Macca: Burley can lead us to the World Cup finals

Nov 19 2008 by Paul Thomson, East Kilbride News

JAMIE McAllister insists George Burley is the man to lead Scotland to the World Cup in 2010 and he doesn’t understand why the national boss has come under so much scruitiny.

The 30-year-old from Newlandsmuir was preparing to play against Argentina in a glamour friendly at Hampden tonight (Wednesday) when he told the News that Burley has what it takes to take Scotland to their first major championships in over a decade.

After the opening results in our World Cup qualifying matches, many have called for Burley’s head and insisted he be replaced before the crunch game with Holland in March.

But McAllister, who played under Burley at Hearts in 2005, believes the criticism is unjust.

He said: “I don’t know why George has been coming under so much scruitiny at the moment. I think he’s an excellent manager and we’re second in our group so that’s not a terrible start for us.

“The Norway game wasn’t great and a win would’ve been a good result, but I think it’s between us and them for second place and Norway are sitting bottom of the group with two points, so it’s not a terrible position to be in.

“When I was at Hearts, George was a fantastic manager. He had us believing in ourselves and we had a great team spirit. We split the Old Firm that season and we were top of the league when George left the club so there’s no doubting how good a manager he is.”

Burley has had a tough job trying to emulate the achievements of Walter Smith and Alex McLeish, who reinvigorated the national side after the calamitous Berti Vogts era.

The two famous wins over France have certainly given Burley a lot to live up to and McAllister admits that may have contributed to Burley’s rough ride.

The Bristol City defender said: “Like I said, I don’t understand why he’s under so much pressure, but maybe what Walter and Alex did has something to do with it. They did a great job and George knows he’s under a bit of pressure because of that but he is capable of doing a great job for us, too.

“We’re still in the running for the World Cup and the Holland game is definitely a game we can get something from.

“You saw Burnley knock Chelsea out of the Carling Cup last week so it shows that anything is possible. We won’t go into the game in March thinking we can’t win it. There’s no point in us turning up if we don’t think we can.”