Clarke full of confidence ahead of play-offs
Baktiyor Zainutdinov to net for the visitors in the first half.
However, a second-half McGinn double – the Aston Villa man who took his tally for the section to seven – and a goal from Steven Naismith saw them triumph and secure third place ahead of their opponents.
Scotland will go into the play-off semi-final against Bulgaria, Israel or Romania in March on the back of a threegame winning run and with high hopes of progressing to their first major tournament since France ’98.
The form of McGinn, who became the first Scotland player to net in three successive games since James McFadden back in 2007, has given Clarke confidence his side can successfully negotiate the play-off semi-final and final.
“With this group of players, I can be very optimistic about the play-offs,” he said. “I know they are 100 per cent committed to their country and are desperate to get to a major finals at Euro 2020.
“John is on a fantastic run of form. He has been great for Aston Villa for the last couple of seasons and he is starting to bring it onto the international stage.
“It’s very important to remember he is still in the early stages of his international career. The more games you play at this level, the better you become.
“You look at someone like Steven Naismith who is a great example to them all. He plays with great experience at this level and it was great to see him get his goal as well.
“But when you have got any player in goalscoring form it is good for any team. John is the guy who is scoring goals.
“We played a lot of good stuff, looked a threat going forward and created a lot of chances. Nine shots on target is good. It’s another win – three wins in a row. I don’t know about anyone else, but the boys in the dressing room are feeling good about themselves.”
Clarke added: “I thought the performance was good – good in the first half and really good in the second half against a dangerous opponent.
“You have to build into the game. You can’t go gung-ho from the first minute to the last minute.
“We managed to up the tempo at the start of the second half. The early goal helped us.
“It gives the lads confidence.”
IT was revenge. And it was most definitely served cold. Scotland’s Kazakh curse seemed like it was coming back with a vengeance as Steve Clarke’s men trailed at half time and were jeered off the field. But on a freezing night at Hampden Park, a measure of recompense for the most embarrassing result in the nation’s history eventually arrived. What did we learn on a night where Scotland made it a hat-trick of wins for the first time in two years?
PLAYING up front isn’t all about scoring goals, as Steve Clarke made sure to point out. While Scotland’s new-look striking duo of Steven Naismith and John McGinn didn’t always win a huge amount of style points, they still exemplified this maxim last night, each having a hand in a goal for the other.
Once again the lion’s share of goalscorer’s glory went to McGinn, the Villa midfielder confirming his emergence by banging in a brace which took his tally to seven goals in six international games.
We were in a spot of bother here before the first one came along, from a free-kick on the edge of the box which took a deflection off Kazakh captain Bauyrzhan Islamkhan on its way into the middle of the goal. Naismith was the architect, using all his experience to buy the free-kick then using his body position to stop the attempted block.
On a night his one-time rival Leigh Griffiths knocked in a few for Celtic’s reserves in a friendly against Stenhousemuir, Naismith was delighted to be back amongst the goals at this level as he met a looping, deflected ball from Liam Palmer from all of an inch out. McGinn’s assist of sorts came in the manner he got his body in the way of goalkeeper Dymtro Nepogodov to prevent him getting a clear jump on the ball. The Hearts man’s influence is already rubbing off but he had gone off by the time McGinn’s second of the night – and his seventh goal of the campaign – arrived. The Aston Villa man looked like a penalty-box poacher as he ran on to Taylor’s slide rule delivery to finish well.
IT is hard to maintain momentum when you know you are facing a four-month lay-off but our first hat-trick of competitive wins since the Gordon Strachan era has done just that. A campaign which ended badly has finished well. And while we have Alex McLeish to thank for our play-off spot, Clarke is doing his bit to make it seem more achievable. Friday’s draw will decide whether it is Bulgaria, Romania, Israel or Hungarywe will face in a home playoff semi-final, then hopefully a one-off meeting against Norway or Serbia to make our hosting of matches at Euro 2020 a tad more interesting. There were only 19,500 here last night seeking respite perhaps from the televised election debate but this place will be rocking in march.
SHOCK horror: Scotland manager names unchanged team.
When Clarke opted to start the match with the same 11 men he went with at the GSP stadium in Nicosia on Saturday, it was something of a statement. OK, so captain Andy Robertson will surely be preferred to Greg Taylor at leftback assuming he is fit to return after injury, but the route suddenly doesn’t seem quite so easy for some of Scotland’s other English-based superstars
As excellent as Scott McTominay’s form pre-injury was for Manchester United, would it disrupt the balance if you shoe-horn him back into things at the expense of Ryan Jack? The same goes for Arsenal’s Kieran Tierney – while he could come in at left centre-back for Scott McKenna, that would be risky as Clarke has never worked with him. Then there is Ryan Fraser of Bournemouth, no gimme to take over from James Forrest on the left.
FOR a while last night, while most of his team were playing their way into Steve Clarke’s plans for that play-off match, McKenna looked like he was playing his way out of them. While Liam Palmer was culpable for frittering away possession, the Aberdeen defender again looked short of confidence when asked to deal with the onrushing Zainutdinov. Perhaps wary of giving away a soft free-kick, he decided against going out to block the shot, only to see the man who scored the third goal in Nur-Sultan hit the corner with a beauty from 25 yards. More than anyone perhaps, the big defender needed a big second half and he produced – winning a few meaty challenges, reading the game well, and keeping things simple in possession.