Naismith praises Levein approach

10 February 2011 17:30

Steven Naismith believes the combination of fun and focus in Craig Levein's character is making the Scotland camp a happy place to be these days.

The Rangers midfielder helped the Scots to a comprehensive 3-0 win over Northern Ireland in their opening Carling Nations Cup game at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on Wednesday night.

"The manager has an aura and a presence about him," said Naismith. "You can still have a laugh and talk to him which is very good but when he walks in the room you know he is the boss. It is a very good camp."

He added: "It's as much of a club scene as it can be and it's definitely an enjoyable place to be. The manager is very thorough with the way he wants to play and assessing the way the opponents are going to play.

"It's very enjoyable when the team plays so well and there is a lot of movement and the passing is good and crisp. All the midfield can inter-change and that showed against Northern Ireland.

"The third goal started in the centre of midfield and then it was me and Kris Commons who have combined a bit further up the park. I really enjoyed it."

Naismith saw some familiar faces in the Irish line-up in Ibrox team-mates Steven Davis and David Healy - and is keen to meet up again with them at Murray Park this week.

"I'm sure I will have a few words with them at training but they were unfortunate," he said.

"They had a few players who pulled out through injury, retirement and what not, so it was a bit of a harder task for them.

"But I don't think we should take much away from our performance because it was a very good one."

Source: PA