GEORGE Burley's evasiveness during the inevitable media interrogation in the wake of Scotland's defeat in Macedonia suggested that his most difficult task over a miserable weekend was trying to camouflage his disappointment with the standard of player at his disposal.
Asked directly if he had been surprised, or even shocked, by the general mediocrity of his squad since he succeeded Alex McLeish last January, the national team manager gave a fudged response which hinted at private dissatisfaction.
His decisio
n immediately after the debacle in Skopje to promote the Hibernian striker, Steven Fletcher, from the under-21 to the senior squad, also implied his awareness that changes for the better will have to be implemented for Wednesday's crucial match in Iceland.
Fletcher impressed Burley by scoring a double in the under-21 side's 3-1 win over Slovenia last week, prompting the manager to say: "Steven is a young player who I think the world of."
He comes into the squad without any player dropping out.
"In international football, every game is difficult," said Burley. "Look at the game against Macedonia and a decision going your way, a kindly roll of the ball and you could have won the game and you end up losing 1-0.
"All you can ask is the right attitude and for players to give their all and I think in the second half over there they did that.
"As a national manager, you're picking your best players and we've looked at all the players and brought others in, so we'll continue working hard to try and fine-tune it to try and win games. I thought Kris Commons came on and did well in the second half in Skopje, and Shaun Maloney looked lively, so they're pushing their way through.
"You're picking your best players, you're trying to get the best out of your squad, we look at the formation and the players for every game. Iceland's a different match from Macedonia and we might slightly vary it. But we're trying to get the best out of the players and they gave it everything, there's no question about that."
But however it is dressed up, Burley's record of no wins from four outings is unimpressive and the 1-0 defeat by Macedonia in the opening match of Group 9 in the World Cup qualifying has already put the Scots' prospects of qualifying for South Africa in 2010 in serious jeopardy.
The manager had targeted 17 points as the likely requirement for one of the top two places in the section, and one more defeat from the seven remaining matches – these include home-and-away fixtures against Holland, Norway and Iceland – will render that objective almost unattainable.
Burley, predictably, was not prepared to take a pessimistic view of his team's chances, but these early months of his tenure have already prompted comparisons in some sections of the media with the abortive days of the Berti Vogts era.
He could have done his own image no harm by being a little less defensive of his team's performance in Macedonia, evincing intolerance of their pedestrian first-half performance, rather than dwelling on the slight, and futile, improvement they showed in the second 45 minutes.
"Well, we've seven games left, still a long way to go," he said. "We've lost our first game, which we're disappointed about. It was never going to be easy. Macedonia are an experienced side, but I was very pleased with the second half. We finished very strongly and all credit to them, especially having to cope with that type of heat, and I thought overall we deserved a point.
"The slow start came from losing the goal after only five minutes and they put us under pressure. We had a chat at half-time, I told them I felt we were going a bit deep and not putting them under enough pressure.
"We wanted to get a bit higher up the pitch and they responded well and they did that. It was a hard game, but especially after conceding early. When you're away to quality opposition, you don't want to do that.
"We'll be looking to take our second-half performance to Iceland and hopefully pick up some points. We'll look at things in terms of personnel as well as deployment.
"But we have to take the second half out of the game, where we responded well, and we certainly finished the game in the ascendancy."
Asked about the wisdom of playing a 4-4-2 away from home, Burley made no apologies, but did concede that some tinkering may be necessary for the trip to Reykjavik.
The only injuries sustained in Skopje were to right-back Graham Alexander and central defender Stephen McManus, but both are expected to recover in time.
"We said before we started that 17 points was the target and nothing's changed," he said. "So we lost the first match and that makes it harder. Iceland drew with Norway tonight and that confirms what I've thought about the group since the draw was made.
"It's going to be very competitive, teams are going to take points off each other. Macedonia away in those conditions are going to be tough for anyone and I think the group is going to be closely contested.
"So you go into the next game and try to pick up points. Four games and no wins? Well, as I said, we're looking to the World Cup, friendly games are a build-up, but Macedonia was a tester for us and in the first half we didn't get to grips.
"We did in the second, so we move on from there. As I say, we have seven games left to take it on. We still have the possibility of qualifying, but it makes it tougher. We're going to adjust the system at various times, depending on the game. You may see slight changes for Iceland."
The full article contains 999 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
