Welsh blasts Scots U21 display

Coatbridge’s Stephen Welsh admits his night as Scotland u21s captain was wrecked by one of the‘worst’45 minutes of football he’s seen from a national team.

The Celtic defender led the Scots youth team out at Tynecastle during a 2-0 defeat to Turkey that all but ended hopes of reaching next year’s Euros.

Welsh put one into his own net to round off the defeat and it means they trail, Belgium, Denmark and Turkey in Group I.

A return to Premiership action looms after Tuesday’s match with Kazakhstan and it doesn’t get much bigger as Celtic travel to Rangers in a defining title race match.

But former St Andrew’s High pupil Welsh can’t even begin to think about that after a shocking night in Edinburgh for head coach Scott Gemmill, who had to watch from afar after testing positive for Covid-19.

A dejected Welsh said of the defeat: “That first-half performance was one of, if not the worst I’ve seen from a Scotland team at any age group.

“From past experience going through the age groups - 17s, 19s and now 21s - even if a side is better than you, you still work harder than them.

“I don’t think we worked 50 per cent to what Turkey did, although they were very good players.

“We weren’t aggressive enough, didn’t think we applied ourselves enough at all and on the ball I think we were very, very poor.

“We looked in shock when we got the ball, we were shaky and maybe a bit of nervousness but I think we need to move on from that now.

“We need to look back on that and see but then again they are very good on the ball, we didn’t get within three or four yards of them every time they got the ball.”

Gutted Welsh during the defeat