We’ll tiki tak game to Spain

STUART Armstrong knows all about tikitaka and that Scotland must come up with an alternative plan to put their own stamp on Group A favourites Spain.

The Southampton star (below) is well aware it will all be about pass and move in short triangles when Luis de la Fuente brings his star-studded side to Hampden tomorrow.

Both countries got off to 3-0 winning starts, the Scots impressively seeing off Cyprus and Spain smashing Norway.

Quality

“A lot of quality, intricate movements, tidy on the ball,” said Armstrong. “It will be a completely different game from Saturday.

“We’ll digest what happened in that one, take the positives, learn from the negatives and prepare again. I’m sure we will prepare in a good way.

“We’re aware of what they can do but we can also put our stamp on the game.

“I’m sure we’ll look to do that with our pressing. We can also be very good with the ball and be quite dynamic.”

Scotland got their goal just after 20 minutes when Stuart Armstrong found Andy Robertson and his deflected cross fell for McGinn who volleyed home.

The second period was pretty flat and it took the subs to kill off any hope from the Cypriots that they could get a draw.

The play became scruffy and disjointed although it wasn’t helped by the injury to Che Adams.

Lyndon Dykes, however, showed no ill effects from his recent bout of pneumonia.

Christie worked relentlessly to win the ball and swing in a cross that Dykes headed down for McTominay to swivel and fire high into the net.

That crushed Cyprus and a quickfire third came when Robertson squared for McTominay to easily side-foot into the net.

Cyprus were gone and the head of Nicholas Ioannou was clearly gone as he got sent off late on for kicking the ball away.