Source: Team_Talk
Whittaker speaks up for Burley
Burley - and the Scottish Football Association - have found themselves under intense pressure in the wake of Wednesday's disastrous 4-0 defeat in Norway which has severely dented hopes of qualifying for the World Cup.
Sections of the press have called for Burley to be removed as national team boss ahead of next month's crucial double-header against Macedonia and Holland at Hampden, which Scotland need to win to have any hope of a play-off spot.
But, as far as Whittaker is concerned, the scathing criticism Burley has been subjected to in the last few days has been unnecessary.
"I think it's been blown out of proportion," said the Rangers full-back.
"We suffered a heavy defeat but we played the majority of the game with 10 men and it's always hard to recover from that.
"We have two home games to come and we will focus on the job at hand."
Asked whether Burley should be given time to finish the job he started, Whittaker replied: "Without a doubt.
"We believe we can get two positive results and we need to go
into those games believing and hopefully we will do that."
Gary Caldwell's dismissal in the 34th minute proved to be the catalyst for an embarrassing night which saw the Norwegians run riot and haul themselves back into contention for second place in group nine.
Whittaker - handed his Scotland debut in an unfamiliar centre-half position late on - admits he was at a loss to explain such a dramatic collapse after the red card.
"It was just one of those games where everything went wrong," he said.
"The team didn't cope with it great and, on another day, we might have coped with it better. Who knows? We won't know until we are in that position again.
"We started the game not too badly for the first 20 minutes until we had a man sent off. Then we didn't cope with it but, up until then, I didn't see a problem."
