Scots’ desire clear to see for McLeish
ALEX McLEISH insists he only has to look his players in the eye to see their desire to take Scotland back to a major finals. Buoyed by a blistering 4-0 thrashing of Albania, victory over Israel at Hampden tonight would see the Scots top their Nations League group and claim a Euro 2020 play-off place. And 15 years since the Scots last secured a play-off spot for a major tournament, McLeish can sense a huge will to win within his players. ‘I can see it in their eyes,’ said McLeish. ‘I’ve been in football a long, long time and I know when you get a good feeling about things. ‘I get a good feeling about this group of players. ‘I see it in their body language. I see guys who are very motivated to win for Scotland and give their best performances. ‘You get a good feeling as a manager
when you see that kind of player in your dressing room.’ A superb four-goal thrashing of Albania featured some fine individual performances and McLeish is likely to go with the same starting Xl against an Israel side in need of a point to top the group. ‘I’ll be tempted, yeah,’ he admitted. ‘We’ll keep it close to our chests at the minute. But I’ve done that before on many, many occasions as a manager. ‘The good news is that everyone is fit to play.’ The Scots lost 2-1 to the Israelis last month, with Allan McGregor, Andy Robertson and Callum McGregor the likely survivors from the starting XI in Haifa. Insisting he and his players used the criticism which followed that defeat to garner some inner defiance, however, McLeish added: ‘Hell hath no fury like a Scotsman scorned. The DNA of the Scotsman comes into it. ‘The players don’t like to be criticised — I don’t like it. Because we don’t like to fail. ‘But out of a failure, which was Israel away, we had to show the resilience and look at how we approached Albania. ‘We certainly earned it on Saturday with a performance level which was really good.’