Scotland Assistant McGhee Chews Over Georgia Disappointment

Photo by Jeff Holmes

Scotland assistant coach Mark McGhee is still chewing over the disappointment in Georgia after defeat by Germany removed them from the race for automatic qualification for Euro 2016.

Scotland briefly threatened an upset against the Germans after twice equalising at Hampden Park but they were not level for long before Ilkay Gundogan slotted a winner nine minutes into the second half.

Defeat ruled out a top-two slot in Group D but McGhee admits the damage was done in Tbilisi on Friday night when Scotland failed to build on a reasonable start and fell to a 1-0 loss during which they failed to muster a shot on target.

Given Poland and the Republic of Ireland both won in Tbilisi, and took points off the Germans, Scotland's fate is now out of their hands.

But victory over Poland would give them a huge chance of making third spot and clinching a play-off place, and McGhee will spend the next few weeks thinking about how they avoid a repeat of the Tbilisi disappointment when the Poles visit Hampden on October 8.

McGhee said: "I think you have got to discount everything you saw on Monday night. They are the world champions. The game is a spectacle in a sense. It's a fantastic occasion to have them.

"If we had come back having beaten Georgia, it would have been a carnival, despite the result.

"So I think we forget about that performance. We have got to look more closely at the Georgia performance and improve to beat Poland.

"We have played Poland already and drew with them over there, and we have had other good results. And it's elements of those games that we have to take into the Poland game."

Scotland lacked a spark against Georgia with their creative players having an off night and the tempo was too slow to break down a resolute home side.

But there were encouraging signs against the Germans, although Scotland's brightest player, James Morrison, will miss the visit of Poland through suspension after his third booking of the campaign. Ikechi Anya did more in 30 minutes than he did from the start against Georgia and Matt Ritchie made a significant impact for a player only brought in during the last 10 minutes.

McGhee said: "Goals change games. If we had got the first goal (against Georgia) it would have been different. But they got the first goal, they play a 5-4-1 and it allowed them to sit in. It made it really difficult for us.

"We weren't good enough on the night, we didn't play well enough to break them down. That was the disappointing thing. But losing the first goal was the critical thing."

Scotland could win and go out but they could also draw and finish third. Victory over Poland at Hampden next month, followed by a win in their final Group D game against Gibraltar, will extend Scotland's qualifying campaign unless Republic of Ireland beat Germany and then fail to win in Warsaw.

And if the Irish lose their last two games, Scotland would only need four points to edge them out on the head-to-head record.

McGhee said: "We feel we can win the two games despite the performance in Georgia and the result.

"We still feel as if there is enough in us to get six points from the two games to come. Then we have to wait and see what happens elsewhere. That's the disappointing thing, that we are relying on other results.

"But we will re-gather next month and do our utmost to win the two games."