FORMER QPR and Partick Thistle striker Andy Thomson, who is Shelley Kerr’s Scotland No.2, believes the squad have already achieved their Algarve Cup aims ahead of today’s third and final match against Denmark.
“Before we came out here the key thing was the first two games,” the former Queens Park Rangers and Partick Thistle striker said. “Playing Canada was about seeing how we fare against the best teams.
“We wanted a performance, and if we get a result then great. Unfortunately with eight minutes to go we let that slip by conceding a penalty.
READ MORE: Alex Rae: Sport psychologist helped my discipline problem
“Getting a result in these type of games is something we still have to learn – especially at the World Cup – but the performance was good.
“Winning against Iceland was key and we did that so we fulfilled the requirements from the first two games. The players were excellent and what pleased us most was the possession football with chances – and taking the chances.”
The 4-1 win, with Manchester United winger Lizzie Arnot scoring her first two Scotland goals and the third, scored by Kim Little, the outcome of a high class build up, was up there with the best since Thomson and Kerr came in after the Euros.
Players will now have to be rested against Denmark today because they will have had less than 48 hours to recover from the Monday win.
READ MORE: Mark Wilson: £100k a week may tempt Kieran Tierney to leave
“The most important thing is looking after the players because it’s difficult to recover in two days,” Thomson confirmed. “Denmark are in the same boat. They played on Monday as well so they will have the same issues.”
The Danes were losing finalists at Euro 2017 but failed to qualify for the World Cup, partly because a game against Sweden was cancelled due to a dispute over pay and conditions. Their captain is Wolfsburg striker Pernille Harder, who was Uefa player of the year for 2018.
Today’s final is between Poland and Norway. The Poles are the lowest ranked side in the tournament yet beat Spain 3-0 and Euro champions Holland 1-0.
Thomson believes these results add weight to Scotland’s World Cup qualifcation. His side beat the Poles 3-0 in Paisley and 3-2 in Kielce.
“To come back and beat them away from home after being two down with twelve minutes to go was incredible,” he pointed out. “It says a lot for the players’ resilience and hopefully that makes people understand that qualifying from that group was a great achievement.”
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 here