Stephen Halliday: Dalglish comments can't paper over cracks

KENNY DALGLISH has become the latest to jump aboard the bandwagon of revisionism which has been on the move since Scotland's desperate performance against Liechtenstein at Hampden two weeks ago.

The country's most capped and arguably finest player of all time is, of course, entitled to dismiss the criticism which followed Scotland's 2-1 win against the Euro 2012 Group I minnows which was secured by Stephen McManus' header deep into stoppage time of an excruciating match.

His elevated status, however, does not make his comments any more credible.

"Does it matter?" asked Dalglish in an interview with Scotland on Sunday yesterday. "There's no story. It doesn't say we scored in 97 minutes. It's a win. Let's just be grateful for any little piece of luck we get because we don't get much." The attempts to brush aside Scotland's appalling level of performance against opponents 100 places below them in the Fifa world rankings was, understandably enough, kicked off by manager Craig Levein and has been carried on by any number of willing accomplices.

As a member of the managerial brotherhood, albeit lapsed, Dalglish perhaps feels a duty to support Levein's position. The Liverpool legend's residual contempt for the validity of views expressed by those in the media would also be a contributory factor.

But regardless of how high profile the apologists are, there is no escape from the fact that Scotland flirted outrageously with the worst result in the country's 138-year international history against Liechtenstein. In assessing the likelihood of Levein emerging as a successful Scotland manager, that certainly does matter.