ROLLED OVA
Five-star Scots march into play-offs
STEVE CLARKE urged Scotland to take advantage of their World Cup finals chance – as they made it high fives and clinched a play-off in March.
The Tartan Army racked up their fifth win in a row to secure second place in Group F in what is their best run in competitive games for 26 years.
A year to the day since beating Serbia to qualify for the Euro finals, Nathan Patterson, who scored the opener, and John Mcginn were excellent.
And once again Chelsea’s Billy Gilmour ran the show, begging the question, why he is warming the bench on loan at struggling Norwich?
It sets up a semi-final and final next year, chasing one of three qualifying spots against 11 other nations.
Scotland boss Clarke said: “The team has developed well but the campaign is not finished.
“We will look ahead at the play-offs in March after Denmark on Monday. This was a good performance.
“We were aggressive going forward, lots of shots but only two goals. But we are pleased to finish second in the group. We are still on track.
“It is nice to win games. To win five in a row is difficult at any level. We put ourselves in a position where we had to win them.”
Patterson broke the deadlock after 38 dominant first-half minutes, netting his first Scotland goal. Mcginn laid the ball off inside the box allowing the Rangers right-back to drill home from 12 yards.
Patterson, aged 20 and 27 days, is the youngest Scottish scorer since Darren Fletcher (then 19) 18 years ago – and the first Rangers player to score for them for a decade.
The second was created by another touch of genius from Aston Villa midfielder Mcginn, who nutmegged his marker with a backheel and sent the overlapping Patterson to the byline.
The youngster added an assist to his earlier goal, crossing for Southampton striker Che Adams to smash home at the back post in the 65th minute.
Patterson dented his performance with a daft handball with 10 minutes to go conceding a penalty.
But keeper Craig Gordon made his second brilliant save of the game to deny Vadim Rata, helped by Kieran Tierney superbly clearing the rebound.
Patterson said: “I am buzzing. We said if we got an early goal we would settle then kill them off with a second.
“Hopefully we can now go on and get the results we need to get to Qatar.”
Scotland now want a positive result against Denmark at Hampden Park on Monday to get a top seeding, and a home game, in the semi-final.
MOLODVA (3-5-2): Namasco 6; Jardan 6, Posmac 6, Bolohan 6 (Rozgoniuc 62, 6); Revenco 6, Rata 5, Dros 5 (Bogaciuc 61,6), Ionita 7, Marandici 6 (Iosipoi 71); Nicolaescu 5 (Puntus 71), Ginsari 4 (Cojocaru 61, 5).
SCOTLAND (3-4-3): Gordon 7; Hendry 7, Cooper 7, Tierney 7; Patterson 8, Gilmour 8 (Mclean 85), Mcgregor 7, Robertson 7; MCGINN 9 (Turnbull 90), Adams 7 (Brown 85), Armstrong 7 (Nisbet 76).
REFEREE: Srdjan Jovanovic (Serbia) 6.