Does the Scotland Job need to be full time?

[Alfiembra]

You regularly hear from incumbent national team managers that they miss the day to day involvement of club football.


So given our current malaise does the job have to be full time?


I feel that lots of potential candidates for the job are put off accepting the position precisely because of this reason, so are we losing out on getting the right man for the job?


Is there a different way to manage the national side and allow the manager the freedom to keep his involvement at club level and do the Scotland job.


I think it's possible, there are breaks for international games so the manager could focus on these games at that time and his club assistant manager continues to run his club team in his absence.


The requirement to go to matches and see potential players could be done with a network of national scouts that report back to the manager, does this already happen? Also club managers regularly take in other games anyway for potential signings of their own.


I can think of lots of other ways to do the job in this manner but want to keep the post to a reasonable length.

[G B Young]

I've posed the same question on the Next Scotland Manager thread and suggested a job share style arrangement between club managers.

Failing that, I think an 'inside' lower profile appointment like Gemmill or Mackay should be handed a long-term contract to manage both the full squad and the Scotland Under-21s. There seems little reason that one manager can't do both and it would also provide a more hands-on experience instead of months of inactivity between games as well as giving the manager a better overview of the players at his disposal. The constant changing of manager doesn't work at Scotland level. If it did we'd have qualified for something since 1998. Bar Levein who thus far has won nothing at any level, all those in charge since then have been relatively successful club bosses but simply haven't been able to translate that approach to international level. An appointment like Gemmill who, like Gareth Southgate, has worked within the international set-up for a long time would make more sense.

[Smartie]

A club manager's job is full-time so I don't think that it can be combined with somebody doing that kind of role elsewhere.

It isn't a full-time job per se, but it could easily co-exist beside media work, ambassadorial duties, coaching etc in order to fill up someone's time.

I do think that it might be quite a dull job for a young manager at the peak of his powers though, and I have a degree of sympathy with the blazers when it comes to finding a suitable candidate.

It is perfect for the older manager who maybe doesn't have what it takes to manage the day in day out activity of club management.