ANDY Robertson’s first act when he returned to Liverpool’s Melwood training ground yesterday was to thank his England club mates Jordan Henderson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, James Milner and Adam Lallana for keeping Scotland’s dream of World Cup qualification alive. His next will be to knuckle down at training to prove to Jurgen Klopp he can be trusted in the very biggest games which the illustrious Anfield club has to offer.
While the Merseyside giants have enough big games on the domestic and European fronts to keep everybody happy, Robertson has started just once for his new side following his £8m move from Hull City, largely playing second fiddle to Alberto Moreno. Whether it is away to Manchester City on Barclays Premier League business on Sunday or at home to Sevilla in the Champions League on Wednesday, the former Queen’s Park defender will hope to take his international form back into the club game. With our other group rivals Slovenia the next side to visit Wembley in October, Robertson and Scotland will hope that England keep on winning.
“Obviously it’s a bit of a joke that no Scottish person wants England to win but they did the job we needed them to do,” said Robertson. “When I go back down I will be thanking the England boys at Liverpool for helping put it back in to our hands. There wasn’t too much chat about it beforehand because we knew we had to get on with it and take care of Malta first. If we had slipped up it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.
“We didn’t know what the score was down there,” he added. “We heard the cheer and I guess that was when they equalised. But at the end of the day, England are very good at home and they don’t often slip up in qualifiers. It looks that way again. They want to qualify and finish top of the group.”
The stage is set for a titanic encounter against Slovakia at Hampden on the night of Thursday October 5 and Robertson reckons Scotland owe their opponents one after the 3-0 reverse in Trnava earlier in the campaign, a score which flattered the Slovaks. While there is always pressure in international football, Robertson feels Scotland have already proven plenty of people wrong. “It’s not really a situation most people thought we’d be in at this stage,” he said. “I think if you’d asked most fans or journalists after the first Lithuania game and they would have said, ‘typical Scotland’. But we are still in it and now Slovakia at home is going to be absolutely massive. I’m sure Hampden will be a sell-out and there will be a great atmosphere. The players will be up for it.
“We believe can win them and it’s in our hands,” he added. “Slovakia will be thinking the same. If they win their last two games they will be there. Slovakia have a point more than us but we will be looking to turn them over at Hampden. After what happened out there we feel we probably owe them one. But it’s up to us to show on the day.”
While he and Moreno will be rotated at left back, he thinks that working under Jurgen Klopp is ideal to keep him on his toes for the challenges to come. “It was good to get two 90 minutes under my belt this week and good performances as a team and personally,” said Robertson. “Of course there is a lot of competition. Alberto has been brilliant this season and I think I’ve done well when I’ve had my chance. The lads haven’t been beaten yet. It’s going to be tough to nail down that left back spot but the gaffer has made it quite clear with the amount of games we have there is going to be rotation. You have to be part of that, even if you don’t want to be sitting in the stand. Jurgen Klopp has been different class. He has a laugh and a joke in the dressing room but knows all the lads will fight for him. I’m confident I will improve under him and the staff.”
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