There is already some quiet baiting of George Burley and I don’t think it is going to go away. It may be unfair, given that he is five minutes in the door, but that’s how it is. On the sports pages, as pathetic as it sounds, sometimes there is a rush to be the first to put the boot in, as if it is almost an affirmation of personal valour. Chasing a football manager can be a blood-sport and, as the Berti Vogts experience proved, it is often the biggest cowards who are at the front of the baying pack.

It always amazes me that, when it comes to people like David Taylor at the SFA, and then Vogts, and now Gordon Smith or Burley, the knives come swiftly out, yet someone like Sir David Murray, no matter what he gets wrong at Rangers, somehow remains immune from such scorn. Now why might this be?

Burley badly needs a win in Iceland on Wednesday night. To have two opening World Cup qualifiers and two defeats would be dreadful for Scotland and would only heap pressure on the manager and the team going into the home match against Norway at Hampden Park next month. In fact, defeat in Reykjavik on Wednesday would mean Burley could conceivably be less than six weeks away from the sack. That is how fraught and volatile football is.

Part of Burley’s problem, beyond doubt, are his media relations. He is cautious to the point of being bland with the press, leaving the listener often asking the immortal question: “Is there much more of this?” Once you’ve heard the line about “players with passion and determination” once, you feel you’ve heard it 100 times. And the shuddering thought goes through your mind: is this how Burley gees up his troops?

But that line of inquiry, in the context of football management, is oversimplistic. Regardless of how bland and uninspiring he is to hacks, his track record in the game is good, and that cannot be taken away from him. The supporters of Heart of Midlothian in the heady autumn of 2006 were not the first to swoon before Burley. His roller-coaster ride at Ipswich Town between 1995 and 2002 contained many magical moments for the club’s fans and amounted to a sustained period of excellence that won Burley the Premiership’s manager of the year after taking his club to fifth in 2001.

The fact is, you cannot possibly be anything but a good football manager to achieve that kind of accolade.

Unless he does something spectacularly crass off the field, the Scotland manager will be judged by his competitive results, and that is right and proper. If he goes to Iceland – ironically, much as the embattled Vogts did back in 2002 – and pulls off a win it could be the spark that Scotland was looking for in their qualifying campaign.

And there are, apart from his track record in the game, signs that Burley knows what he wants from his teams.

He is strong on team shape and tactics. In Skopje at the weekend, as poor as Scotland played in the first half, they rallied in the second, partly because Burley made emphatic decisions, without the dithering and agonising that we’ve seen in other managers. His introductions of Kris Commons, Shaun Maloney and Kris Boyd were swift and sure, and with enough time to give Scotland a new shape and momentum. The Scots went down but at least there was evidence of a manager who clearly knew what he was doing in trying to retrieve the situation.

I have to admit, I’ve never been a huge Burley fan, but he is a man who deserves a fair chance. The SFA, to be blunt, has not made things easy for him by lining up two fraught away matches as the openers in the 2010 qualifying series: that merely increases the chances of two opening defeats and all the pressure that that would invite. As we like to put it in these pages, Burley will be staring down a barrel if his team don’t beat Iceland in two days’ time, and the hounds will be after him.

Strange as it might sound, I don’t think it will come to that. I think Scotland will beat Iceland, and the bloodletting will be put on hold.

And another thing...

This bigotry humiliates the whole nation

Last week was another dismal time for bigotry and Scottish football. It is a wearying scenario having to watch Scotland being besmirched and dragged into the gutter by some of the antics that surround the Old Firm. Even in 2008 we are still asking: will our society ever be rid of this trash?

At Celtic Park last Sunday the visiting Rangers support struck up their usual themes of racism and sectarianism aimed at Celtic’s Irish heritage. I noticed that, in most newspapers the next day, including The Times, hardly a mention of this was made. The truth is, you tire of going on about it.

No matter what Rangers attempt as a club – from Martin Bain, the chief executive, to Kenny Scott, the head of security – they cannot gouge this poison from their midst. When Bain finally leaves Rangers, one reason will surely be the sheer, excruciating, ongoing embarrassment of the club’s image.

On Sunday night, Neil Lennon was set upon and badly beaten as he sauntered home – it can be tough in Glasgow being a prominent Catholic, as Lennon is, with associations to Celtic. If that causes some to wonder – including Alex Salmond – if we really are that primitive in parts of Scotland, then yes, I’m afraid we are.

Bigotry is a two-way street in Scotland, let no one doubt that. But, most significantly, it is antiCatholic and is humiliating, not just for Rangers, but for the image of our nation as a whole.

Let’s be honest

One of the peculiar outbursts of last week was the so-called “controversy” over George Burley describing Kirk Broadfoot as having “limited ability”.

This was deemed such a hot topic that it even made some newspapers as a backpage splash.

I must have missed something here. I thought it was stating the bleeding obvious to describe Broadfoot as having “limited ability”. If Burley had been so daft as to say the Rangers defender had “supreme ability”... now that would have been a story.

I always thought that blunt, honest, plainspeaking was something we cherished in the media. But obviously not.

We seem to be mixed up about the Scotland manager. Do we want him to be bland or outspoken? Which?

Intelligent support

Once again the Tartan Army in Skopje was prominently populated by the fairer sex. I must say, I most welcome this presence of female Scotland fans on our foreign trips.

I have noticed it, too, at Ibrox and Celtic Park, where both Rangers and Celtic have growing numbers of female followers. In my experience they are not just prettier, but more intelligent, too, which helps top-up my optimism for the Scottish game in these bleak times. It only makes me look forward to Reykjavik all the more this week.