Wijnaldum, Weghorst on target as Netherlands thrash wasteful Scotland

aT the Johan Cruyff arena Steve Clarke did not demand pretty football, only a Scotland victory after five games without enjoying one.

Instead, the sequence is now a sorry six as the manager oversaw an embarrassing fourth loss of the run and now targets Tuesday’s visit of Northern Ireland to Hampden Park to stop the slump.

His side were profligate and Netherlands clinical, Georginio Wijnaldum’s 72nd-minute header joining Tijjani Reijnders’s first-half opener and emulated by finishes from Wout Weghorst and Donyell Malen, as Scotland’s European Championship preparations suffered a body blow.

andy Robertson, their captain, said: “The fact that we have walked off that pitch 4-0 is unbelievable. We can’t keep doing this, going into our old ways against the big teams. There is no way we can play like that because people will look at that result and think it is very one sided. When you go to major tournaments then you have to be a lot better than that.

“If you do get beat, you have to keep your goal difference down. We do not want to be the team that just qualifies for tournaments, we want to be competing. you can’t come away to these big teams and play the way we did. We have to take heart from the 60, 70 minutes but the last 20 minutes is not how we want to play.”

Initially Scotland schooled their hosts. The Dutch are supposedly masters of ball and space so witnessing them being wheeled out of position was a surprise with Robertson and Ryan Christie combining along the left. Ronald Koeman’s men thwarted this foray yet here was the clever play of the standard Clarke spoke of wishing to attain.

— The Guardian