Should Berti Go

[krisbaillie 4]

As You Know Scotland are at very dry spot at the moment so i was wondering who wants Berti Vogts to be sacked. I think he should be without a doubt

[Guest The Crippler]

Yep, he has to go really, for reasons stated in the other thread.

[Guest Russ]

I say no. Graeme Souness made a great point today, that the problem isn't Vogts, and that no manager could turn the team around overnight.

 

I'd give Berti until the end of the qualifying campaign. Bringing in Gordon Strachan or Walter Smith or even Jose Mourinho isn't going to win Scotland the group, or turn them into even a decent side with the space of 5 games. He might turn it around, he might not, but the chances are that spending £400,000 to fire him, then another few hundred thousand to entice a new manager would be a waste of money, as his replacement will do no better.

 

The funny thing is that when Wee Craigy Broon was in charge, all we heard in Scotland was "We need a new manager from abroad to liven up our game with fresh thinking and foreign ideas". Then we get one. Now it's "We need a Scottish manager with the passion and the love of the national team to bring back the glory days". Give it 5 years and Strachan will be about to get fired, and we'll hear the same "We need a good foreign manager to help take our game forward". The grass is always greener for the great unwashed.

 

Sometimes it's beneficial to just stick out a downturn, and you might get lucky. The players could pull together harder than ever before, a Scottish player might hit top form and we could put together a few good results. Bringing in a new man will be a costly mistake, and while Berti isn't perfect, Scotland can't do any better.

[krisbaillie 4]

I say no. Graeme Souness made a great point today, that the problem isn't Vogts, and that no manager could turn the team around overnight.

 

I'd give Berti until the end of the qualifying campaign. Bringing in Gordon Strachan or Walter Smith or even Jose Mourinho isn't going to win Scotland the group, or turn them into even a decent side with the space of 5 games. He might turn it around, he might not, but the chances are that spending £400,000 to fire him, then another few hundred thousand to entice a new manager would be a waste of money, as his replacement will do no better.

 

The thing is that our next two games are against Sweden and Italy and i feel a new manager should be brought in before the Sweden game so that he can get to grips before Italy because if the new manager has Italy on his first game , well i wouldnt want to be in his shoes

[Guest JC]

He's done nothing wrong, comon it's scotland, he's hardly working with the best tools. no offense

[Guest MillionLiraMan]

I say he has to go for the reasons I stated in the other thread, like Will said.

 

Russ, I heard Sourness say his piece but it's just an argument that I think has no validity whatsoever. How do we know that no-one would do any better? We won't judge Vogts, who we know is doing terribly, but we will judge any other potential candidates for the job before we've even seen then in action. I find that a baffling stance to take to be honest. It's very, very sad for Scottish football when our answer for keeping the manager is that we are so bad that we should accept how bad we are and just take it. I say no. We're not asking to be world beaters, just good enough that we're not being totally outclassed in games by the Faroes and Moldova.

 

I see what you're saying about public opinion over who Scotland should get, personally I never thought Vogts was the right man anyway. We had the run-up to him getting the job filled with stroies of how badly he was doing in club football and how he had come to be thought of in Germany as a 'take the money' manager who was too expensive and not good enough. However, he came anyway. I do think Brown had to go, yes he did fine for a while but his team were seriously old and he wouldn't do anything about it. If he were still in charge now, Kevin Gallacher would still be playing for us. Vogts though was the wrong man to replace him.

 

The reason why I think a new manager should be brought in now is because there's no point in keeping Vogts when we're out of the World Cup already. I think that would be a very short-sighted thing to do. What people want is for Scotland to start playing some decent football again and get some results. While we're not getting good results, what is more worrying is that we can't even create many decent chances and have no organisation. We are also unable to adapt during games. If what we do at the start of a match doesn't work, then we're buggered, because we've no plan B or alternative approach to games. That's the fault of Vogts who, as Will said in the other thread, is tactically unaware, going on about Lee McCulloch first of all like he was Ronaldinho, then bringing him on (Lee McCulloch, not Ronaldinho unfortunately) for seven minutes only. If Vogts gets the rest of the qualifying campaign it will only mean that whoever replaces him will need longer still to gel with the players they would choose and that would mean a longer period of pishness for Scotland.

