Scottish soccer: Taylor says deadline can be met

Scottish Football Association chief executive David Taylor is confident they can meet their own deadline for unveiling the new Scotland manager.

The SFA’s executive committee had hoped to name Craig Brown’s successor in time for the draw for the European Championships, which takes place on January 25.

Numerous coaches, such as Berti Vogts, Nevio Scala, Philippe Troussier, Roy Hodgson and Bruce Rioch, have all been linked with the post and several have publicly expressed an interest in the job.

Taylor revealed the SFA has now whittled down the list to a ‘‘small’’ number of people but was remaining tight-lipped about whether they would appoint a foreigner for the first time.

He said: ‘‘We are now getting towards the end of the procedure for choosing the next manager.

‘‘So far it’s all gone to plan and we hope to meet the same deadline that we set a while back for the end of January.

‘‘We have a short list and the number that we are talking about is quite small now but I won’t give away any clues.’’