BRENDAN Rodgers feels that now is the perfect time to “shine a torch” on Scottish football’s ills and has offered to help transform the nation’s football culture.

At the moment when Gordon Strachan’s four-year reign was being brought to an end, it was somehow fitting the Celtic manager – on whose players he had increasingly came to rely as the national coach – should be receiving the Premiership manager of the month award for September.

His native Northern Ireland may have scored a World Cup play-off, but frustration was the 44-year-old’s dominant emotion as he screamed at the telly on Sunday night as Scotland slumped to a 2-2 draw in Slovenia that ended their World Cup hopes. His next impulse was to gaze above the frustration over the national team’s 20-year exile from major finals and resolve to help SFA performance director Malky Mackay make the changes the men’s game needs if we are ever to regain relevance as a footballing nation.

While Rodgers feels the group of native players which the national team currently has at their disposal is good enough to qualify for Euro 2020, what he is really driving at here is root and branch reform of the coaching culture, to rid Scottish football of what he sees as an identity crisis, even compared to its cousins over the Irish Sea.

This isn’t a problem of genetics, of players not being good enough or of poor facilities. Instead, what this former Chelsea youth coach really rails against is too many coaches in this country advocating a safety-first style of play which sees even the nation’s most talented young ball players resorting to “smashing the ball up the park”.

Perhaps just one expression of this was Scotland abandoning its most effective shape for years and reverting to two up front while two members of his Celtic side, Callum McGregor and James Forrest, remained on the bench. Scotland consequently surrendered the ball to Slovenia and with it their chance of reaching Russia.

“Now is a great time to look at it, shine a torch on it,” said Rodgers, who has undergone coaching qualifications in both Scotland and England. “How can we be better? Normally this is how you get great gains. There is a great opportunity now to take the country forward.

“There has been something over a period of time here that is not necessarily Gordon’s problem,” he added. “There is an approach here that needs to change. I touched on it last season when I watched Celtic v Rangers at Under-17s. You had the most talented players smashing the ball up the pitch.

“It comes from coach education which has always been very good here in Scotland. People come from all over the world to get their badges here but it is what you do after that. Is there a way – what is your identity of playing? Is there a clear identity?”

Strachan’s barb about genetics may not have helped his case when it came to keeping his job, but Rodgers is more concerned that Scottish players are technically and tactically short, rather than physically lacking.

“I know where Gordon was coming from with that,” said Rodgers. “But at Swansea I had one player over 6ft 3ins and the rest were 6ft or below, but we were very good technically and tactically, very good in the game. We said we had to make sure we didn’t conceded corners. So you have to find a way but I can understand the frustration of Gordon at the end.

“Who are the best players in the world?” the Northern Irishman added. “[Lionel] Messi, [Luis] Suarez, [Eden] Hazard, [Andres] Iniesta, Neymar, [Marco] Verrati. Verrati’s 5ft 6ins but he’s not in conflict with the ball. He keeps it. Scotland need to find a systematic approach to work in, to play in, so that if there are players missing, the next ones can come in. You need to have a profile and a clear identity – because that’s what it’s going to take, a collective effort.”

Somewhere between the coaching set-up at Largs and the senior game, results become all important. Too important, says Rodgers. It also wouldn’t hurt if chairmen and directors were more patient and forgiving.

“It is the responsibility of everyone. You have to go to the federation to get your badge but it is what comes after that. Where does the guy who is working at Airdrie get his inspiration from? He does his pro-licence but where is his exposure to elite level? There will be guys at Alloa who are good coaches but it is about the next level.”