 

The players aren't great, but I also feel we could do better there. Stevie Crawford is 30 and still hasn't learnt how to stay onside in matches. He's one of our main strikers. Why? Miller and Thompson should be ahead of him, even Kris Boyd (who has been decent for Kilmarnock before that game against Dundee United when he scored five goals) could be given a chance. Dickov just fouls people becuase he's got a chip on his shoulder about being small, he should have been sent off against Norway and has been dire at international level. Miller's done alright, Thompson isn't bad, I'd have Boyd in the squad and move Chris Burke up to the full squad. In defence I'd have Russell Anderson and Zander Diamond when they are fit ahead of Steven Pressley any day, while in midfield I'd like to see Barry Ferguson dropped (from the starting team, not totally from the squad) as he hasn't had a good game for Scotland in I don't know how long, if he ever had one at all (I can't remember one). He goes missing for thirty and forty minute spells in games. He was mediocre against Norway, which is at least better than not being involved at all, but most of the time you wouldn't know that he was playing if he wasn't on the teamsheet before games. Drop him, give him a kick up the arse and see if he responds. If he does, then pick him, but don't make him a shoe-in every time because in those circumstances he just isn't performing. OK, so we've not really anyone better, but I'd like to see a new manager giving that a try and either getting decent performances from someone else or, after a period of experimenting in games which don't matter anyway, getting back a much sharper and more determined Barry Ferguson. Berti Vogts has had long enough to make some sort of improvement, using fresh ideas and explaining what he's trying to do. He hasn't done that and I don't think he's getting the best even out of the limited resources he has.

 

We should be giving up on the World Cup. Come on guys, we're out, let's not flog a dead horse by keeping Berti Vogts in the job. We might have to accpet dismissing any chance of qualifying for Euro 2008 before anything happens there as well, but let's give another guy time to make improvements. Let's see that those improvements are being made, however, as Vogts has had three years and we're no better if not worse than when he first arrived in the job. We're not world beaters and don't expect to be, but when Moldova and the Faroe Islands are better than us, something needs to be done.

 

Let's get someone else.

[Guest Russ]

You've made some cracking points there sir, and I don't doubt your strength of your arguement for a second. I still feel that people are going a little bit over the top with their criticism for Vogts, and while I'm not going to cry my eyes out if he's fired, I just can't help but feel a bit sorry for him. I honestly think that he's tried hard to win Scotland over, but at the end of the day he's not produced the results.

 

The problem with management is that there's never a concrete point where we know that it's time for the boss to leave. If Paul Sturrock had more than 2 games or so this season, he could have turned his side around. If Bobby Robson was given as much time as he wanted, which a lot of Newcastle fans would have been happy to see, he could have won a trophey this year. Maybe Scotland have hit rock bottom. But when you're at the very, very bottom, there's only one way you can go. The only way is up. Baby. For you and me now.

 

I honestly think that all this media coverage will have made the players a tad disapointed with themselves. I know I'd be unhappy if I was someone like Barry Ferguson, James McFadden or Paul Dickov, who is counted on to either rile up the side and get them fired up so they believe they're world beaters, or put away the chances. They've not done the jobs asked from them. Maybe reading through all the media criticism will be a wake up call, and something will kick in that will give the players the killer instinct.

 

As I said, I'm not going to jump off a bridge if Berti is fired. I'm just warning Scottish fans like myself not to expect all our troubles to disapear the second we get a new boss. I read the Daily Record yesterday, and it said "Here's 6 Men Who Can Save Scotland", and The Sun has been handing out "Gord Help Us" T shirts to encourage Strachan to take over. Appointing a new boss doesn't mean instant success. It could mean another 6 months to a year of experimenting to find his best side, and even then we could still be utter crap.

 

If Vogts leaves his post and Strachan takes over, it's not problem solved. It's the start of a new era, which might make us better. Or maybe it'll make us even worse. I still think that Berti should be given until the end of the qualifying campaign, because rushing a new man into the job isn't going to get us straight to the World Cup. There's nothing wrong with waiting a few games to see how the players respond to what's been said about them, and their manager. Unfortunatly, Berti won't get much time, and he'll probably be an unemployed man in a week from now.

[Guest MillionLiraMan]

Fair enough Russyboy. I think you could be right in that people may have a hard time accepting that we're out of the World Cup if a new manager arrives, but I think if that was impressed upon people then we'd all be looking ahead to Euro 2008 rather than focusing purely on World Cup qualifying results without too much fuss. It would need to be clarified. As long as some improvements were made I think most people would be happy enough. Let's face it, it wouldn't be hard to improve things given how they are at the moment really.

[Guest Christof]

I say no because as an Englishman I am finding the whole debacle very funny

[Guest MARTIN316V1]

I say no because as an Englishman I am finding the whole debacle very funny

 

As funny as when Ronaldinho scored that goal into that goalie with the tash? :P

[Guest Richard Flair]

:worship lmao :worship

 

Back to the topic, I do believe as a dedicated Scots football fan, that Vogts has to go. While he has had two and a half years to change the team from new to old, and in that time has played almost forty games, Scotland should be a fairly young-ish team who can beat teams such as Moldova, Faroe Islands, Lithuania, Wales and Ireland.

