NEVIN SURE McTOMINAY EXPERIMENT WON’T BE REPEATED

PAT NEVIN believes Scott McTominay’s days as a Scotland centre-back are over. Playing in an unaccustomed role on the right side of a back three, the Manchester United man was caught napping as Jakub Pesek fired the Czech Republic into an early lead in Olomouc on Monday. Steve Clarke’s men rallied to beat the makeshift home side thanks to Lyndon Dykes’ first international goal and Ryan Christie’s penalty. Hanging on grimly for a win late on, though, the performance did little to inspire optimism ahead of next month’s Euro 2020 play-off with Israel — with highflying Norway or Serbia lying in wait. And while Nevin, a former Chelsea teammate of the Scotland manager, believes the system recently employed by Clarke has its attributes, he feels McTominay is fundamentally unsuited to it. ‘Look at the wing-backs,’ said Nevin. ‘Both of them (Liam Palmer and Andy Robertson) made goals in the game, which suggests that Stevie Clarke’s system with three at the back is working. But it isn’t. ‘The three at the back, McTominay in particular at right centre-back, look really uncomfortable. That’s something Stevie will have to sort out. ‘He (McTominay) is a midfield player. When you have problems getting players for certain positions, what you have to do is mix and match. ‘McTominay is a brilliant midfield player and is someone we should be building our team around. But putting him at right centre-back, it just doesn’t seem to suit him and it looks very difficult for him. ‘Steve will go away and think about this. He might consider that the three at the back might work as they are on a good run. But the personnel might have to change in one or two positions.’ The victory put Scotland top of Nations League Group B2 and compensated for the two points spilled at home to Israel at Hampden in Friday’s opener. But Nevin believes no one should be fooled into thinking that Clarke’s men defeated anything like a top-level side after a positive Covid case forced the Czechs to hastily cobble together a fresh side containing only two previouslycapped players. ‘Let’s take it but let’s not get carried away by it,’ he added. ‘That was not top internationals. They were thrown together that team. We’ve really got to ask questions about Scotland as we were hanging on by our fingertips at the end of the game.’ Unlike in previous years, Scotland now boast a raft of English Premier League players to choose from, including Liverpool’s Robertson, Arsenal’s Kieran Tierney and Aston Villa’s John McGinn. But Nevin remains perplexed as to why the whole of the team still seems less than the sum of its parts. ‘There’s no argument that some of them are top-quality players but we’re still not getting the best out of them,’ said Nevin. ‘Tierney didn’t play on Monday and hasn’t played enough for Scotland. The problem is we’ve got two, I would argue, world-class players but they both play in exactly the same position. ‘You’ve got Tierney moving to Arsenal and now playing left centre-back which is suited to him but he wants to play in the same area as Andy Robertson. You’ve got two guys doing exactly the same job. That’s typical Scotland.’