Fast forward a decade and the similarities are uncanny. Once again, McLeish is fighting for his life having inherited someone else's squad.
This time, it might not be so easy to get back to the top. But suggest to the Birmingham City boss that re
legation this afternoon will set him back in management and he will have none of it. "Even if the worst happens, I still have a long-term plan here," McLeish declared on the eve of a huge game in Birmingham's history.
"I see it as an opportunity, not a threat. You don't build a team overnight, it certainly doesn't happen in five months. Whatever happens on Sunday, I don't think it will be harmful to my career. Did it hurt Steve Bruce's or Harry Redknapp's when they went down? They are my inspiration."
Despite the cynics sneering at McLeish for taking the money and running south to Birmingham instead of trying to take Scotland to the next level, replacing Bruce was always going to be a massive challenge. But few, least of all McLeish himself, expected Birmingham to be the likely fall-guys in the mother of all relegation dogfights.
It's about as far as you can get from steering Scotland to within a whisker of Euro 2008. But regrets? Not even a few, says McLeish. "I looked at every scenario when I left. People told me it was going to be a hard job but my reasons for coming to this job are still as valid as when I arrived. I wanted to come back to day-to-day football. I have got a vision for the club. Of course we all look back at things that have happened. We've all got a degree in retrospect – even Alex Ferguson."
Although Brum have an eminently winnable home tie with Blackburn, survival is out of their own hands. Only if they better the result of both Reading (at Derby) and Fulham (at Portsmouth) will they stay up. McLeish admits it shouldn't have come down to the wire.
"Some of what has gone wrong is down to the vulnerability in confidence among some of the players. That has happened in our performances away from home. There is obviously a little bit of fear there. In some games we did just not get the consistency. The most disappointing statistic in my time here is that we have drawn too many games."
McLeish, at club level, has not been used to such inconsistency yet in a sense, he says, this is preferable to the pressures he faced at Rangers prior to the Scotland job. "Rangers was tough for me in my final season. I had a team there that didn't have the guile or the quality. The problem domestically was that we had to win every game, sometimes with an inferior crop of players.
"That was tough, this is different. We have punched among the heavyweights of this division and punched above our weight in a lot of the games. I have quite a good career and history of winning and no one will hurt more than me if we fail. I'll feel like running to the nearest bridge. But hopefully, people won't judge this as my team until I have brought in a few players and put my stamp on it. Having said that, these guys have run through brick walls for me."
Still you can't help wondering whether McLeish misses being put on a pedestal by the Tartan Army. "I came here with my eyes open. If I'd stayed, the six months before the start of the World Cup campaign would have been a comfort zone. I would have been going to Dubai with the missus and being a professional supporter and watching games at home and abroad with no pressure. Or else I could have maybe got a middle-of-the-road job with a club that was never going to be in a relegation problem, get loads of money to spend and not have any grief. I like a challenge. On Monday I could be a hero."
If he isn't, he won't be sacked. Birmingham's chairman David Gold – who has dealt with a failed takeover bid and the arrests of managing director Karren Brady and co-owner David Sullivan by police investigating alleged corruption in English football this term – ruled out any chance of replacing his management team. "They are the silver lining in this awful, dreadful season," he said, also pledging to keep hold of key players, with James McFadden at the top of the list.
The full article contains 814 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
