Robbo: Two into one just doesn’t go
BY MICHAEL GANNON ANDY ROBERTSON has admitted shoehorning Kieran Tierney and himself into the Scotland side has left both struggling in new roles.
The captain could see the cracks in the formation as the national side crumbled to a miserable Nations League defeat in Israel on Thursday.
Robbo has been forced to play wing-back with Celtic star Tierney operating on the left side of a back three – and the Liverpool ace admits both want to play in their preferred left-back position.
McLeish has struggled to solve the conundrum of fitting two of Scotland’s best players into the starting line-up and the Anfield hero conceded the system is malfunctioning.
Robertson said: “Both of us are out of position. So it’s two positions we need to try to learn.
“We’ve played there before but we need to learn it in this system. Unfortunately that will take time. Both of us want to play left-back and there isn’t that slot just now.
“The gaffer has looked at it and wants to get me and KT down the left. I’ve got to start a lot higher and I don’t have a winger to play with.
“From that point of view it is a lot harder. I won’t speak for Kieran but I wasn’t good enough.”
Robertson held his hands up. But he wasn’t alone on a depressing night for Scotland as they were given the runaround by a country ranked 94th in the world.
And he reckoned it was an opportunity missed after getting their Nations League campaign off to a flier in the 2-0 win against Albania at Hampden last month.
Robertson added: “We started well and then were poor and they got a foothold in the game.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Israel but it was more us being bad. If we play to our capabilities we get a more positive result but we made them look good.”