The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Christie plotting Scots’ road to redemption after sore defeat
Ryan Christie is determined to help Scotland begin their path to redemption when they start their Nations League campaign next week.
The Scots’ hopes of reaching the World Cup in Qatar are over, after they fell to a 3-1 defeat to Ukraine at Hampden Park on Wednesday.
Steve Clarke’s men were largely outclassed by their opponents, who will now face Wales in Cardiff on Sunday for a place at the finals later this year.
The pain at coming so close but falling short will linger for Inverness-born Christie, who was instrumental in helping Scotland reach last summer’s Euro 2020 finals.
Christie says the Scots cannot afford to allow the defeat to throw them off track, as they aim to regain momentum in their push for the next European Championships in Germany in 2024.
The 27-year-old, who is preparing to step up to the English Premier League with Bournemouth, said: “The main thing about this summer and this camp – it wasn’t just Nations League games for us. It was the chance to go and achieve something special.
“Especially at Hampden, it’s a tough one to take as everybody wanted to reach that next milestone.
“The next few days, this is going to hurt. But as long as we can react in the right manner, we’ve got a few good games to bounce back in before the camp finishes.
“They are big games as well. When you look at the way the Nations League has helped us in the past, we need to bounce back.
“Since the Euros everyone’s been saying that we didn’t want to be a onetournament team.
“An opportunity has been passed up but hopefully we learn from this experience and make sure we don’t let it happen again.
“The manager has said to us it’s how about how we react to this.”
The Scots must now lift themselves for three quickfire Nations League matches, starting with the visit of Armenia to Hampden on Wednesday.
Scotland will then travel to the Republic of Ireland next Saturday, before making the return trip to Armenia the following Tuesday.
Christie feels a quick succession of games is the perfect way to move on from their play-off disappointment.
He added: “I think if you ask anyone, as soon as you suffer a defeat the one thing you want to do is play football again, put it right and get a good result.
“That helps to heal the wounds. This is a ridiculously tough one to take. We could see the fans at the end and how gutted they were for us and how we were for them.
“The only way you can make it up to them and ourselves is to bounce back with good results and start putting another good run together.”
Ukraine were thoroughly impressive against the Scots; however, former Caley Thistle, Aberdeen and Celtic player Christie says he will struggle to watch Sunday’s decider in Scotland’s absence.
Christie added: “To be honest, I don’t even know if I’ll be able to watch that one. It would be a tough one to look at what could have been.
“We certainly didn’t want to look too far ahead as we knew how big a game Ukraine was.
“We were hoping that we
were the team that was going to Cardiff. It’s not to be, so whoever goes through will deserve it.”
Former Scotland winger Nevin insists he has no complaints about Ukraine progressing.
He said: “All over the field Ukraine were better than Scotland in just about every department.
“There is a level of disappointment, we accept that. They were the better team, the quality was brilliant.
“If you go out against a quality team like this that have this modern history behind them, you don’t get too upset.
“When you look at the whole thing, Scotland didn’t play anywhere near their best, nowhere near their best.
“A lot of Scotland’s best players were way down in the quality they’ve given in many past performances and sometimes you don’t know why that happens.”
He added: “We’ll be raking over the coals of this for quite some time in Scotland, certainly the idea of playing with two centreforwards in the first half and playing the ball long, more one-dimensional game than Scotland are used to, it didn’t work.”