McLeish in demand to see Scots’ true colours

ALEX McLEISH insists he can’t wait for his Scotland reign to get underway for real against Albania at Hampden tonight. Friday’s battering at the hands of World Cup semifinalists Belgium added to a growing air of indifference around the national team. Insisting the only way to change things is to win games, McLeish expects to see a different performance when the road to the Euro 2020 finals begins tonight, saying: ‘This is it for real now. ‘I can feel it already. I woke up on Sunday morning and said to myself: “This is where it really begins”. ‘We have done some experimenting, looking at different players and we now have a big roster, should we need to call

people up. But this is it. The guys have got to bring their best performance level.’ On Friday night, the Scots gifted three of the four goals to the Belgians in what was the nation’s heaviest home defeat since a 5-0 loss to England in 1973. John McGinn, Charlie Mulgrew and Ryan Jack were all caught in possession as the second best team on the planet took full advantage. Claiming his players will learn from their errors and improve, however, McLeish expects no repeat in Scotland’s first-ever Nations League qualifier. ‘It was actually the errors that are easy to put right,’ he said. ‘We have got players who, 99 times out of 100, would do things differently. There was Charlie Mulgrew’s first-time pass and he sclaffed it. ‘Hopefully, he doesn’t have another one of them for the next 99 times. ‘The errors were pretty blatant but they can be fixed.’ Currently rated 58th in the FIFA rankings, Albania beat Israel 1-0 in their opener on Friday night, despite being outplayed for long spells of the game. Warning against any misplaced complacency over Scotland’s chances of opening with a home win before next month’s trip to Israel, McLeish added: ‘Albania got to the Euros (in 2016) which is something we haven’t done in a long time. So there is nobody who can disrespect them. ‘The biggest way we can show our respect to Albania is to play at our top level and swarm all over them. We also need to try for a clean sheet.’ Likely to stick with a 3-5-1-1 formation to accommodate captain Andrew Robertson and Celtic’s Kieran Tierney, the Scotland boss added: ‘There is no evidence to say that if we’d played 4-4-2 against Belgium we couldn’t have been beaten 5-0. ‘I know how it works but I have to persevere with the system. ‘Leigh (Griffiths) had to go off against Belgium, but it wasn’t a big scare. He has been fine in training and he’s available.’