Big Interview – Alex McLeish

Alex McLeish has never been afraid to walk away if he believes the time is right.

In 2007, he quit Scotland for Birmingham City, then in the English Premier League. In 2011 he left the Blues for their fierce local rivals, Aston Villa.

This February, though, he really showed his steel when voluntarily placing himself out of work by ditching a new job with Nottingham Forest after only 41 days.

Two months on, as he ponders whether Celtic boss Neil Lennon set to clinch the SPL title today or his present-day successor at Rangers, Ally McCoist, could move on in the summer, McLeish insists there is no substitute for gut nstinct.

“People have said to me that I have taken some brave decisions in my career,” says the 54-year-old.

“I think that’s probably fair, but I have never done anything simply because it would require courage.

“It has always been about doing what I believed to be the right thing at any given instance.

“To an extent, you can only really talk about yourself, but I would hope and believe other managers would act the same way.

“Things are rarely cut and dried. There is often some fall-out.

“With Forest it was considerable, but I had been in situations where I was exposed to serious pressure to fire-fight and didn’t want it again.

“I don’t actually think moving is always the bravest option.

“A hypothetical example would be if an English Premier League club were to come for Neil Lennon over the summer.

“Everyone aspires to manage in the EPL. Neil would only be human to have thought about it as part of his future.

“But would he take the first offer he gets? I really don’t know that he would.

“Remember, he is already in charge of a massive club.

“Celtic have a great history plus a pathway to regular European football.

“They enjoyed a terrific run in the Champions League this season. The win over Barcelona will not have gone unnoticed at the highest levels.

“But it is all about getting the balance right because your stock can go down as well as up.”

And sometimes coaches will find themselves forced to play out a poor hand.

“I went to Ibrox a few weeks ago, and it was like watching the Rangers Boys Club,” says McLeish, who won seven domestic honours, including the Treble, as Light Blues boss.

“It doesn’t matter whether you are Jose Mourinho or Sir Alex Ferguson. You can only manage with what is at your disposal.

“Ally McCoist has been left with no choice but to throw the kids in, and I know from personal experience at Villa that doesn’t always work.

“He has had incredible pressures to deal with over the last year-and-a-half and kept going.

“He has shown real character and I am sure that will continue to be the case.”

Having taken a break to decompress, McLeish is now itching to get back in the game.

He has already turned down a couple of offers south of the border and is even considering working abroad.

“My preferred option would be another job in England but I certainly would not rule out going further afield,” he says.

“I have been interested in the world game since I was a kid.

“After the 1970 World Cup, I cottoned on to the fact there were teams from other parts of Europe and from South America who were doing things differently from us.

“I’ve always kept an eye on what was going on. I brought in quite a few foreign players while I was at Rangers that turned out well.

“I have tried to keep my football education going through the years and would look at the idea of working abroad as an interesting option.

“Of course, language is always going to be a factor.

“I have some French and a notion to learn Spanish, too, as I would then have most bases covered.

“It might not be absolutely necessary, either, because there’s always the chance you’d inherit coaches at any club you went to.”

The word ‘club’ is significant. Having already managed Scotland, he’s unlikely to get that call again.

“I was seven months out of work after I left Rangers, the longest time I had been unemployed since I left school,” McLeish recalls.

“Then when Paul Le Guen got sacked, Rangers turned to Walter Smith, which created the Scotland vacancy, and I got the call.

“It wasn’t something I’d ever foreseen, but it was an absolute honour.

“I didn’t know if I was ready for the challenge of international football, but George Peat and David Taylor persuaded me I was.

“They reckoned, as I did, that having been manager of Rangers or Celtic would equip you to take Scotland.

“Walter warned me it might be a poisoned chalice because we’d been doing well. But I just reckoned: ‘What if we can keep it going’?”

That’s exactly what happened, with Scotland’s run of five wins out of six taking them to the brink of qualification for Euro 2008.

“It was great,” Big Eck reflects. “There were some fantastic moments, with the win in Paris an obvious highlight.

“Of course, we didn’t make it to the Finals but it was close.

“The Italy game at the end of the campaign when James McFadden slid in at the back post but just failed to connect with the ball will always stand out in my memory.

“My life flashed before my eyes when that happened. It was a real ‘Sliding Doors’ moment.

“Football management is a bit like that. It can give you incredible highs but it can also give you incredible lows.”