Plastic pitch will suit us more than Strach

Deivydas Matulevicius has revealed that Lithuania’s players hate their plastic pitch as much as Gordon Strachan does. But he insists they’ll still be ready to turn it into Scotland’s World Cup graveyard by Friday. The national manager revealed he’ll be preparing his squad for the sub-standard Vilnius surface at an astroturf in Greenock this week. But the Hibs striker insists no matter what they do, the home side will still be at an advantage. The 33-cap frontman admitted (below): “It’s a shame for us too that we have to use it. Nobody likes to play on this pitch but we don’t have another choice. We don’t have a national stadium, or another goodd stadium in Lithuania at thiss time. “It’s really hardard for teams who come from good stadiums to play on this pitch. The football l is really different from playing on grass. If they put water on it is different, and if they don’t put water on it is different again, so you never know. “But some players, they play and train on this pitch every day, and the whole squad, we have a week to train on it , so it is a plus for us and more difficult for Scotland.” The 28-year-old was an unused sub last October at Hampden when Scotland scraped a point at home from Edgaras Jankauskas’ side through James McArthur’s lastminute leveller. But Matulevicius saw enough to believe the Baltic side were unlucky not to take all three points. He said: “I thought we were the better team – that’s my opinion. “Maybe Scotland have big names but you don’t play names, you play the team. So we will look forward and in one week we will see who is the better team this time. “We have a young manager in Jankauskas who, everyone knows, is starting to build a team.”