and former team-mate as his assistant manager. The problem was Terry Butcher is English and his involvement was never going to pass without criticism from some fans.

Having ridden out that storm, it was time for the action to start on the pitch. The road to the World Cup would start here and all negative headlines could be cast aside by a series of positive displays spurred on by Burley's attacking ethos. The problem the new manager encountered, however, was a lack of quality candidates when it came to sticking the ball in the net.

An encouraging start to his reign came with a 1-1 friendly draw with Croatia at Hampden, but then followed a fairly comprehensive defeat in Prague as a Czech Republic side bound for the European Championship finals swept three goals past Scotland. With the World Cup qualifiers ever nearer, Scotland played out a dour 0-0 friendly with Northern Ireland to ensure there would be little feelgood factor heading into that first competitive fixture in Skopje against Macedonia.

Here, again, Burley became a victim of misjudgement by the SFA as its refusal to fight its corner over fixture scheduling meant his ill-prepared side were pitched into a contest played in searing heat at a time when UK leagues had barely begun their new seasons. A 1-0 defeat ensued and the pressure was on. This was relieved to a degree by a 2-1 win over Iceland in Reykjavik but fresh misfortune was just around the corner – and his name was Chris Iwelumo.

The Wolves striker's astonishing miss during the 0-0 draw at Hampden with Norway last year was typical of the hapless nature of many of the performances under Burley's charge. The picture, reproduced a thousand times, of a wide-eyed, open-mouthed Iwelumo watching as the ball squirts off his toe and floats wide is perhaps the defining image of the Burley era. Part incompetence, part bad luck.

That miss had another knock-on effect, of course. Watching from the bench, Kris Boyd figured that if even Iwelumo was getting a game ahead of him then it was time to call it quits with the national team. His decision to opt out of Scotland duty was also one taken earlier by club colleague Lee McCulloch and suddenly Burley, already shy of a reliable source of strikers, was deprived of two proven – at club level at least – goalscorers.

But if Burley thought his problems only lay with players who refused to join his squad, he would soon find out that worse was to come from within. The 'Boozegate affair' not only ended the international careers of captain Barry Ferguson and back-up goalkeeper Allan McGregor, but it placed a question mark over the respect, or lack thereof, which Burley commanded over his players.

Fast forward to August and Scotland's pivotal fixture against Norway in Oslo – a city in which they had never lost. Again, a cruel juxtaposition of incompetence and misfortune. Gary Caldwell's tug on John Carew led to a red card and an opening of the floodgates in what ended in a 4-0 defeat but could, in reality, have been far worse.

That was the night Scotland's World Cup dream died and the win against Macedonia and plucky defeat to the Dutch were a case of too little too late.

Perhaps the writing was already on the wall for Burley but a raft of call-offs for the friendly in Japan and the insipid display in Cardiff at the weekend hammered home the message that many of the players were not fully behind their manager. Nor was support likely to be forthcoming from those above him at the SFA.

Perhaps, in the end, the SFA has now done Burley a favour, as his time in charge seemed destined to lurch from one piece of ill-fortune to another. Maybe he'll find better luck elsewhere.