Bannan ‘fabulous’? It was just Lithuania, remember

That depressing conclusion was impossible to escape during a week in which Craig Levein’s national team produced a seemingly endless stream of controversies, arguments and counter-arguments, but little evidence to support the claim that significant progress has been made in terms of the overall class and capability of the squad.

What did emerge was the disconcerting impression of a collective loss of perspective and judgment among too many involved in Team Scotland. Whatever critical faculty they may once have possessed has perhaps been eroded by constant exposure to a particularly chafing form of mediocrity.

These wildly misplaced pronouncements of optimism took several forms and involved a wide range of players who had worn the dark blue shirts in the double-header against the Czech Republic and Lithuania.

But one of the most irritating was the widespread and frequently-voiced insistence that the country is blessed with a formidable band of brothers for no other reason than many of them play at what is commonly called “the highest level”.

This takes no account of the historical fact that even the most celebrated clubs in the world have, at any given time, accommodated some of the poorest exponents in the game. Even Alex Ferguson has had more than one Eric Djemba-Djemba in his time at Manchester United, while two of the Old Firm’s most revered managers, Billy McNeill and Walter Smith, still find the stain of having signed – and selected – the likes of Martin Hayes and Dale Gordon respectively as conscience-pricking and irremovable as the imagined blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands.

To argue that players as fundamentally moderate as Gary Caldwell, Christophe Berra, Phil Bardsley, Scott Brown and Steven Naismith confer distinction on a team because they play in the Premier League or for Celtic and Rangers is to resurrect the curious logic of another Scotland manager, Andy Roxburgh.

Despite, as now, persuasive evidence to the contrary, Roxburgh would acclaim his players’ extraordinariness (and chide the rest of us for not doing so) on the grounds that “these guys are all internationals”. He would leave unsaid that they only enjoyed this status because he was the one who had capped them.

Of course, it is almost certain that some observers were deflected from their usual rational assessments by the incidents that marked the closing minutes of the 2-2 draw with the Czechs. Promoting a referee’s performance to the top of the bill is among the least original exercises in football reporting, but in this instance the furore caused by the Dutchman, Kevin Blom, left journalists, coaches and players with no alternative. However, setting his incompetence aside, some of the tub-thumping that followed the two matches would leave the more sober onlookers wondering if Scotland’s apologists had completely lost the ability to distinguish between the different levels of the game.

For example, no criticism of the performance against Lithuania – either positive or negative – is really legitimate because of the poverty of the opposition. Yet Levein was among the many who unequivocally championed Barry Bannan, the Aston Villa midfielder, as a future giant of the game. The manager, absurdly, described Bannan’s display and that of Don Cowie as “fabulous”. This against arguably the weakest side ever to visit Hampden; they certainly looked poorer than the Liechtenstein team who came within seconds of a 1-1 draw in Glasgow that would have left Levein presiding over the worst result in the country’s history.

Others salivated over the emergence of a great “young” player with apparently unlimited “potential”. Barry Bannan will be 22 in December, the same age as another diminutive Scot, Jimmy Johnstone, when he won the European Cup. Bannan has yet to attain a regular place in a moderate Aston Villa side.

Doubtless, his and other Scotland players’ prospects of blossoming into fully-grown stardom would accelerate if they could face Lithuania every week.