As someone who suffered convulsion-like symptoms as a kid when I heard that Belfast Celtic had beaten Scotland 2-0 in New York in 1949, my pain threshold watching any Scottish defeat became lower than that of someone watching Bambi’s mother die.
Admittedly pain is accompanied by intolerance. You become hard to please. And easy to rile. And I have been riling away over the weekend since the Georgia match, even though Scotland’s resilient performance against the Germans pre-empted the need for cold compresses around the hairless skull.
But when all is said and done, after two games with nil return, we are trying to console ourselves with the phrase "We are still in it". Frankly, scarred by previous similar occasions, these words to me read more like a line Stephen King could have written. It is scary.
There was high emotion at Hampden on Monday, but take pause. If you are not suffering something akin to vertigo considering what might happen on the edge of a potential precipice then you have a better constitution than me. The outcome could be the indignity of all the other home countries reaching the playing fields of France while our management team could be in a studio on the Champs Elysees opining on the box.
Hopefully that can act like a spur and motivate what has been shown to be a team with modest talents but class attitude and application. I was as confounded, as they must have been, by what happened in Georgia. For someone who had backed Strachan to go all the way to France it reminded me sadly of that inglorious day we took on the "sheep-herders" of Iran , as Ally Macleod once described them to me, with us looking like tourists who had lost their guide. But the homework we had done on the opposition was like that of a schoolboy who’d rather plunk school than do his. Ergo, embarrassment.
But you could not fault the way Strachan has prepared for games. You might disagree with certain selections but the players have always gone on the field with their eyes wide open. And did so in Georgia except we were let down, by what we could call a traditional failing. We have never been prolific goalscorers when it was really demanded. Fletcher and Naismith fitted the shoes of that recurring frailty perfectly.
They aggravated the view that perhaps a QC ought to be brought in to make a case for Leigh Griffiths starting a game.
Griffiths, at first not a popular choice for Celtic supporters, is someone you could describe not so much as a poacher but a loner, somebody who lingers and watches and habitually manages to get a high of rate of attempts at goal compared to the dehydrated, so-called strikers we have at the moment. He is no genius. But putting him in the starting line-up against Poland is an option worth a gamble under the circumstances.
For in the last three competitive games we have scored only one decent goal, that of James McArthur’s superb half-volley against the Germans. That did nothing to alter my view that the world champions coasted through this game. If we had had the temerity to score again I suspect they would have upped the pace. They have riches. We have spunk, bags of it. And that is what showed. But it shouldn’t blind us to the fact that we are deficient in certain areas yet.
Wing backs can be the warheads of the team now and with Andy Robertson looking panicky and raw in Georgia, Charlie Mulgrew’s presence at Hampden was evidence of a problem area, for he is not a left wing-back and his lack of positional sense, perhaps not surprisingly, led to a German goal. Thankfully, Alan Hutton, although certainly not flawless, was transformed from Georgia. He doesn’t fly on the wings of subtlety, but head down and charging like he was pursued by the de'il, he can upset defences and create space for others.
There is no great shame in improvisation, as in Mulgrew’s case, when there are few alternatives. This was certainly not the case with James McArthur. After the last game I did suggest that he be brought in to shore up an area that he patrols well for Crystal Palace and his snapping performance at the German midfield was well suited to help Scott Brown who, although he brought the crowd to its feet with one populist challenge like he was carrying the fiery torch, too often now is on the fringe of the play, threatening to do something without actually achieving it. We can’t make too many changes. For example I think Maloney is well short of the elusive player he used to be but he does deliver final balls that can do invaluable damage, so he will stay put.
Again, I suffered badly watching Scotland in 1966 blow the game against Poland 2-1 after being in the lead. It is time to blot out that memory. But how? By at least reviving that spirit of Monday which touched and inspired a crowd who will always back men who fight for the cause. That did ease my pain a little until, alas, I heard the news from Flushing Meadow, that Andy was out. It was then I felt like the boy in Abe Lincoln’s story who when he stubbed his toe in the dark admitted: "I was hurt too bad to laugh, and was too big to cry."
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