Comment: Decisive action needed to end Levein era

Levein’s claim of progress achieved since he became Scotland manager in December 2009 has appeared spurious for some time. After a start to the 2014 World Cup campaign which sees Scotland anchored to the bottom of Group A with just two points from four games, his vision of positive momentum is simply preposterous.

The onus now falls on SFA chief executive Stewart Regan and his fellow office bearers to act decisively and terminate a managerial tenure now as pitiful as any in the national team’s history.

Read the full record of Levein’s reign here

With the remaining six World Cup qualifiers effectively reduced in status to preparatory games for the bid to reach the 2016 European Championship, the opportunity can be seized to give Levein’s successor a significant amount of time to revitalise a stagnant Scotland team.

No-one should reasonably be judging Levein’s competence on the evidence of Tuesday night’s 2-0 defeat in Belgium alone. Losing to opponents who increasingly look to have genuine greatness on the international stage within their grasp was no surprise and certainly not a disgrace in any sense.

Levein, though, must be assessed on the desperate situation Scotland found themselves in as they walked out into the King Baudouin Stadium. The damage sustained in dropping four points at home in the opening September double-header against Serbia and Macedonia, then surrendering a winning position against Wales in Cardiff last Friday night, left Levein’s player under disproportionate pressure to achieve a positive and unlikely result in Brussels.

As Regan admitted yesterday, the scheduling of fixtures in Group A negotiated by the SFA had led to expectations that Levein should be able to earn sufficient points from the first three games to compensate for a predictable loss in Belgium.

Instead, Scotland have proved just as feckless as they were in the deeply underwhelming Euro 2012 qualifying campaign when they finished a tame third in a five-team group behind Spain and Czech Republic. But for a 97th minute goal from Stephen McManus which secured a 2-1 win over Liechtenstein at Hampden, Levein would have been responsible for the worst result in Scotland’s international history during that campaign.

As it was, that excruciating occasion remains one of only three qualifying victories he has overseen in 12 attempts – the other two also by single-goal margins against Liechtenstein away from home and Lithuania at Hampden.

Like any manager, Levein has had his share of hard luck stories to bemoan, but even on the occasions during his tenure when he has most keenly felt he has been dealt an injustice by officials – most notably in the 2-2 draw at home to Czech Republic in September 2011 and then last Friday’s 2-1 reversal in Wales – Scotland’s own limitations were just as significant to the final outcome.

Levein has consistently talked up the standard of players he has at his disposal, raising expectations among supporters. Yet he has been unable to extract the maximum from them in terms of collective performance levels.

In reality, the quality of the current Scotland squad is not as stellar as Levein would often have us believe. While many of the players now operate in the English Premier League, only captain Darren Fletcher does so with one of the elite clubs. On a technical level, Scotland continue to have considerable deficiencies, as the poor standard of their ball retention in recent matches has underlined.

That reflects a wider problem, of course, one which can hopefully be addressed in years to come by the performance strategy programme being overseen at the SFA by Levein-approved appointment Mark Wotte.