 McLeish was named as Walter Smith's successor on Monday |
Alex McLeish is a really good choice for the new Scotland manager. But make no mistake, he's got a hard act to follow.
Walter Smith did an absolutely magnificent job and one of his big achievements was to give everybody a sense of purpose - including the players and supporters.
Smith has taken Scotland to the top of a group which contains the World Cup winners and the World Cup runners-up.
And McLeish must do exactly what Walter did. That means getting the best out of the players, getting them playing for each other, and getting them believing in each other.
Nobody is saying this is the best Scottish squad that there has ever been, but they have proved that with hard work and a great team spirit you can get results.
Scotland proved that when they beat the French at Hampden back in October.
On paper, you would have looked at the teams and thought: "This is a mismatch".
Scotland went and won - and Alex has got to keep that camaraderie and team spirit going.
In a way, it's unfortunate for Alex, because Smith has brought the expectation levels up a bit.
Scotland are on a bigger high than they've been for some time, but there are hard games to come.
If Alex was to lead Scotland to Euro 2008 it would be a remarkable achievement. If we qualify, we will be in dreamland.
But more realistically the aim is to be competitive. We want to go and play against the French away from home and not be beaten before we have started.
We want to give them a game and set a standard for what is coming next.
 | I bet Alex McLeish cannot wait for the next set of games |
The quality of players coming through in the past 10 years has, with all due respect to the guys, not been as good as 20 and 30 years ago. Hopefully, in the next 10 years we can get a cycle of better players coming through.
This job will mean the world to McLeish, and that is important after Berti Vogts.
The Scots fans were clamouring for a Scottish manager and Alex is Scottish through and through.
The biggest thing for Scottish supporters and players is that at last we have got some optimism back and we know we can compete.
For a long time we were in the doldrums and we were beaten before we got on the pitch and that's changed now.
Alex will be refreshed, he will be enthusiastic, ready to go and probably cannot wait to get the players together.
And I bet he cannot wait for the next set of games.
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