The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Strachan happy with three-way fight
Dark Blues boss praises turnaround in fortunes as he awaits a Hampden fullhouse for Slovakia clash
Scotland manager Gordon Strachan admitted that the prospect of winning the last two games of their qualifying group to make it into the World Cup play-offs is one he would have gladly accepted after his team’s slow start along the road to Russia.
The double-header with Slovakia and Slovenia next month will settle the Scots’ fate and the national coach praised his players for turning their fortunes around with three wins and a draw from their last four fixtures.
Asked if the Group F three-way fight for second place is one he would have taken after only four points were taken from the first 12 available, Strachan said: “I’d have said ‘yeah, thanks very much’.
“And you think about where we could have been if it hadn’t been for that lastminute goal against England.
“I’m alright with that. When you get to the stage that your fate is in your own hands, that’s all you can ask.
“We’ve tried to make up for bad performances or low-key performances by doing the best we can. We’ve put ourselves in a position going into the last couple of games to go for the play-offs.”
Strachan will be excited about the prospect of a full-house at Hampden for the Slovakia match. Just not quite yet.
“I’m looking forward to getting a decent cup of tea,” he said.
“I might start thinking about that later on. I’m not thinking about that right now. We have to keep an eye on the players for the next four or five weeks, make sure they are all on top form.
“By the time it comes round again, there might be other guys ready to go or some guys injured. That’s what we will be doing for the next month.”
The Malta game didn’t turn into the goal-fest that looked on the cards after Christophe Berra’s early opener but Strachan had no complaints about the performance, particularly given the one in Lithuania that it followed.
He said: “Twenty-five attempts at goal says it all. Forty-eight for the last two games. That’s good enough to win games of football.
“You don’t make that amount of chances all the time at international level.
“The work they put in, the running off the ball, the bravery – 48 attempts at goal. That’s not bad. We could have scored more goals tonight but were maybe a wee bit tired after Friday.
“That was more than enough tonight. It got to the point where the boys just wanted to kill the game off and make sure we kept the ball.
“When we kept the ball better in the last 10 minutes, we made another couple of chances. So it’s been a good eight days for the players.
“I’m happy with that. I don’t know the last time we had 25 attempts at goal.”
Another pleasing factor for Strachan will be that none of the players walking a suspension tightrope – Scott Brown, Charlie Mulgrew, James McArthur, Leigh Griffiths or Grant Hanley – fell off it.
The Scotland coach retains the belief in his squad to make it to next summer’s finals.
He added: “As long as everybody keeps fit and healthy (we can do it).
“I think...the last group we were involved in...Germany, Northern Ireland, Poland...that was a fantastic and hard group. All them went on to do well in the finals and we knew how hard it was going to be.
“But again we’ve made it kind of a roller-coaster ride.”
Meanwhile, Malta coach Pietro Ghedin believes Scotland are a side with momentum which could well be heading into the play-offs.
He said: “It was a difficult game. Scotland played really well. They pushed all the time for the 90 minutes.
“They will hope to get second place and if they play like this I think they will achieve it.”