Inverness slip to ninth as Raith and Ayr draw
A SECOND-half Aidan Nesbitt strike was enough to earn Morton a vital three points in the battle for Championship survival.
The 24-year-old struck early after the restart to condemn Neil McCann’s men to a costly defeat at the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium. The result ensures Morton leapfrog yesterday’s opponents into sixth place.
High winds and heavy rain ensured the offerings were ragged at times but the hosts enjoyed the better of the opening exchanges.
Raith Rovers-bound James Keatings was lively from the off and after a couple of halfchances had evaded him, he was inches away from setting up the opener on the stroke of half-time.
He played in Nikolay
Todorov, who won the ball back having had an initial effort blocked and saw his second effort smack the upright.
Morton had chances of their own in the opening 45 and Kazaiah Sterling should have hit the target with a header that went wide of the mark.
After winning the ball in their own half, Morton worked the ball well up the park. Luca Colville then picked out Nesbitt inside the box who remained calm to find the corner.
The home side dominated the ball and had chances of their own, Shane Sutherland saw a late effort crash off the crossbar having tested the visiting keeper Aidan McAdams just moments earlier.
And in last night’s other game in the second tier, there was nothing to split Ayr United and John McGlynn’s Raith Rovers as the two sides played out a goalless draw on a wet and windy evening in Fife.
FINDING goals is not a new problem for Scotland’s national team: Kenny Dalglish equalled Denis Law’s record haul of 30 back in 1984 and no one has come close to that figure since then, with only Kenny Miller and James McFadden able to break into the teens this century.
Even so, the paucity of options currently available to manager Steve Clarke is unlikely to have been matched in any previous era.
Target man Lyndon
Dykes, who did so well when introduced last year, has scored only one goal from open play for Queen’s Park Rangers since his £2m move from Livingston in August and was an unused substitute at the weekend after failing to find the net in 18 consecutive games for the Championship club.
Celtic striker Leigh Griffiths has struggled to find form and fitness and last scored for Scotland in October, 2017.
Sheffield Wednesday’s Callum Paterson is goalless after 17 caps and Sheffield United’s Oli McBurnie is equally barren after 15 outings, having scored once in 32 outings for club and country.
McBurnie’s team-mate, Oli Burke, has notched three times for club and country in the last two seasons. Lawrence Shankland is prolific by comparison, with seven goals in 29 games for Dundee United and Scotland this term. It’s a trend which has unnerved BBC Scotland analyst Billy Dodds.
“When we ended that 23-year wait in Belgrade [in November] everyone was excited by the prospect of being back on the big stage and I just assumed that would give all the players an extra edge to their game,” he said.
“You would imagine that they’d all be busting a gut to ensure that they weren’t left out of the squad or the starting XI but that hasn’t been the case at all.
“Steve Clarke will be going to games every week and thinking: ‘I need someone to start playing well’ and he’ll be worried by the fact that very few players – maybe only Scott McTominay at Manchester United, whom we use as a defender when he isn’t one – are doing well at the moment.
“He’ll have an idea of what
his best team will be but at the moment I’m just hoping that being a major finals will give our players the lift they’re obviously needing because they must be looking forward to it.
“There was a time when we relied on Leigh Griffiths to score for us but that was a good few years ago. Ryan Christie was flying at the start of the campaign but he’s been off the boil for so long that you can’t just put it down to the fact that Celtic haven’t been playing well.”
Characteristically, though, the former Aberdeen, Dundee United, Rangers and Scotland forward attempted to find a positive among that bad news.
“We’re all about the team, the collective,” he claimed.
“It’s not like Gareth Bale with Wales, where one individual pulls everyone else along with him. We’re about being organised and hard to beat and – let’s be honest – that’s what got us there.
“The problem is that the foundation the team has been built on still needs those individuals playing well.
“It’s not all about scoring either. I watched David Marshall throw one in for Derby the other week, while our full-backs, Stephen O’Donnell and Andy
Robertson, haven’t had the best of seasons, although at least Kieran Tierney appears to be playing well.”
Craig Brown had been the last Scotland manager to lead the country to a major finals before Clarke ended that 23-year exile from the global stage and he’s disturbed by the current form of our big hitters: Aston Villa midfielder John McGinn has scored once in 50 games and Norwich City’s Kenny McLean three times in 90, while Celtic playmaker Callum McGregor has yet to break his international duck after 26 attempts.
“Like anything else, scoring goals is a habit but it’s one you can lose,” he said. “When the ball comes into the box your finishers are hoping to score rather than expecting to score and that’s not the same thing.
“I also worry about our centre-backs, especially with Scott McKenna being injured.
I also don’t see anyone making a late claim for a place in Steve’s squad.
“Watching David Turnbull playing for Celtic recently, he did some nice things but didn’t do enough. Ryan Jack should be available again but, while he’s been good for Rangers, he’s ordinary at international level.
“As for strikers, Kevin
Nisbet started well at Hibs but I went off him when he handed in a transfer request to the club which had given him his big chance after just half a season.
“He seems to have alienated Jack Ross as a result and I also think the fact he’s never been capped at any level might work against him.”
GLASGOW assistant coach Pete Murchie expects a “full-throttle” encounter on Friday night when his team take on Ospreys in a must-win match at Scotstoun.
The Warriors are ten points behind the third-placed Welsh team in PRO14 Conference A, but have a game in hand, so a victory would put them right back in the hunt. A top-three finish in the conference is the only guarantee of a place in next season’s Champions Cup.
“We know it’s a big game,”
Murchie said yesterday. “The table makes that obvious. We’re at home and we know that to get into third place we need to win the game.
“We know what we need to do, and if we perform we’ll get a result. It’s a big game for us and Ospreys will know it’s a big game for them. It’s going to be a full-throttle game.”
Ospreys’ one remaining match after Friday will be away to champions Leinster, who have already qualified for the PRO14 final at the end of the month, when they will meet Munster. The two games Glasgow will have left are away to the Dragons – who are
also still in the hunt – then at home to Benetton.
Murchie confirmed that Gregor Brown will miss the Ospreys match as he continues to be assessed for the head knock he sustained in Saturday’s win over Zebre. Brown’s fellow-lock Richie Gray is also likely to be absent after being concussed against Leinster a week earlier.
Meanwhile, Glasgow will travel to France to face Montpellier next month in the last 16 of the Challenge Cup. Montpellier are currently 11th in the French Top 14, but their squad has an abundance of talent such as South African
World Cup-winner Handre Pollard and France prop Mohamed Haouas, and Warriors head coach Danny Wilson expects the one-off tie to be tough.
“Montpellier have a strong, star-studded squad and it will be a really exciting challenge away from home,” he said. “Having only played one game in the Champions Cup this season we look forward to the opportunity of playing another European fixture and all that it brings.”
The winners of the match at the GGL Stadium will have a home quarter-final against Benetton or Agen.