ANDY ROBERTSON reckons the players aren’t sure what’s going on with the unfamiliar formation McLeish has asked the Scotland players to play, Leigh Griffiths has had the last laugh this week on McLeish who has suffered another two defeats and is now desperately hanging onto his job – he could last another month to play Albania away and Israel at home – and for those games, logically he must turn to a fitness improved Griffiths.
A Scotland win in Israel and again over Portugal in the friendly would have seen gleeful press headlines telling the Celtic striker to get it right up him.
But McLeish and his side-kicks Peter Grant and James McFadden looked out of their depths on the sidelines in these two defeats and no wonder – none of them have done anything whatsoever in the modern game to earn the privilege of leading the Scottish national side.
Yesterday mild mannered Celtic goalkeeper Craig Gordon added his thoughts to the shambles that McLeish has created.
Gordon was number one choice for a Scotland side that had forgotten how to lose a game before McLeish arrived and has reminded them of that feeling, six times now.
The Celtic keeper has effectively become the understudy to Allan McGregor, a player currently serving a lifetime ban for playing for Scotland. Cunningly McLeish used the Celtic keeper against Belgium and Portugal in the friendlies (losing 7 goals) but opted for the Rangers keeper in the two competitive games against Albania and Israel (he lost two goals).
That wasn’t lost on the Celtic stopper yesterday, and he has every reason to speak his mind, as indeed would Celtic forward James Forrest, who scored 4 goals at St Johnstone before going to sit on the bench for McLeish in Israel. He was also an united sub in the Belgium/Albania round of matches in the previous international break.
So when asked if his treatment from McLeish has been harsh Craig Gordon said this to the press:
“Yes it is — that’s certainly not lost on me! But that’s the situation and those are the games I’ve been asked to play in.
“We lost seven goals in those matches but we are playing against the best in the world and some of the top teams.
“There’s every chance that that will happen. I thought we restricted Portugal to few chances but when the chances that come their way are as good as those ones were, they’re going to take them.
“I haven’t spoken to the manager about my position. I want to play in every game but he has his job to do.
“He’s going to pick the team and I’ll play whenever I’m asked and support whoever else is playing when I’m not, but obviously I want to play in every game.
“I was disappointed to lose three goals against Portugal because I didn’t think we played too badly. We’re obviously unhappy at the way we lost the goals.
“Other teams aren’t having to work hard for them.
“But at least we didn’t give the opposition as many opportunities as we did in the previous game. However, when you give chances up right in the middle of your goal, you’re going to be in trouble.
“Their second goal came from a free-kick routine which we knew they’d practised. We knew exactly what we had to do to defend it — we just didn’t carry it out properly.
“We always want to win and it was about trying to put in a good performance and there were a few positives we could take from it.”
