Chick Young's view

By Chick Young BBC Scotland football correspondent

If you fancy yourself as the next manager of Scotland then get yourself to the southern end of the M74.

That's not where the job interview is taking place, that's at Hampden. But it's where the queue ends.

Everyone and his auntie is now having his name Sellotaped to the job vacated by Alex McLeish after he fled to the salvation of the English Premier League.

Mark McGhee (left) and John Collins have been linked with the job

The trouble is that there is no coming together of the position and the blokes we really want to fill it.

International management is now strictly second prize material for any coach worth his salt and has been since the days Tommy Docherty abandoned the SFA ship to set sail with Manchester United.

I'll tell you who we want in this job.

Sir Alex Ferguson or Davie Moyes or Gordon Strachan or the return of Walter Smith.

But sadly we're up the creek without a paddle on that one. In fact John Darwin is Steve Redgrave compared to us.

It doesn't matter how you pack this.

You can deck it with tinsel and wrap it in gold leaf, but we are already on the B-list, albeit a lengthy one.

Craig Levein, Mark McGhee, John Collins, Jim Jefferies, Jimmy Calderwood from the SPL.

Billy Davies, Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness from the dole queue.

Slice it how you will, but it still says second choice all the way through.

Alex McLeish left Scotland to take over at Birmingham City

The sad truth is that the rise and rise of the club game has diluted the concern for the national team.

A nation once held its breath as we faced England in front of a live audience of 130,000 men in bunnets.

Now we can't even get our top managers to throw their hats into the ring for the job.

It makes me wonder.

There was fire and passion in the bellies of this country when we faced Italy last month.

It was like the good old days. People who thought 4-4-2 was a dialling code suddenly took an interest. McLeish and his players united a nation.

The good Lord knows that, had we beaten the Italians and qualified for Euro 2008, then the heart of Scotland would have been pumping adrenaline all the way through to next summer.

Businesses would have been booming, politicians would have been purring.

And Alex McLeish would have been given a whole new responsibility which would have made his salary, albeit handsome by the standards of the ordinary working man, a joke.

He multiplied his wages nearly fourfold by moving to the English Midlands which is an understandable move to make.

Although, I'm not sure I would want to live in a place where even the birds cough.

The SFA can't compete with that.

It will be a minimum of 16 years between appearances in European Championship finals, 12 in World Cups.

The tap has stopped dripping gold into the coffers. You cannot take the breechs off a hielan' man, as my dear wise old gran used to say.

Graeme Souness has not been a popular suggestion with some fans

It's Catch 22.

We need a man of greatness to lead us from the wilderness so the funds will be flowing again.

But we cannot afford that great man until... well, you get the picture.

Graeme Souness is not the nation's choice.

We ran a little referendum on BBC Radio Scotland's Your Call on Saturday night and he was about as popular as Daniel Cousin in a kebab shop after the Rangers striker's diet comments.

But that won't bother him and despite one or two failures at club level I still think the international routine might suit his style.

And why is Tommy Burns not among the runners and riders?

He has served his apprenticeship under Berti Vogts and survived to ride shotgun with Walter Smith.

It's all very curious.

Gordon Smith is about to start earning his not inconsiderable salary at the SFA.

His next decision will have a ripple effect on Scottish football for decades to come, because the draw for South Africa in 2010 has left us not without hope.

But it's not about who we want. It's about who we can get.