Miller made up to be one of Gemmill’s senior Scottish kids
SCOTLAND TURKEY
BY MARK WALKER
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CALVIN MILLER has played for Scotland at all youth levels for the past six years. And he’s relishing the responsibility attached to being a senior member of Scot Gemmill’s new-look squad.
Gemmill picked a much-changed Scotland team for the friendly in Murcia in the south east of Spain and plenty of his new boys impressed.
Motherwell’s David Turnbull looked composed and comfortable on the ball, Reading stopper Tom McIntyre defended superbly and there was plenty to take encouragement too from the likes of Connor McLennan of Aberdeen and Sheffield Wednesday’s Fraser Preston.
The Scots looked like they would escape the Pinitar Arena with a hardfought draw until the Turks netted twice in the last four minutes through subs Ahmet Canbaz and Enes Kiprit.
Hibs defender Ryan Porteous was also sent off at the end after an altercation with a group of Turkish players, although Gemmill had no idea why.
Celtic’s Dundee loan star Miller enjoyed his left-back role and made plenty of sweeping runs forward in a decent display. And he’s enjoying being one of Gemmill’s senior players now who are regarded as one of the old heads in the squad.
Miller said: “Because I’m one of the oldest in the group, I felt my opinion mattered a wee bit so I was trying to help the boys.
“We’re all there to help each other and I enjoyed it. it’s always good playing for the national team.
“I’ve been in the setup since I was a wee boy so it’s the same faces within the group. There was a good team chemistry and I felt that helped too.
“The boys at Aberdeen – Bruce Anderson and Connor McLennan, David Turnbull too. I thought everyone who played did really well.
“There were a couple of errors in the end, but we should take the positives rather than the negatives from the game.
“The game started to open up a bit at the end. Folk were getting tired and as we tried to get forward we got done on the counter with a misplaced pass.
“It’s harder to get back in at that stage so conceding that late goal made us a wee bit shaky, then we gave away a silly free-kick and got the red card.
“We put so much into the game and never really got anything to show.”