With Scotland’s World Cup qualification dreams now hanging by a thread, Eric Nicolson picks out three talking points from the 1-1 draw against Israel.
Where has the aggression gone?
Belgrade is remembered for David Marshall’s penalty save, Ryan Christie’s goal and post-match interview and the sights and sounds of the dressing room and team hotel.
The big reason it became an unforgettable night for Scottish football, though, was the front-foot pressure Steve Clarke’s team put on their opponents to create a platform for their historic drought-breaking victory.
I’m afraid it hasn’t been seen since – not from the beginning of a game at least.
Instead, passivity has been the hallmark of the three subsequent matches.
It cost them the security of a play-off for the Qatar World Cup via the Nations League and it now looks like costing them any chance of getting there through their qualifying group.
The men in white and faded blue were meek in the first 45 minutes and the goal that sent them into the interval 1-0 down summed it all up perfectly.
To start it off, neither Callum McGregor nor Scott McTominay got within 10 yards of Hatem Abd Elhamed when he played a long diagonal to Sun Menachem.
Jack Hendry, who barely got touch-tight to an Israeli all evening, was about the same distance from his man when the ball dropped on Menachem’s laces. Manor Solomon then shuffled the play inside to Dor Peretz, with John McGinn the next lethargic Scot to observe rather than effect.
And the tin lid on a thoroughly inglorious passage of play was McTominay once more getting caught on his heels when he needed to be sprinting out as a shot from well outside the box found the back of the net.
A horrible goal, a horrible half of football and too big a hole to dig out of.
ISRAEL LEAD! 🇮🇱
It's a beauty from Dor Peretz, beating David Marshall from distance.
Watch live on Sky Sports Main Event 📺 pic.twitter.com/fIp5qSiORP
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) March 28, 2021
Do Scotland have a goalkeeper problem for the European Championships?
There’s no dressing this one up. It’s been a poor few days for David Marshall.
He was at fault for Austria’s opening goal on Thursday night when he should have pushed Florian Grillitsch’s long-range shot away from danger rather than straight into the path of a grateful Sasa Kalajdzic and he had a share of the blame in the Peretz effort in Tel Aviv.
Anytime a keeper gets two hands as Marshall did to a 25-yarder you expect him to get it round the post or over the bar.
Even though Craig Gordon has been one of the better-performing Hearts players this season – no great achievement if you listen to their supporters – Scotland shouldn’t be relying on a 38-year-old Championship goalie at the Euros.
And they certainly shouldn’t be relying on a substitute goalie in the league above.
Clarke has used his powers of persuasion on Lyndon Dykes and Che Adams, both of whom are assets. I wouldn’t be surprised if he now attempts to complete a hat-trick with the man who is one of the favourites to be the Scottish Premiership player of the year, Allan McGregor.
The buck stops with the manager
Take the penalties in the Euro 2020 play-off semi-final out of the equation and that’s four times Clarke has coached a Scotland team against Israel and four times they have failed to beat their lower-ranked opposition.
That shouldn’t be happening.
When you play a side as often as that, you would expect a top manager to come up with a game-plan to enable better players than the ones available to his opposite number to win.
Clarke is forever talking about these two nations being evenly matched.
Maybe he believes it but it says more about Scotland than Israel when you consider that before this game, the hosts only had two clean-sheets in 15 matches and both were achieved against Clarke’s team.
The Scots have played very well in this unhealthy run of fixtures against Israel – but it was under Alex McLeish.
Not for the first time they were far too cautious and, given the fact that there were no tactical tweaks until the second half when they were chasing the game, you would have to assume that the 11 men were following orders.
It soon became apparent that the back three was effectively a back five – too soon in the match for it to be circumstantial.
And selection choices are now being exposed.
Stephen O’Donnell is not good enough for this level of football and if Liam Palmer isn’t deemed to be better then Clarke has made a mistake not looking at another option in this set of fixtures.
The same applies to Hendry.
He didn’t assert himself at Hampden and he was even less decisive in the Bloomfield Stadium.
If Clarke believes Hendry is the best bet for the right-sided centre-half role in a three (he isn’t) then he will have to abandon that formation for the game against the Faroe Islands and beyond.
Unlike O’Donnell, there is probably scope for him to improve in the years to come, but the former Dundee man isn’t an international footballer in the here and now.
Make no mistake about it, Scotland’s World Cup hopes are hanging by a thread.
Two points against your two rivals for the runners-up spot is a poor, possibly fatal, return. And already first place is unattainable.
Scotland will now have to win in Austria and maybe beat Denmark at Hampden as well.
Talk of qualification for finals becoming habitual for Scotland looks hollow.
It’s going to take a truly heroic effort to prevent Euro 2020 from standing in splendid isolation.
