Burley stays on as Scotland coach

George Burley will remain as Scotland manager despite having failed to lead his squad to the play-offs for next year’s World Cup, the Scottish Football Association (SFA) confirmed on Tuesday.

A 1-0 home defeat by the Netherlands last week ended Scotland’s chances of reaching the World Cup finals and was widely expected to trigger the dismissal of Burley, who had ruled out resigning in the wake of what was a deeply disappointing qualifying campaign.

But it appears Burley has convinced his SFA bosses to give him a second chance following talks at Hampden.

Burley, who replaced Alex McLeish at the helm of the national side in January 2008, has arguably not enjoyed his fair share of luck as Scotland manager with fixture scheduling, some controversial refereeing decisions and Chris Iwelumo’s open-goal miss in a pivotal goalless draw against Norway at Hampden all conspiring against his side’s chances.

He has also had to contend with Lee McCulloch and Kris Boyd calling time on their Scotland careers while he banished former captain Barry Ferguson and goalkeeper Allan McGregor from international football after an all-night drinking session following the 3-0 away defeat to the Dutch.

His critics will argue that those issues reflected poor man management and that luck should even itself out over the course of an eight-match campaign.

It will also be questioned how a Scotland squad that, under Burley’s predecessors, ran France and Italy close in qualifying for Euro 2008, could not secure at least second place in a much weaker group in this campaign.

After losing 4-0 in Norway in August, the Scots revived their chances with a 2-0 home win over Macedonia.

But despite a battling display against the Dutch, in which they hit the woodwork twice, they were unable to claim the win over the group leaders that would have given them the chance of reaching the play-offs for South Africa.

Afterwards, Burley said he had no intention of walking away from the job and insisted that he wanted to lead Scotland into the qualifying campaign for Euro 2012.