KAZAKHSTAN away. It’s the sort of game that looks like a fairly straightforward three points on paper. After all, the Kazakhs are ranked 117th in the world, and don’t have much in the way of talented individuals or standout performers on the pitch. But this is Scotland we’re talking about and little can be taken for granted.
Yes, we should be winning this match if we have any real aspirations of qualifying from our group. But there are a number of factors at play here that we should all be concerned about. It feels like we’ve been here before, and it hasn’t gone well in the past.
Obviously, Scotland have history when it comes to flying to Eastern Europe in qualifying campaigns. We’ve travelled to Georgia and left with a bloody nose. Lithuania have held us to a goalless draw. Macedonia got the better of George Burley’s Scotland in the opening round of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.
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We’ve got a habit of underestimating lower-ranked teams in our qualifying groups and we cannot afford to treat Kazakhstan so lightly. With Russia our main rivals for an automatic spot at Euro 2020 - few would suggest anyone other than Belgium will top the group - picking up points against Kazakhstan, Cyprus and San Marino is a must. Russia are unlikely to drop points against this trio, so neither can we.
The artificial surface used at Astana’s stadium shouldn’t be too much of a problem for our players, but it is still an issue that has had a direct effect Alex McLeish’s player selection. Steven Fletcher has already admitted that he was told he was not allowed to play on a plastic pitch, as has Bournemouth’s Ryan Fraser: both played crucial roles in the finale of the inaugural Nations League. Callum Paterson is another who has been told by his club that he cannot play on an artifical surface.
Recent history tells us that the Kazakhs are no pushovers either, particularly when playing on home soil. In the qualifying campaign for the World Cup in Russia, Poland could only manage a 2-2 draw. Romania - who are currently ranked 15 spots higher in the FIFA World Rankings than Scotland - only got a 0-0 draw. These are two teams who are performing better than Scotland at the moment, and neither were able to pick up three points.
McLeish has had to deal with a few call-offs that hardly help our cause and there are clearly some areas of the team that Scotland fans should be a little worried about. The most obvious area is in attack: the entire squad have scored just nine goals at international level. And five of those belong to James Forrest in the last two games.
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This should send a shiver down Scotland fans’ spines. We’ve often struggled to break down a stubborn defence on the road, and this time we’re doing it with only one player who can be relied on to find the net at international level. Of course, there are other options in attack but none of them exactly capture the imagination.
Oliver Burke will be a contender to start the game on Thursday and while he has looked decent for Celtic since arriving in January, his goal return isn’t the best. Burke has got himself on the scoresheet on four occasions - once against Motherwell, once against Hibernian and a double against St Mirren. All four were at home and came in games that Celtic won easily. The on-loan West Brom forward puts a shift in for Celtic, but he isn’t the sort of player to break the deadlock in a cagey match.
Another of the attackers available to McLeish is Sporting Kansas City striker Johnny Russell but. Again, his scoring record of late hardly inspires hope that he can lead the line for Scotland. Russell scored the only goal of his side’s 1-1 draw with Colorado Rapids earlier in the week, but this was his first in 12 games in MLS. In the 28-year-old’s last 24 games for club and country, he has found the net on just three occasions.
Marc McNulty was a surprise call-up from McLeish and while the Hibernian striker has certainly hit the ground running at Easter Road since joining on loan from Reading on deadline day, international football may have come slightly too soon for the former Livingston striker. McNulty has scored six league goals in as many games for Hibs this season, but half of those have came from the penalty spot.
The remaining option for McLeish to call on up front is 22-year-old striker Oli McBurnie. The Swansea City forward has 18 goals to his name this season in 35 appearances in all competitions and is the most in-form striker McLeish has available to him, but is yet to reproduce his domestic form on the international stage.
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This lack of a clear goal threat was apparent during the Nations League campaign, too. Scotland finished with 10 goals in four games - an impressive tally - but an examination of the national side’s expected goals (xG) shows that we were perhaps a little lucky in this regard. Scotland’s cumulative xG from the Nations League was 6.95, suggesting that we scored three more goals than we could have reasonably expected to. We got the ball in the net, which is ultimately what matters, but struggled to create clear-cut opportunities. James Forrest’s goalscoring exploits dominated the headlines in our final two games, but they also perhaps papered over the cracks in the Scotland front line.
The game against Kazakhstan is one that Scotland should be winning and the harsh truth is that if we do not win, then perhaps we simply aren’t good enough to mix it with Europe’s best at the final tournament next summer. Expectations will be high but we would do well to remember that we have been here before and matches haven’t always unfolded as we would have liked. You have to go back to the qualifying campaign for the 2002 World Cup to find the last time Scotland took maximum points off of the bottom two seeds in a qualifying group. We all hope that Scotland will do the business on Thursday afternoon, but it might not be as straightforward as we would like to think.
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