Goalden boy Mcginn joins select band... with even more to come
It was a pretty exclusive club that John Mcginn joined in bagging two goals over the Faroe Islands.
Until Scotland’s latest outing, only 22 players across the near 149 years the country have been contesting internationals had reached double figures in goals. Now, though, Mcginn becomes the 23rd man in those annals. The opposition may have been of the lowly variety, not so the finishing prowess of the 26-yearold.
In bagging goal No 9 with a low drive and No 10 courtesy of an emphatic header, there was further goal sniffing from the Aston Villa attacker - and he really is much more than an orthodox midfelder - that suggested he could achieve special things for his beloved country in the scoring stakes.
Mcginn moved above such luminaries as Ian St John, Archie Gemmill and Colin Stein thanks to his latest goalplundering exploits in Scotland colours.
Steven Naismith was the last man to breach the 10, in 2019, but it took the Hearts man nine years from his first international goal to reach double figures.
In fact, Mcginn’s potency of late places him in a league of his own when it comes to a first-10 haul of Scotland goals.
It seems extraordinary now that Mcginn failed to find the net across his first 15 caps. But what that means is that, since netting against Russia in September 2019, only a year-anda-half has passed since he has succeeded in turning one goal into 10.
There is no parallel for a Scotland player claiming their first 10 goals for the country across only 18 months.
Mcginn has transformed himself into the true predator of Steve Clarke’s Scotland setup courtesy of a hat-trick and two doubles.
Alright, it must be acknowledged that San Marino accounts for the triple, with Kazakhstan and now the Faroe Islands yielding the scoring twosomes, but they all count. And against the quality opposition that Austria provided last Thursday, with his superb overhead kick, Mcginn showed he can produce class against class.
Scotland have never had prolific goalscorers. That creates juicy possibilities for Mcginn.
Four more goals in the international domain and he will place himself in Scotland’s top 10, and on the same mark as James Mcfadden. If he can continue with his current strike-rate - he boasts 10 goals in his past 15 Scotland outings - he could be up there with the country’s all-time scorers before the next Euros rolls around.
In fact, that there will be a series of warm-up games before this summer’s finals roll around, and that, in turn, will give way to a World Cup qualifying triple-header in September, giving rise to the genuineprospectthatmcginn could place himself among the country’s foremost scorers even before 2021 is out.
The 30-goal totals of topof-the-tree greats Denis Law and Kenny Dalglish might be tough for Mcginn to reach but not so Ally Mccoist in fifth.
The former Rangers’ striker is Scotland’s most successful plunderer in the modern age, but it took him nine years to bag his 19 international goals. Mcginn might not need nine years to usurp that tally…