Scotland manager Gordon Strachan was satisfied with last night’s 1-0 win over Qatar despite admitting some of his players were “rusty.”
The Scots grabbed the only goal of this friendly at Easter Road five minutes before half-time when Matt Ritchie blasted home a low strike after good work by Steven Naismith.
It wasn’t a fabulous display by any means but it was still enough to set the players up for the game that really matters the Euro 2016 qualifier against the Republic of Ireland in a week’s time.
“At times I liked a lot of it,” said Strachan.
“At times you could see that one or two of the players were rusty having not played games so I am glad I picked the team I did even though some of the others would have liked to have played.
“You can’t play everybody and it was about getting people up to speed.
“Overall, I liked what I saw and we made some chances.
“We had quite a small forward line so we had to work our way into the box rather than send crosses in.
“We had to get behind them.
“But we worked away at that.
“We were a bit rusty at times but some of the moves were good.
“They (Qatar) have beaten Slovenia and Algeria, and drawn with Northern Ireland.
“So for us to make the chances we did, I was pleased with a lot of the lads tonight.”
Commenting on Ritchie’s first goal for his country, Strachan said: “He looked good and was about 90% sharp but, like a lot of them, there was 10% missing.
“He still had energy in his legs at the end whereas some of the lads didn’t.
“But you have to remember that we trained twice yesterday to try to bring the lads up to speed.
“Normally for an international game you wouldn’t think about training twice.
“So you needed to take that into consideration.”
Ritchie himself added: “To score for my country is a great honour and now we are all looking forward to next Saturday.”
Importantly, the Scots seem to have come through the match relatively unscathed ahead of the Irish clash.
There was a scare when Naismith was hurt in the second half but Strachan added: “Naisy got a bit of a bump but he’s OK.
“We were wondering about him but he’s a hardy wee character.
“I always felt that unless something really strange had happened that he would get up.”
As for Strachan’s watching mum Catherine, who had to endure the sight of a streaker on the park, the manager joked: “I would imagine my mother is booking a ticket for next week now.
“That is probably the most excited she has been at a game.
“On that note, see you later.”