Former Manchester United midfielder Darren Fletcher feels that stability and continuity will be the key aspects that would help Scotland in the upcoming World Cup 2018 qualification campaign.
One of the major reasons for Scotland failing to qualify for recent major tournaments even though the likes of Northern Ireland and Wales have experienced the success, is the lack of stability especially before a new league campaign. After a lot of doubt about his fitness and availability, Fletcher has been recalled is the captain of the national team after the retirement of Scott Brown.
Fletcher will be able to provide the national team with all the confidence and experience that they need for qualification. Even though the number of teams participating at the World Cup 2018 is larger than ever, it still does not guarantee qualification to Scotland as they would have learned the hard way in terms of the Euro 2016. Gordon Strachan is widely regarded as one of the best managers available for Scottish football, but the manager only signed a two-year contract last summer. The talk about his contract could start to affect the team in the remainder of 2016.
The opening qualification game will be against Malte and Scotland are overwhelming favourites to claim a victory.
However, they will have to work much harder for three points against Slovakia in October. “The thing that gives me the most belief is the continuity in the management side of things.Throughout my career it has been stop-start all the time.We’ve done really well under managers and that’s been cut short because they’ve gone to clubs off the back of that. There were a lot of positives from the last campaign in terms of how we approached games and attacked teams,” said Fletcher, who has won numerous trophies with Manchester United.