GORDON STRACHAN last night sidestepped the question of his own future after Scotland's qualifying hopes for Euro 2016 crumbled on a brutal night at Hampden Park. Scotland were leading 2-1 courtesy of fine strikes from Matt Ritchie and Steven Fletcher when a scrambled Robert Lewandowski equaliser with the last kick of the game, coupled with the Republic of Ireland's incredible 1-0 win against World Champions Germany, meant that the Scots can finish no better than fourth in Group D, with one match to play, Sunday's meeting with minnows Gibraltar in Faro.
For all the positive signs throughout this campaign, it means the Scots finish ahead of only Georgia and Gibraltar, despite remaining unbeaten against both Poland and the Republic of Ireland. Strachan's contract expires after the match in Faro on Sunday night and the national team boss said now was not the time to make any grand pronouncements on his future ahead of a World Cup qualifying group which includes England.
"For me to talk about myself is wrong," said Strachan. "They are the priority at the moment, those guys in the dressing room and the coaching staff. To talk about me is all wrong. I’ll leave that to other people. I have people hurting in this building at the moment and I need to look after them."
While some of Scotland's woes were undoubtedly self-inflicted - not least a poor performance in defeat in Tbilisi - Strachan bemoaned the ill luck his side had suffered throughout the campaign. He wasn't aware of events unfolding in Dublin until the end of the evening and told his players afterwards that he was hugely proud of their efforts. “I actually feel a bit sorry for them to put that much work in and score two wonderful goals," said Strachan. "I spoke to them and said I’m really proud of what they’ve done. We have been a bit unfortunate with a few things in last couple of games.
“You couldn’t call their second goal brilliant," he added. "It was more like an American football Hail Mary where you just chuck it in and hope for the best. Sometimes there’s not a lot you can do about that. It takes a horrendous deflection, hits a post and comes back the way. Similar to the first goal against Germany last month where someone shoots, it hits his heel and goes in.
“It’s very hard to play against that but our guys did against Germany, they came back twice. They came back tonight and got into the lead. That’s some going against top players. So I do feel really bad for them to put so much work into it. You have to hold hands up and say well done to Republic of Ireland. But we’ve played Poland and Republic of Ireland twice and not been beaten.
“I’m proud of the players. I just have to watch them and try to help them. They had to put the physical side of it. in. I’ve been in games like that. Sometimes I’ve been a wee bit luckier than them. The first goal might have been offside, I don’t know. After working hard for a year, at end of it something like that happens in the last second of the game, that’s over a year’s work. I can’t remember getting anything lucky ourselves. Anything we’ve had has been really earned. Pointless is probably Sunday against Gibraltar. That will be a hard one to take. But over the year, there have been a couple of offside goals and a couple of horrendous deflections. We’ve had to put up with a lot. To overcome that, we have to more clinical over the next couple of years."
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