McGhee Hails Mentality Change

Photo by Jeff Holmes

Mark McGhee revealed his admiration for the Scotland players' attitude to fitness and admits they are in stark contrast to his time as a player.

Gordon Strachan's squad have gathered at their Mar Hall Hotel training base on the outskirts of Glasgow in preparation for the post-season friendly against Qatar at Easter Road on Friday night.

Defender Alan Hutton will join up later in the week after playing for Aston Villa in the FA Cup final defeat to Arsenal at Wembley on Saturday, while the rest of the players fulfilled their last club fixtures at various times last month.

The match against Qatar will act as a warm-up for the crucial Euro 2016 Group D qualifier against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin on Saturday week.

Scotland assistant McGhee was pleased to say that "the players trained yesterday and today and don't look as if they had missed a beat."

He was in light-hearted mood when asked to look back to his time as a striker, referencing his time in Scottish football in the 1980s when he played in three season-ending Scottish Cup finals with Aberdeen and two with Celtic, and how he spent his summers.

He said: "I usually finished on cup final day, I have to say, which was always around the time of my birthday - and then we would have 12 weeks of drinking.

"But nowadays the boys have a totally different mentality.

"Look at the top players, Barcelona have a game on Saturday (Champions League final) and they will be back training and playing again at the beginning of July.

"It is the nature of the modern game. It is almost all-year round and they have to accept that is the case and have a totally different mentality from the time when we finished on the 20th of May and started again on the 13 of July, without doing anything in between.

"It is not like that anymore.

"I can see that (change of mentality), absolutely.

"Their attitude towards their own health and fitness is slightly different to what it was with us."

The former Aberdeen and Motherwell manager was in more serious mood when asked about the controversy surrounding the fixture.

There has been talk of some of the Tartan Army boycotting the match amid concerns at the poor conditions for workers building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

"We are football people and don't concern ourselves with political issues," said McGhee.

I have total respect for people's opinions and everyone is entitled to take the stance that they are comfortable with and we have to accept that."

After five qualifying fixtures, Scotland are in third place in the section on 10 points - behind world champions Germany on goal difference and one point behind leaders Poland but two ahead of the Irish, who were beaten 1-0 at Celtic Park last November.

"The excitement about the Irish game has been there since the last game (against Gibraltar)," said McGhee

"I see Martin O'Neill, (Irish manager) at games and for him, like us, it can't come round quickly enough.

"It hurt them badly, us beating them in Glasgow, and they are looking for that revenge, if you like. So it has the makings of a fantastic game and we all feel that now."

McGhee confirmed that Stuart McCall had returned to his coaching duties this week.

The former Scotland midfielder had been in charge at Rangers for the last few month of the season, which ended on Sunday with a 6-1 aggregate Scottish Premiership play-off defeat to his former club Motherwell, leaving his position at Ibrox up in the air.

"Stuart joined up and he is in good fettle," said the Scots' number two. "I don't think he is going back (to Ibrox) before the game on Friday, I think he is here for the duration although I can't answer that (if he is or not).

"It is good to have him back. Gordon and I discussed it on Monday, we felt we were just stretched a little in the last game, even as something as simple as the warm-up. I ended up taking both groups - the players starting and players not starting - in the warm-up. It was not ideal.

"It is better with three of us than two."