Manager shows capacity to learn from mistakes if not admit to them but failure to resolve Fletcher absence can’t be excused

CRAIG Levein may be reluctant to admit mistakes but it seems he is prepared to learn from them. To hear the Scotland manager citing a shortage of preparatory friendly matches as one of the factors in his failure to secure Euro 2012 qualification was startling.

Levein’s initial thoughts on the value of such fixtures were that “the games don’t really mean anything” and that they proved counter-productive for his predecessor George Burley who was dismissed following consecutive defeats against Japan and Wales.

Levein had eight months to prepare for the start of the Euro 2012 campaign but chose to take on just two friendly matches. Prospective fixtures in May and June 2010, including a trip to Australia and New Zealand, were rejected by the manager who settled for a home game against the Czech Republic and the 3-0 defeat to Sweden in Stockholm in August 2010.

His view perhaps began to change in the build-up to that Swedish match when he had to reject pleas from Gordon Strachan and Dave Jones, then in charge of Middlesbrough and Cardiff City respectively, to omit their players from his squad in order to allow them to take part in Carling Cup ties instead.

“I’m not in this job with the sole purpose of keeping club managers happy,” he said at the time. “I have to work out the best approach for us to beat the opponents in our group.”

Sadly, the method he formulated proved good enough only to record single-goal victories over Liechtenstein (twice) and Lithuania, the two weakest teams in a section which, with the obvious exception of world champions Spain, was decidedly mediocre.

But it remains spurious to suggest Levein did not have enough time to develop an adequate appreciation of the players at his disposal. The majority of those who have been regulars in his squad were already firmly established under Burley, many of them having been involved in the senior set-up even longer.

It is hard to accept Levein’s lack of knowledge of the players for what proved to be a dismal first half of the Group I campaign, yielding just four points from a limp draw in Lithuania and a scrambled home win over Liechtenstein before reaching its nadir with the striker-free tactics in the 1-0 loss to the Czechs in Prague.

Levein has certainly shown no reluctance since then to try and fill every available friendly date in the calendar, even finding value in last November’s 3-0 win over the Faroe Islands at Pittodrie which saw his squad hit by a record number of withdrawals.

It has contributed to him using 51 players in the 16 matches he has overseen so far. In the eight Euro 2012 qualifiers, he called on the services of 31 of them. In terms of those who have made a significant breakthrough or become first picks during the Levein era, only Phil Bardsley, Barry Bannan and now Craig Mackail-Smith were not already firmly on the radar before he took charge.

As he looks to embrace as many friendly matches as possible in the build-up to the 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign, it remains to be seen whether Levein will prove as willing to alter his standpoint on the continuing absence of Steven Fletcher from the squad.

Brighton’s Mackail-Smith and his fellow Championship-based striker Kenny Miller now appear to head the queue for the lone front-man role.

But if Fletcher maintains the eye-catching development he has made in the English Premier League with Wolves this year, perhaps even earning a transfer to a higher profile club, it will only prove increasingly self-defeating for Scotland to exclude him. The former Hibs striker did himself no credit in declining to be involved in Levein’s squad for the Carling Nations Cup tie against Northern Ireland, regardless of his frustration at being left in the stand on the horrible night of 4-6-0 in Prague.

He is hardly the first Scotland player of recent times to throw his toys out of the pram, however. Levein was more than willing to welcome Kris Boyd and Lee McCulloch back into the fold, following their self-imposed unavailabilty under Burley. It should not be beyond an organisation with the SFA’s resources to find a diplomatic solution which will facilitate Fletcher’s immediate return.

Levein has done enough to convince SFA chief executive Stewart Regan of the progress he says Scotland have made over the past 12 months. But there remain many legitimate questions to be asked and mistakes to be rectified if Scotland’s long absence from major tournament finals is not to stretch beyond 2014.