Forrest out for revenge after Belgium defeat

JAMES Forrest is relishing a revenge mission against Belgium in the Euro 2020 qualifiers.

Roberto Martinez and Shaun Maloney’s starstudded outfit were the top seeds in a section which also includes Russia, Cyprus, Kazakhstan and San Marino, with our campaign scheduled to start with a trip to Astana in March.

Five goals in two games from Forrest mean Alex McLeish’s men have a play-off place in their back pocket at least for the competition, but the Celtic winger is armed with plenty of experience of playing out in Russia and Kazakhstan at club level and is determined to set the record straight against a Belgium side who dismantled Scotland 4-0 at Hampden in September.

“It is obviously a hard group,” said Forrest. “You don’t expect it to be anything else. There are some hard teams in it and there is no such thing as an easy international match.

“It’s not just me who has been to places such as Russia and Kazahkstan.

“There will be a lot of players in the squad that have played in the countries. It gives you the knowledge of what it’s going to be like and you can also take into the confidence if you have had results there.

“We’ll wait and see what the situation is when those games [against Belgium] come around, but you know you are always going to get a top team from the first group of seeds.

Of course, we played them in a friendly not so long ago and it’s clear that it didn’t go too well for us on that occasion, but that just gives us the chance to try and get our own back on them.”