JAMES Forrest is a bit like a cylinder of a particular brand of potato crisps. Because once he has a pop, he just can’t stop. The Celtic winger racked up four first half-goals with baffling ease in a Ladbrokes Premiership match against St Johnstone last month but his current run of form in front of goal in the international game is perhaps even more remarkable.
Having bagged his first brace for his country in Shkoder in Saturday night, last night was time to hang his first-hat-trick. His suddenly insatiable appetite for goals had delivered five in about 90 minutes of playing time, just when Scotland needed them to book a play-off berth at worst for our first major finals in 22 years come March 2020. So simple did he make the entire process appear that you wondered what the hell he was doing before now.
His country needed him last night alright, especially after his one-time Celtic colleague Beram Kayal shocked this stadium with a ninth-minute strike which fairly flew past Allan McGregor. And it wasn’t one of those nights where everything was going his way either, the winger cleverly cutting past his man early on but seeing his low shot blocked when a simple slide-rule pass would have given his fellow winger Ryan Fraser a tap-in.
Forrest, dogged so often early in his career by a catalogue of niggling injuries, is an strangely undemonstrative kind of Scotland hero, certainly compared to the gallus swagger of the man watching on from the technical area yesterday, James McFadden. But every Scotland manager needs one and it was the Celtic winger who rode to the rescue of Alex McLeish.
While he had demonstrated his prowess with his left foot over in Albania, last night it was three precise touches and three simple, deadly sweeps of the right boot with which he has made his name. In other words, pretty much the meat and drink of the stellar Celtic career which could see quiet little guy from Ayrshire eventually take his place as one of the club’s most decorated players. As he strode off into the night, match ball in hand, questions were probably already being asked as to whether he is good enough to play in the Barclays Premier League? Of course he is.
The first was certainly no gimme, breaking to him after a Stuart Armstrong strike had deflected off the back of Fraser, but it was despatched nervelessly on a night where emotions were running high. The second and third were efficiency themselves; composed first touches after good work from first Ryan Christie and then Fraser in the knowledge that a backtracking defender was closing in and the ability to pass the ball past the goalkeeper into the corner.
From the start, it had been rare to see a Scotland team going into a home match just 90 minutes away from achieving something tangible; rarer still to see them actually succeed in getting over the line. Those with long memories could point to Latvia at Celtic Park back in October ’97, and a 70th minute winner from a callow Darren Fletcher which took Berti Vogts’ unlikely lads into Euro 2004 play-off against the Netherlands.
But they paled alongside Hampden horror shows such as the 2-1 defeat to Italy in October 2007 which put an end to Alex McLeish’s hopes the last time around, and the perceived injustice of a 2-2 draw against Czech Republic under Craig Levein.
It isn’t all Hampden roars on occasions such as these. Groans and uncomfortable silences are all part of the package too. Perhaps that is why McLeish had asked for the whole-hearted support of the Tartan Army for the occasion, even if, in terms of numbers at least, he got a somewhat lukewarm response. The SFA can hardly be held responsible for a chilly November night, although a reduction in ticket prices might have done the trick.
The Scotland manager understandably went with the same 11 men who put 10-man Albania to the sword but that also meant mainly a new generation of Scotland players shouldering the stresses and strains of carrying the nation’s hopes on a night like this. Three members of the back four couldn’t call upon 20 caps between them.
Perhaps success in Shkoder had given Scotland a false sense of security. The players should have known they would have to do things the hard way and so it soon transpired.
Even after Forrest had completed his hat-trick to give Scotland a two-goal cushion, everyone knows easing comfortably to qualification isn’t in the script. Once again with the Scotland midfield standing off, Eran Zahavi – a serial plunderer of goals in the Chinese Premier League – lashed in a shot which beat McGregor, possibly via the slightest of nicks of the calf of McKenna.
Of course it would go down to the breathless final four minutes of injury time, Bates posted missing as a 50-yard pass found substitute Tomer Hemed on the penalty spot, whose shot forced last gasp heroics from Allan McGregor.
McLeish knew his head would have been on the block too if Scotland had conceded again. But however they did it, this group of Scotland players got over the line, winning Nations League promotion and giving themselves the fall-back of one-off semi-finals in March 2020. Give them credit for that at least. Because plenty in the past haven’t done.
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