RIDDY OR NOT... HERE WE COME
2004, the Aston Villa midfielder STILL thinks Steve Clarke’s men can recover to reach the knockout stage.
The Scots suffered an embarrassing 5-1 opening night defeat at the Allianz Arena on Friday night.
Clarke’s boys must now compose themselves before facing Switzerland in Cologne on Wednesday where defeat is unthinkable.
McGinn knows the wave of optimism across the nation pre- tournament has been squashed by a poor display.
But he’s convinced they can turn it around against the Swiss.
He said: “You see the massive support, the optimism around the whole country – and we feel like we’ve burst that bubble a bit.
“But we still have an opportunity to get through this group and we’ll do everything we can to achieve it.
“We know we need to find our levels again over the next couple of days.
“But we can talk about it – ultimately there’s a lot of us in here who need to up it. We know that.”
McGinn is well aware Friday’s debacle was nowhere near good enough – and a long way from a great qualifying campaign which included wins over Spain and Norway. Defens iv ely, Clarke’s side toiled and the Germans could well have scored more than five. Ryan
Porteous will sit out the second game after his red card topped off a miserable night for the manager.
While his backline will face criticism, McGinn held his hands up and admitted Scotland’s forward players must start scoring again.
He said: “It’s easy to talk about the goals we’re losing but myself and others are now in a massive goal drought.
“So it works both ways. Collectively, you cannot point fingers at just one or two players.
“As a group we need to improve. We need to concede less and create more chances.
“I don’t think we had a shot on Friday night which is worrying.
“But we know we can compete with these teams. We’ve gone toe-to-toe with Spain and Holland recently.
“For a long time Scotland wasn’t on the end of those types of scorelines so we need to get back to what we were doing.
“We have had bumps along the road so it’s up to us now.
“The older ones in the group have to keep us going and get ready for Wednesday’s game.”