McLeish must find the answers to his personnel puzzles
NEGOTIATING the UEFA Nations League, given the conversations at Hampden on Friday, is clearly still looked upon by many as football’s equivalent of figuring out the neutral circuitry of human consciousness.
It isn’t really. Indeed, it is very, very simple. This is Scotland’s best chance of making it to Euro 2020 and tomorrow’s visit of Albania is, already, a crossroads moment in Alex McLeish’s second spell as national coach.
Scotland have to win Group C1. If they don’t, Big Eck is in big trouble. Albania are 18 places below us in the FIFA rankings at 58 while Israel sit 93rd. There is nothing in their recent history to fear. If we cannot get the better of them over four games, what chance will we have against better sides in qualifying proper?
Winning the group puts us two play-off games from the finals. That’s the easy part. The tricky bit is how McLeish addresses the difficulties thrown up by that dispiriting four-goal loss to Belgium.
Yes, we need to get Kieran Tierney into the side alongside Andy Robertson. Yet, three at the back didn’t work. It also created issues further up the park.
Ryan Fraser is a winger. A lightning-fast one. One that plays pretty much every week in the EPL. We need to use him properly. Fielding him as a right wing-back is tantamount to cruelty.
He plays mainly on the left at Bournemouth, for starters. James Forrest didn’t get on at all on Friday, but imagine him on the right and Fraser on the left against Albania. It’s exciting, but impossible in a 3-5-1-1 formation.
Tierney going to right-back in a flat four is by no means perfect, but he showed against Slovenia that he can play there. He might be able to play left centre-back, too.
But putting him left of a three as we did on Friday negates possibilities for, arguably, our most dangerous attacking players.
This is the bit that makes the brain hurt. It is one string of a complex puzzle McLeish has to solve. He has 24 hours.