My God, Aren't Scotland Terrible?

There isn't much point to this post. It's just a way for me to feel better about what I witnessed last night at Hampden. It's safe to say that 37,000 others, along with the TV audience of Ryan, Ryan's family and everyone else, will probably still be in a state of shock.

First shocking point; we won. We won, with an injury time goal. That simply does not happen to Scotland. Over the years we have played many games in which we deserved to win but didn't. Rare is the day that we win despite not deserving it. The stadium didn't know how to react to the second half. Mostly, stunned silence reigned. At full time the cheers for the last minute winner were quickly displaced by hearty boos. After what transpired, I can't say I condemned it.

The main shock, obviously, is how inept our boys were against an opponent who have a population equivalent to Inverness to call upon.

While some individuals, McManus, Wallace and maybe McCulloch, performed decently, as a team effort it was on a par with the infamous Faroe Islands draw, and could easily have gone down as arguably the worst result in Scottish international history were it not for luck.

There is not much else that can be said, save my own brief opinions of the night and what it means for the future.

Our attacking play was hopeless, disjointed and devoid of ideas. We had simply no pace on the park, either in terms of individuals providing it or it being created through fast ball movement. From around the 65 to 85 minute marks Liechtenstein looked clearly superior to us, and that is just not on.

Just because we play 2 strikers, doesn't mean that we'll somehow become an unstoppable attacking force. Rather, we need to stick to what we usually do tactically and work on speed and creativity in attacking from that formation.

So in future, we have to go back to the effective 3 man midfield and the 'christmas tree'. My opinion; Stevie Fletcher supported by Dorrans and Naismith, with Brown (provided he's on form. Last night he was woeful), Fletcher and Hartley. McCulloch served no purpose against a team like Liechtenstein, and in general does not have enough pace to usefully cover his back 4. That he has gone from playing striker, to left wing,to centreback and now to holding midfield just shows that his minimal talents have evaporated away. Holding midfield is the easiest position in football to play averagely.

Barry Robson is shite personified and should be dropped post-haste. All he has ever done is waste free kicks and run into groups of defenders. Miller scored, but still displayed his infuriating hesitancy when around the ball. Boyd is a waste of space at international level (and at Championship level, it transpires). He can only get goals if his teammates are setting them up on a plate and if his opposition is tripe. He demonstrated last night that he can't perform against poor opposition, and that his goalscoring genius only works in 5-0 drubbings of SPL dregs.

On the whole, the squad is limited in depth and talent.

At the end of the day though, we're top of the group and Lithuania did us a great favour by beating the Czechs. It could be worse. Sadly, with Spain looming, it probably will be soon.

GM