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Gordon Strachan insists anyone who believes Scottish football is in a good place is delusional.

The former Scotland boss reckons it's the clubs who should be taking the blame for the national team's demise after a heavy defeat to Kazakhstan because they aren't producing enough top players.

And he also criticised the signings of mediocre foreigners over developing young Scottish talent and questioned why clubs insist they have top youngsters and don't play them.

In an astonishing column for Paddy Power , Strachan hit out at the 'delusional' beliefs and insists fans and pundits are kidding themselves.

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He said: "Managers saying we have all these top young players, but then don’t play any of them. That’s all I heard when I left the Scotland job. ‘Why don’t you use all these young players?’

"But where are they? If you look at our quota of foreign players, it’s massive. Particularly at one or two clubs who are saying their youngsters are so good – but, by the way, they’re not playing them, they’re just buying cheap foreign players.

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"And it’s not like the foreign players of 15 or 20 years ago, like Larsson, Di Canio, Laudrup and Gascoigne, where the kids could look up to them and learn from them. They’re nowhere near ordinary European standards.

"So why can’t we produce players to keep away sub-standard European players? We really need to look at ourselves and answer that question.

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"I heard a pundit saying two weeks ago that Scottish football has never been so good. Do me a favour! We’ve had no team qualifying from the European qualifiers over the last few years.

"It’s an invaluable lesson, playing in Europe. Somebody like John McGinn would’ve gone to another level with European football.

"For all the talk of healthier competition in the league, nobody outside the Old Firm has won the title since 1985.

"The clubs who think they’re doing well, have a look at the teams they’ve gone out to over the last five or six years, it’s incredible.

"You scratch your head and go ‘who are these teams?’ There are clubs you can’t even pronounce.

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"So to say this is great stuff at the minute is delusional. Of course, there’ve been some good games this season. Some competitive matches, some entertaining ones.

"But it’s a con we’re telling people that we’ve got a lot of great youngsters coming through. We need to stop kidding the fans on that everything is rosy. Because it’s not."

Strachan also believes that clubs in Scotland are selfish and it's holding the game back for the national team.

The former Celtic boss pointed to the current squad and how it is full of lower league English players who aren't good enough.

And he reckons it's down to academies believing they are a success because a player plays one first team game and insists they need to focus on doing more.

"I’ve known what the real problem in Scottish football is for a while now. And it’s not just Alex McLeish or the SFA. They’ve got their hands tied behind their backs.

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"They’ve got to take a bit of responsibility, of course, but it’s the clubs and academy managers giving the illusion that we are producing good players, and that’s how we end up with a squad which loses to Kazakhstan. A squad of English Championship and League One level players.

"It’s too easy to throw this crisis at the manager and the SFA. They have limited power. It’s to do with the selfishness of clubs in Scotland.

"What’s happening at the moment is the same denial and delusion that has afflicted us for decades – everyone is saying ‘it’s not my fault’. They’ll say they’ve got a keeper who isn’t bad, or a defender who’s no bad, but does that qualify for top class? We think ‘no bad’ is top class.

"The other thing aimed at the SFA is they’re not producing players. But that’s not their job – football in Scotland is run by the clubs. I’ve been in so many meetings where the SFA were coming up with ideas and asking the clubs what they think.

"All I heard from the clubs was ‘me and money’, even the smallest clubs, who produce no players whatsoever.

"Everyone involved in Scottish football – the people at the academies, the chairmen, the media – we’re like alcoholics who, until they realise they’ve got a problem, cannot be helped. They genuinely think everything’s alright in their life.

"Most managers find it hard to tell the truth, they know the quality’s not there, but politically they can’t say it.

"Every club manager I know would like a better quality of homegrown player coming through.

For instance, if a young player gets through an academy and plays one game for the first team, it’s euphoria amongst the academy staff. ‘See what we’ve done’.

"But that doesn’t count as a top player. A top player makes 100 appearances and helps the club be successful, or gets bought for big money by a top club.

"John McGinn, coming through at St Mirren, is a success. It’s not success having a Hibs or Hearts player come through, playing two games, and then going to Edinburgh City.

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"Andy Robertson aside – and there’s a role model if we accept what it takes to get to top class – we don’t have anybody going to any top clubs in the world for decent money. Billy Gilmour went to Chelsea 18 months ago, and the rest are going to the English lower leagues.

"I don’t see anybody knocking the door down for our Under-21 kids. Or people spending £15/20million on our top players.

"This is how daft it is, we’ve got supposedly top players going from the Premier League to Salford City or Northampton Town.

"Adam Rooney and Ash Taylor were both highly rated in Scotland, but they’ve gone to that level of English football. And we’re putting them down as success stories, really?

"It makes no sense at all, it’s crazy."

Gordon Strachan is a Paddy Power ambassador. Read his columns, in full, at news.paddypower.com