Brown refuses to stand down

Under-fire Scotland manager Craig Brown has refused to stand down from his position and insists he is determined to see out his contract, which expires at the end of this year. Brown has come under enormous pressure to quit following last night's dismal 2-0 defeat to Belgium and Saturday's goalless draw with Croatia which left the Scots with a very slim chance of making it to Japan and Korea for next summer's World Cup finals.

However, Brown was remaining defiant this afternoon despite the calls for his resignation after almost nine years in charge of the Scottish national team. It seems only pressure from the Scottish Football Association would see Brown make an early exit and that does not seem likely to happen after the SFA insisted that Brown's future was not on the agenda of the executive committee's meeting held today.

"If I hear nothing I will be in charge against Latvia and I will bring some other players into the squad. Obviously we can experiment a bit in that game because I know that mathematically we're still in contention, but I accepted, and I think everyone's accepted, that we haven't got a chance," sighed Brown.

"We're unlikely to score six goals against Latvia and Latvia have conceded only an average of two goals a game so far against teams above us in the group. So they are not going to lose six goals here and I don't think Belgium are going to win in Croatia. So given I'm doing the game against Latvia I will leave out some of the older players, in fact all of them, and bring in young players and we'll see how they perform," he added.

Although Brown continued to defend his team selection and tactics for the recent games against Belgium and Croatia, he is willing to take all the blame for Scotland's World Cup misery and not hide behind his players. "My performances are reflected in that of the team and what I try to do is the very best that I can. Obviously the best the team and I have done has not been good enough to qualify from this group. It's purely hypercritical to say could I have done it or somebody else done it any differently," Brown explained.

"It's very disappointing. I was confident we would at least get a draw from last night's game, which would have taken us to a very important game with Latvia. It's a major disappointment that we didn't get that draw, but other countries have failed to get to World Cups and we have failed. We hate it and we don't like it at all. It gives us withdrawal symptoms that we won't be there again and I'm accountable," added the Scottish coach.

Filed by Amanda Fennelly