Strachan Happy After Narrow Win

Photo by Jeff Holmes Gordon Strachan cut a happy figure after Scotland warmed up for Sunday's Euro 2016 qualifier against Gibraltar with a 1-0 friendly victory against Northern Ireland at Hampden Park. Northern Ireland goalkeeper Michael McGovern made several saves in the first half to keep Scotland at bay, but a late header by substitute Christophe Berra gave the hosts a narrow but deserved win in Glasgow. Strachan hailed his side's performance but admitted there was room for improvement ahead of Sunday's match. "I'm happy a lot of the lads who've not played a lot recently got a game and got a touch of the ball, and boys who have not had caps recently, who deserved them, got their caps," Strachan said. "I thought that the shape was good but there's one or two wee things I'd like to work on carrying on from here but we'll do that." Match-winner Berra admitted that Northern Ireland were tough opponents to break down. "It was a difficult game, they made it very difficult," he said. "When teams do that it's very hard to break them down. "Sometimes games are won on set pieces and luckily enough I managed to get my head on the end of a good corner kick and it just sneaked in." Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill was pleased with his side's performance despite defeat and singled out some of his younger players for praise. He said: "We can take an awful lot (from the performance). We ended up with three 20-year-olds or under-20-year-olds on the pitch. "The likes of Paddy McNair, Luke McCullough, Ryan McLaughlin - it's great for those lads to get minutes in this type of game.'" He added: "There were a lot of pluses - Michael McGovern did very well for us. We just allowed Scotland to press us at times and we didn't create as much as we would have liked but there were more positives from the performance than negatives."