GORDON STRACHAN brushed aside any hint of panic last night as he revealed that Scotland will have to face Poland, conquerors of the world champions, without their first-choice centre-half and perhaps without their most dynamic attacking player.
Grant Hanley, of Blackburn Rovers, has been ruled out of the Group D European Championship qualifier in Warsaw while Ikechi Anya, the Watford winger, is a doubt because of a calf strain.
"Hanley took a knock to his knee in the Georgia game and is away home; he got hit at a corner," said Strachan last night. "Ketch [Anya] also has tightness in his calf and won't train. We'll have a look at him on Tuesday morning and see how he is."
Strachan, though, dismissed any suggestion of a crisis. "I'd like them all here but that can't always happen," he said of injured players. "On Sunday night I didn't go into any real panic. We'd prefer to have both players but we'll be all right."
He pointed out that Gordon Greer, the Brighton and Hove Albion defender, had formed a solid partnership in the past with Russell Martin, most notably in the 1-0 victory over Poland in Warsaw in March.
Strachan, who leads a team that has lost only one match in eight, also dismissed any rush to bring in replacements. "We've got plenty of bodies. Christophe Berra and Mark Reynolds are here. With Anya, it would be great if he makes it, but we're not scared of the situation because we have other people ready to go. We'll be fine."
He admitted there was no direct replacement for Anya but said the side that won 1-0 over Georgia on Saturday might have to be "tweaked".
There has been speculation that Darren Fletcher, the Manchester United player, might be restored to the side to ensure more solid possession against a Poland team that beat Germany 2-0 on Saturday.
"There are one or two players who will come into our thinking," said Strachan. "There might be one or two players whose assets might be more beneficial for this game than they would have been on Saturday."
He understandably offered few more hints of either formation or personnel, before describing Group D as the toughest in the competition but added of his expectations: "Maybe during the game I might settle for a point but at this moment in time let's go for all three."
His positive mood was replicated by David Marshall, who has become the No.1 goalkeeper for his country 10 years after he made his debut.
The Cardiff City goalkeeper said: "If you were to offer me a point here right now, I probably wouldn't be happy with that. The confidence we take from the first half in particular on Saturday means we can approach this on our own terms, worry about our own game and not theirs."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article