WHAT can I say about our loss to Belgium? I suppose we've had our frites. The better team won, at a canter and without playing as well as we feared they might - but, we're shite and we know we are.
When you see players in a Scotland shirt who cannot immediately control a ball coming to them, albeit one which is wet, you wonder what is happening at our clubs. Our lack of technical ability was (again) cruelly exposed by foreign visitors, yet, the High Heid yins in our game seem unable, nay, unwilling, to address a basic problem which has been evident in Scottish club and international teams for decades.
Until we get away from playing team games at a young age and really get down to developing individual skills - we will struggle at the top end. Some of us have been saying this for years, but, clearly our clubs are not listening.
I admire the way Strachan is allowing the Martin/Hanley central defensive pairing to grow together, but, we have defensive problems. Alan Hutton still cannot defend - he has 34 caps, the same number as Jim Baxter. OK, Baxter wasn't a defender, but, he was a better tackler than Hutton.
Steve Whittaker is playing left back for Scotland, right back for his club. Fair enough, Sammy Cox won all of his 25 caps at left back, a position he rarely filled for Rangers, but, we really need to find a settled left back - who plays there regularly.
Not convinced about Charlie Mulgrew as midfield anchor-man, but, who else is there? And Charlie is one of those players who, after a sticky start, has grown into the Scotland strip.
Finally, I know we're limited - this doesn't take away from criticism above, but, Scotland MUST play with two men up front. Put Griffiths and Rhodes together and, as with the two at the back, let them develop. I somehow don't see Steven Fletcher ever being anything than an occasional "luxury" selection, a guy we bring-in for the very occasional game against a diddier team than us.
So, now it is on to Macedonia - an forward tho ah canna see, ah guess and fear.
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