Kris Boyd Was Burls Man Not Chris Void

Oct 12 2008

World Cup

THE arguments will have started as soon as the team was read out.

They'll have raged on through a frustrating half time, every person in the ground, every punter in every pub, knowing we needed a change.

Fifty five minutes? They'll have hit fever pitch. Go for broke time. Wee Faddy off to a hail of jeers. Two strikers on, one cap between them.

Nine minutes later? Gary Naysmith's ball across the face of goal, keeper a goner. That's where the argument ends.

Because almost in unison, an entire nation thought the same thing.

Kris Boyd would have buried it.

The fact Chris Iwelumo didn't will haunt him forever. He will wake up sweating on long dark nights wondering "why him?".

My stomach's churning for the big man just thinking about it. We can talk about it all we like - he'll have to live with it.

Peter van Vossen will have been on the phone to Interflora in an instant, sending Iwelumo thank-you cards and flowers for finally removing him from the top of Scotland's 10 most wanton list.

And George Burley will wonder what he'd done to deserve it.

How can any manager legislate for something like that? A striker who's on fire, three yards out, no keeper to beat.

He'd hung his hat on him, hung his entire Scotland career on him, come to that, as well as a nation's World Cup hopes.

Burley needed a goal, he needed a flash of inspiration. He turned to his bench and saw a guy who has scored every other time he's pulled on a dark blue shirt, and ignored him.

He instead went to the guy behind him without a cap to his name, rolled the dice - and lost.

Word is, as soon as Burley read the team out at lunchtime big Boyd was on the phone to a Rangers team-mate asking "What do I have to do?' And sitting in the dugout, watching that ball begging to be slotted home won't have answered his question for him.

As it is, Burley stands or falls by a decision that size.

But then, you have to ask yourself, if Walter Smith doesn't put his faith in Boyd for his biggest games in the light blue why would the Scotland manager be expected to do it in a different shade?

And the annoying thing is it was there for the taking. Norway weren't great.

But the one thing we did learn is what women have been telling us for years. Size matters.

And if you don't have it, you better know how to use what you've got as well as you can.

Someone told me that once.

Burley's theory was sound enough. Take the qualities they don't have and get at them with them. Pace, agility, a bit of flair.

In practice? For about 20 minutes Scotland got into all the right areas, got Maloney in about their full back, got Morrison running.

Once they got there though? Every ball hung in the air, gift wrapped for Norway's giant centre halves.

And the longer the game went the more isolated and frustrated McFadden got.

So the manager makes the changes he has to make, the impact duly comes, and then WHAM!

That miss will be the biggest kick in the stones he'll ever take.

If only he'd had a striker like John Carew in the ranks of his squad to call on.

What a beast the big man was at the other end. He never gave us a moment's peace all afternoon.

Or if only Burley had told Boyd "Get stripped" instead of Iwelumo.

Easy to say in hindsight, eh? It's a debate that will have no winner - only losers. But it'll rage on regardless.

And the sad thing is it'll only be a post-mortem on our campaign.

John Gordon Sinclair emerged at half time to belt out a version of the 1982 World Cup classic "we have a dream".

Scrap that. Make it "had". Because let's face facts here, it's a goner.