 

Let me paint a picture for you all. 9th of June 1999. Away in Prague. The Scoland team walked out to the pitch with their heads held high against a very strong Czech Republic team. Currently the table toppers in the European Championship qualifying group. The game starts, Scotland score. They are 1-0 up away to the Czech's! Half time. We go back out there. Holy shit, we score again! 2-0 to Scotland! The Czech's score. 2-1, we're still winning, so we're singing. 2-2. Everyone now believes that Scotland can pull off another goal to win the game. The stadium bounces with renditions of "O Flower Of Scotland". 85th minute...no goal. 86th minute...no goal. 87th minute...the Czech Republic score. Scotland lose 3-2. We lost the battle but the war was won in the eyes of the Scot's. We were so close and held our own against a damn good team.

 

Five years on, Scotland draw 1-1 with Moldova in Chisinau. Who are Moldova again? I don't ever remember seeing that country in the summer holiday brochure nor the one for winter. What do they export? "Who knows" was the answer I got at the pub. They lie in between Romania and Ukraine. Ok, so they came from the bottom pot of seedings. Scotland can at least beat Moldova. We draw. What? We draw. WHAT?!?!?! WE DRAW! We draw against a team the same size as us with a VERY small national league and a country that doesn't have the slightest bit of credibility to their name, And Scotland draw with them.

 

Now see if Celtic were to go and play the winners from the Moldovian league in the Champions league Qualifiers, and draw, then go out, he would be booted out that door while being circumcised on the way! Alex McLeish was close to being fired for being second in the Scottish league and losing a game 2-1 to Aberdeen, a team that currently sits 4 points adrift of them in the league.

 

Should Berti Vogts be fired after giving more almost seventy players a cap, finding a team and not being able to motivate them to win against MOLDOVA? I say hell yes...and circumcise him on the way out.

 

Richard Flair

Edited October 18, 2004 by Richard Flair

[Guest MillionLiraMan]

I forgot to mention Garry O'Connor and Derek Riordan at Hibs who are playing really well and yet never get considered for the Scotland team. Riordan was really good last season as well and could even be the man to take over from Barry Ferguson for a while to see if that motivates either of them into producing good performances for Scotland.

 

The thing is that to say it's not Vogts and is purely about the resources he has isn't really true, although of course there are problems in that regard. The fact is, for anyone who keeps up with Scottish football at club level, if the Scotland team under Berti Vogts were to play home and away over two legs against Hearts, Aberdeen or Hibernian, who do you think would win? I reckon the national side would get horsed over the two games against those teams, who incidentally have plenty of Scottish players playing for them. With the exception of Mark de Vries at Hearts, the best players from those teams are Scottish, yet somehow the national side is worse than any of those teams I would say.

 

It's not like all of Scotand's problems would be solved instantly by sacking Vogts and replacing him with someone touted as better at the moment, but we can hardly do any worse and like Richard says, we're not asking to be world beaters, just competent. While I don't think that Scotland should be expected to beat Wales and Ireland right now, we should at least be looking to be competitive in those matches, which we aren't by any means.

[Guest Christof]

As funny as when Ronaldinho scored that goal into that goalie with the tash? :P

 

totally fair, serves us right for playing a pensioner in goal

[Guest Jayden]

As mentioned previously it's not the manager, but the structure of Scottish football, and the players on offer. Craig Brown over achieved with that group of players and by the end he paid for his own measure of success, now Vogts is struggling with a worse one and it's somehow his fault? I can't pretend that you can't blame the manager but exactly what do people expect Scotland to do? Are they good enough to qualify for world cups or european championships at the moment? of course not, whoever the manager was. Anyone without a huge passion for Scottish football would be crazy to take that job right now.

 

There is also the cost involved in replacing him. I don't know exactly the financial implications but lets say that it was about £500k to get him out and a new guy in. There are much better ways to invest that money into Scottish football than to bring in another manager who would do no better than the one you've got now.

 

I do however despite everything I'd said think that Vogts has to go. Only because the press adn the public have made his position impossible. I don't see if benefitting Scottish football to get rid of him but I don't see there's any choice now.

[Guest Andy]

I've been patient with him, but now he has to go.

 

I wouldnt say we have a terrible bunch of players. We have some good quality youngsters, and a couple of good more experienced players that can be put in the team together. The problem is Vogts doesnt seem to have any idea about who his best players really are, or what tactics to use. Going back to the Euro Championships, nobody expected Greece to do what they did, but good tactics and commitment from the players ended up with them winning it. Now I'm not expecting Scotland to repeat that, but surely I can expect something better against Moldova, or more than 1 point from the first 2 home games of the qualifying campaign. Berti isn't getting the best out of the players, so its time for him to go and someone else to come in. They couldnt do any worse, and I believe they would probably do much better.

 

If you made sense of that, well done :P