WIN DONE DYKES
Lyndon’s goal puts Scotland top of Nations League group
STEVE CLARKE reckons Lyndon Dykes has looked a Scotland star from the minute he joined the set-up.
But the national coach insisted his backline boys were just as heroic as his players made it seven games without defeat by sinking Slovakia.
Dykes struck a secondhalf winner to give the Scots a success to back up their penalty shootout win over Israel and keep them top of their Nations League section.
The 25- year- old’s second goal in four outings carved a success built on the rock-solid platform of a secondstraight clean sheet.
Debut boy Andrew Considine, Dec l an
Gal lagher and Scott McTominay shut up shop to ensure Dykes’ goal won the game and Clarke said: “Lyndon was an international striker as soon as we picked him and put him on the pitch.
“He’s done well. I don’t think anyone who has watched him play could say anything otherwise.
“He was part of a very good team performance and will get the headlines because he scored the goal. That’s what strikers do but I thought my back three were terrific.
“It was good for Lyndon to get the goal. He was in the right place at the right time but we also put in a terrific defensive performance.
“If you want to win matches and you don’t concede then you always have the chance to score a goal, which we did. It was disciplined defensively against a system we’d not come up against before.
“That’s two clean sheets in a row and it’s something we have been working hard on. Defensively we were solid and I felt we controlled it from start to finish.
“I always felt comfortable, even when Slovakia were probing, and we scored a good goal to win the game.
“Th e all-round performance pleased me most. You get criticised a lot and people talk about stats. One shot on target in two games and we’ve reached the play-off final and picked up another win.
“It’s not so much about statistics. It’s about what you do. We created a lot of chances and Oli McBurnie hit the bar. We also had good contacts on corners.
“You have to understand the enormity of the game on Thursday night and the pressure. There was a release against Slovakia and the players played with more freedom.
“They took a few more chances and some risk at the back but when you have three central defenders playing as well as ours did you always have a chance. Andy
Considine was terrific when you think he only joined us the other day.
“We had two days of recovery so we didn’t do a lot on the training pitch but he’s experienced. He’s there on merit.”
The only disappointment for Clarke was a needless booking f or Andy Robertson. The skipper was yellow-carded for kicking the ball away and now misses Wednesday’s encounter against Czech Republic.
The boss is ready to call upon reinforcements and said: “Two yellows in a six- game competition ruling you out a game is a bit harsh. Liam Cooper has dropped out with injury so I’ll probably call up another centre-back to give us that cover.”
Clarke feels yet more progress was made and said: “We’ve been talking about building momentum since last October when we lost heavily in Russia. We decided that would be the low point and we would build from there.
“That’s seven games unbeaten so we’re slowly getting things right and building momentum towards the game next month. But first we have a tough one against Czech Republic.
“This sets us up nicely for the game. They had a good win against Israel but come Wednesday night I hope we’re still top.
“We aren’t thinking about next month against Serbia. The focus is to get as many points as possible in this section.
“If we do that we will go into the Serbia game in the right frame of mind.”