Why have Scotland become such a poor side over the past few years?

It is important to remember that in football, teams and players tend to go in cycles. It was less than three years ago that people we are asking me to tell them about this amazing young Scotland team that had just beaten France in Paris. That happened in September 2007, with a marvellous goal from James McFadden. That result set up a do-or-die game with Italy in October 2007 to see if Scotland could qualify for Euro 2008.

Scotland eventually missed out but came very close, accumulating 24 points in a group that included France, Italy and Ukraine. But that was then, Walter Smith did well in the job, so did Alec McLeish but under George Burley Scotland have lapsed.

If you compare to France 1998 - the last time we were at a World Cup - Scotland don't have the same amount of good players that we did then. On Saturday in Wales, Kevin Kyle came on as a substitute to try to rescue the Scotland case - that sums it up as crudely as you can sum it up.

Scotland seem to show glimpses of potential as a side, so has it been their failure to perform on a consistent basis that has let them down?

Scotland are infuriating because they do show fleeting signs of ability and often come up just short in these do-or-die games we have seen over the past few seasons. Even under Berti Vogts there were good performances against Holland and Germany but it has never been sustained. The average talent that Scotland has had over the past five years has never been able to sustain anything. That has been the acid test of how good or poor they have been.

There have been a couple of barren harvests since the Millennium. We thought the Darren Fletcher generation would provide optimism but that hasn't happened.

Burley is expected to lose his job this week, but will another manager really make a difference?

Any current Scotland manager is going to be severely limited in what he can do. I keep asking myself 'what would Sir Alex Ferguson or Jock Stein do with this group of players?'. The answer is not much, I suspect. Having said that, changing a manager can make a difference. Walter Smith transformed the side when he took over from Vogts. But the overriding factor at the moment is not the ability of the manager it is the inability of the players.

Should Scotland not have sacked Burley after Scotland missed out on the World Cup?

At the time I argued that he just about deserved to be given a second chance after missing out on qualification. Scotland showed enough against Macedonia and Holland to show he deserved another go. But against Wales on Saturday, Scotland were dreadful, so if he is fired now I won't shed any tears.

Where do Scotland go from here? Does the SFA need to address the lack of talent coming through?

In terms of the structure, everybody has done their best to improve it over the past ten years. There is far more grassroots coaching, Celtic and Rangers both have academies, which they didn't have before and more is being done to ensure Scotland's best young players are given a chance to come through.

But if Burley goes, the key thing is getting the right man in to replace him. The problem is that there are no standout candidates. Graeme Souness has been spoken about as has Craig Levein but they are not standout names. Gordon Strachan might have been the obvious choice before he took the job at Middlesbrough, Walter Smith has been mentioned, but he is in a very complicated situation at Rangers.

Will the SFA go for a homegrown or foreign manager?

They should go for a Scottish manager. People look at Giovanni Trappatoni and the way he has rejuvenated Ireland and say Scotland should follow that example. But I tend to think that Scotland should go for a homegrown manager. Maybe Levein deserves a chance - but it is going to be hard.

Can you ever see a time when Scotland produce players of the quality of Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness again?

No, not right now. Scotland had the elite of British football for a long time but you can't see that happening again. Scotland qualified for World Cups in 1974, 78, 82, 86, 90 - when you look back it was taken for granted. The irony is that back then there was no grassroots structure whatsoever. It was a still a street footballing culture, but when street football died there was nothing to replace it and the SFA were negligent and that's why Scotland are now paying the price.