Scotland 3 v 2 Israel

A pulsating night in Glasgow, highs and lows and a shocking night weather wise.

All in all everything above points to a glorious Scottish failure but finally, it wasn’t the case.

To come from a goal down and control the game for large spells and win 3-2, is a credit to this young sides mentality and where it can go in the future.

No heads dropped after that goal, that’s what was most pleasing for me, they all still wanted the ball, tried to stay calm in possession and pick the right pass. We didn’t just launch it and hope for the best, although our 2nd goal had a touch of that

GS was spot on last night about Forrest, he’s now become someone at international level we can turn too for a bit of a magic. He’s heavily involved in games now and he was unlucky not to add 2 assists to his goal tally last night which would have capped off an outstanding night for him.

I’ve always been a big critic of him as he didn’t do enough of what he’s doing now, he was anonymous for large parts of games but he’s added a composure and work ethic to his game now that allows him to get in goal scoring opportunities and his finishing of late has been nothing short of exemplary

A few other stand outs, Armstrong, Christie and Fraser all excellent, Robertson very good as well. Thought McGregor was ok, not great, the two centre half’s did well enough to keep their place going forward.

Paterson needs removed from the right back slot though, I think KT will slot in there for the qualifiers.

So now we have a home game against Finland in March 2020 and the winner would play Norway or Serbia for a spot at Euro 2020. Its a good fall back option and it does allow the players some freedom to go enjoy the qualifiers and be brave and positive, especially away from home, we’ve nothing to lose in these games now.

Final word on McLeish, he’s arguably been forced into 2 or 3 of those changes but he still picked the correct replacements and by god it’s worked wonders for him

NNH