George Peat, the Scottish Football Association president, has admitted that he is undecided about the future of national coach George Burley.
Scotland’s 2-0 win over Macedonia on Saturday keeps them in the running for a play-off place in Group Nine, but Burley remains under pressure following some unimpressive results in the campaign.
Asked whether Burley would continue should Scotland lose, Peat told BBC Radio Five Live: “We haven’t discussed that. Let’s just wait until the games are all finished. We’ll have a better idea after Wednesday. I haven’t made up my mind one way or another.
“We hired George on a four-year contract and we said that halfway through, once the World Cup section had finished, we would sit down and have a talk to see how he felt. This is his first go at international management, and managers who have been with clubs and get into the routine of club management find it kind of strange when they don’t get players on a day-to-day basis.”
Peat was less than omplimentary when discussing the job Burley had done in what he described “as a kind of partial transition period”.
“When a new manager comes in he tries to change things. When Walter Smith came in after Berti Vogts left, Walter turned the whole place round and we went on a tremendous run,” he added. “Alex McLeish came in with mainly the same players and kept the momentum going. We know what happens – players get close to an end, and the manager has to find new players.
“George Burley has had a kind of partial transition period, so it wasn’t as if he was just carrying on the way things were left. George himself has been disappointed with some of the results. But we’re hoping things are improving – and some of the football that was played against Macedonia, in the second half especially, was very pleasing.
“He’s done a very good job from the point of view that we don’t have any world stars. It’s been a difficult task for him.”
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